Am I the Literary Asshole For Thinking Most Writers Are Trash, Actually?

Well, hello there!

Welcome back to another intriguing installment of everyone’s favorite drunken advice column, Am I the Literary Asshole? Yes, you heard right: this is the place where all your dreams come true (if your dream is to read about people’s trials and tribulations in the greater literary community). I’m your host, Kristen Arnett, and I live to serve (several rounds of drinks, at least). So happy to have you all here with me! We’ve got a great round of questions today, folks. Might as well get started!

It’s boiling hot in Florida and it’s only the first week of May. Why don’t we try cooling off with some lemonade (add your own vodka). Clink of ice, let’s get to pouring:

1) I do a little publishing business on the side, which relieves me from focusing on my own historical fiction and supplements my meager social security check. I edit, design, create covers, and format books for self-publishing authors who don’t have the skills to do those things for themselves. I only work with novels and memoirs that I would be proud to stamp with my imprint. I reject about half of the submissions up front. But when I think a little self-editing could get a manuscript in shape for publishing, I will line-edit the first 25 pages (for free) and write a short memo that explains what I’ve done. If they can get the novel or memoir ready themselves, they save money, and their book can reach the market quicker.

Recently, I received an email back from such a memo, and, let’s just say, I’m glad the writer and I don’t live in the same state or I’d be walking around with two anal openings, not one. He didn’t call me a literary asshole, but am I one? Should I quit the advice business and stick to thumbs up or thumbs down?

Hello, friend! Thanks for writing in with this one.

First off, I’m sorry you received such an intense email. That’s the kind of conflict that nobody savors. I will say that everyone reacts differently to criticism (some better than others), and I fear you found the kind of person who genuinely freaks out when it’s presented to them. That’s rough, and definitely not a fun time.

I’d say that there is certainly a way that you can still offer this kind of editing advice (hopefully without getting a letter than asks you to stick your critique where the sun don’t shine). You’re going to have to ask upfront if it’s something they’d like to receive.

There are plenty of people who don’t enjoy receiving unsolicited feedback on their work. Take, for example, the person who wrote in last column who was terribly upset they received negative feedback on their work when they had not asked for it. And that feedback had come from a friend, not a stranger.

I will also say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and though copy edits are undoubtedly helpful for everyone on the line level, if you’re giving feedback that has to do with overall shape, taste, and tone? It might come across that you’re trying to mold the work to the pleasure of your own eye, even if that isn’t your intention.

We can’t know who’s going to get upset in advance. Perhaps you can state on your website that this is what people can expect when they hire you; that they will possibly receive feedback on the first 25-pages (and that it will be free of charge), and if that’s something they don’t prefer? They can choose to opt out. That gives you the ability to weed out those people who’d yell at you in advance.

Good luck and godspeed!

In the immortal words of Rob Thomas featuring Santana, Man it’s a hot one. Let’s pour another drink and check on our next caller:

2) Does it make me an a**hole if I struggle with imposter syndrome BUT at the same time, I think there are plenty of writers out there who aren’t very good at their craft? Nearly every day I see some person get something published and when I go to read it, I wind up rolling my eyes and just closing the browser. I don’t think I’m a very good writer, but I don’t really think anyone else is, either.

I don’t think this necessarily makes you an asshole, but I do think it makes you a bit of a curmudgeon and kind of a pessimist.

You say that you don’t like your own work, and that you don’t really like anyone else’s work, either. To me, this reads that you’re letting your imposter syndrome filter into every part of your life—including how you experience art. You’re so mad at the way that your own writing feels that you’ve started to turn that lens outward and have let it color everything around you.

This feels a little bit like a you-problem. And by that, I mean you need to start treating yourself (and your writing) more carefully, and with a great deal more empathy and respect. If you give yourself permission to enjoy your work, or at least find small moments of merit in it, I guarantee that you’ll extend the same courtesy and care to the writing you’re encountering out in the broader world.

When we’re unkind to ourselves, we become the problem. If you’re so focused on the ways that art is failing—your own and others people’s—you’re never going to get anything good or meaningful out of it. And that sounds like a dreadful way to live, friend. I don’t want that for you.

Maybe take a few weeks and get reacquainted with what you do like about writing. Spend some time engaging with work that you know you do love. Pick up favorite rereads; a tried-and-true book or essay or story. Then, when you’re feeling more positive, I want you to turn that love inward. Try to pinpoint some things you do well in your own writing. This might be hard at first, but I urge you to keep it up. The more you can enjoy your own work, the better you’ll feel about making it (and the better you’ll feel about everything around you).

You can do this.

Sweaty! Let’s cool off with one last drink while we check out our final question:

3) I’m soooooooo tired of reading stories that are about… nothing? Are people just sick of plot, or what?

It seems like everyone’s talking about plot these days! It’s a hot topic.

Plenty of people are writing about this (and doing a great job of it; a better job than I can do here in a comedy advice column that features a lot of heavy drinking on my end). In fact, I’m going to direct you to this two-part series by author Emma Copley Eisenberg that deals specifically with this current phenomenon called “Everything I Ever Thought About Plot Was Wrong”; you can read them HERE and HERE.

If you’re shaking your head right now saying, “Kristen, PLEASE, I don’t have time to read all of this,” I want to assure you that you can make the time! But here’s a tidbit that I think should whet your appetite (if your appetite is plot-related):

I think at some level we know intuitively that plot is not just one thing happening after another. Who hasn’t used the phrase “lost the plot” to mean lost the thread, lost the thing that determines where something is going next and why. Who hasn’t sat through a movie where a shit ton undeniably happens—there’s a car chase and a case of mistaken identity and a long lost twin who reappears and a piano that turns out to be a bomb—but it doesn’t add up to anything. It doesn’t make sense.

In this essay, I will… argue that plot is the adding up. It is the framework that is built to tell the reader what matters and why. It is not what happens, but the thing that makes what happens make sense.

We love to see it. Also, if you’re an Emma Copley Eisenberg fan, you can grab her new short story collection out now.

And that’s all the time we have for today, folks! Join me next time when we get down to the nitty-gritty of some other craft topic, possibly pacing or tone. But I can guarantee you that at the very least there will be a beer (or three) involved!

And please send me your anonymous questions!

With fine hops,
Dad

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Are you worried you’re the literary asshole? Ask Kristen via email at AskKristen@lithub.com, or anonymously here.