Ugh, I’m in My Friend’s Autofiction and I Hate It: Am I the Literary Asshole?

Welcome back, superstars.

It’s time again for another scintillating installment of Am I the Literary Asshole?, the advice column that quite regularly gets high on its own supply (and the supply in this particular case is an awful lot of beer plus your anonymous inquiries). I’m Kristen Arnett, and it’s been a tough week for a multitude of reasons, so I think we should stick to what we do best and simply enjoy a drink and each other’s company.

I’m glad you’re here.

Let me crack open a cold one (and another, and another after that) and let’s settle down comfortably. We’ve got plenty of time and plenty of beer. There’s a slew of questions ready and waiting to be unpacked and I’m just the Dad for the job.

Onto our first caller:

1) I am a writer with some minor publications to my name and my brother, who recently started writing, keeps turning to me for my advice as an “expert.” Kristen, I want it to stop. I have tried demurring with platitudes like everyone’s writing journey is their own and I am not actually an expert, so he should just focus on reading more and improving his own craft. But he has not been dissuaded from sending me contextless paragraphs from his works in progress with requests for feedback. He is always working on something, which is great, love that for him, but he is easily deflated if his first idea isn’t his best idea and does not like that my advice is mostly edit or try things out and delete what doesn’t work. I have tried not responding, but he is relentless.

He also doesn’t actually listen to my advice when I do respond. I suspect he doesn’t actually want advice, he just wants me to tell him the jaded men in his stories are so interesting or wow, that sentence is so funny and the metaphor about women in meaningless hookups being like burnt matches is so original, definitely not at all cliche. I feel like I should also specify here that we are both in our 30s. I would treat this situation much differently if he was a teenager. (But, if I can be a little petty, he does write like a teenager). I don’t want to discourage him completely, people can obviously become better writers with practice, but how do I tell him that I’m not interested in reading his writing right now?

Wow, this is a double whammy—not only is it someone who’s encroaching on your time (and patience) as a writer, but also someone who’s a family member (and that comes with its own built-in set of annoyances and backstory, yowza). The first thing I’ll tell you is that I’m sorry, this one is tough. It’s one thing to tell a frustrating friend that they’re bothering you; it’s quite another to say something like that to a sibling.

One thing I’ll ask you to keep in mind is that it’s a good thing your brother thinks you’re someone whose opinion matters. This situation would be a thousand times worse if he was constantly talking to you about how his writing is better than yours or if he simply talked over you when you’re the one who’s been published at this point. It’s nice that he thinks you’ll be able to give him good, solid advice when it comes to honing his craft. However, I completely sympathize with you about the fact that this is not, in fact, your job. It’s not something you get paid to do—and even if you did want to do this kind of thing for free, it doesn’t appear that the kind of feedback he wants is even remotely constructive. He wants praise and that’s about it. But that’s exhausting on a daily basis. You’re not his life coach. You’re his sibling.

Unfortunately, unless you want to hurt his feelings and tell him straight out to stop, the only way you’ll get out of reading these kinds of constant “feedback requests” is if you very firmly put some boundaries in place. One way I think that you could do this would be to construct a bi-weekly workshop experience for the two of you (or even monthly if that seems like too much). That way there will be a set time and place for these feedback sessions to occur. An hour, tops. It might even help for you to share some of your own writing issues and constructive processes with your brother.

Criticism that gets applied to your own work (we all have these—do you struggle with dialogue? Scene setting? Wordy front ends of a lack of cohesive conclusion?) Perhaps it would help to see this from you firsthand, in real time. If you two don’t live near each other or can’t meet up in person, hosting a Zoom for this would be a good and easy way to corral all of these wayward paragraphs into a more manageable (and calendar-based) situation.

If you treat this like you’re taking his writing seriously, hopefully he will begin to take your time seriously, too.

Best of luck, friend.

Another beer, another quandary—and it’s about workshopping!

2) I am fairly new to writing and the idea of workshopping with others. While I want to jump in and join a group, I find myself hesitating and being picky about who I share my work with. Am I being elitist for being picky? Should I just share my work with anyone who is willing and wants to read it? HELP! I need to workshop, but I dunno how to!

This is a great question and I am here to help!

It’s completely fine—and totally normal—to feel a little hesitant and selective when it comes to sharing your work with others. That’s par for the course at any point in your career, I might add. For instance, I only let one or two people read my work, ever, and that’s usually when I’ve reached a draft stage that’s closer to complete.

When it comes to a workshop experience, I will say that the same will be true for a group of people as it will be for a wider audience: not everyone is going to be your reader. When you go into these spaces (as you should—they are good starting points to find initial viewers), keep in mind that a good way to ferret out if someone would be a valuable recipient of your work will be to see how they discuss and talk about their own work as well as the work of others. You can weed out the people who aren’t your readers and stick with the people who feel like a better fit.

If this still feels too stressful for you, perhaps consider finding a reader through a book group. How we talk about work that matters to us is often a good indicator that someone might be a good fit for your work. Not everyone who offers feedback has to be a writer. In fact, many great editing eyes are from people who do that exclusively and don’t write their own work at all!

Above all, please don’t feel like you you’re being elitist for being “picky.” It’s fine to feel precious about your work, especially when it’s brand new and needs careful eyes in order to grow properly. Maybe attend one of these workshop groups and at first just offer your own insights instead of your writing. Watch the proceedings and be a good and helpful reader of others’ work. Feel out, gently, who might be good support for you and your writing. You’ll find the right person (or people) for this, I promise.

Last beer, last question. Let’s get to it:

3) A close friend has asked for feedback on an early draft of their autofiction on a traumatic period in their life. To me, it reads like a memoir. They are a wonderful writer and friend. I’ve offered to just read the book as a friend, but they insist they want feedback. How honest should my feedback be? For example, the book largely follows an unrequited crush (not the trauma).

In real life, I had my friend’s back 100% and always disliked the guy. In the book, he doesn’t seem that bad. His actions and words always indicated rejection/friend-zone, and the protagonist was stringing themselves along. Also, there is a character that I’m 99% certain is supposed to be me. While it’s not a negative portrayal, I wouldn’t be thrilled if that’s how they actually view me. It seems like writing this and envisioning its massively successful publication (which could totally happen one day, maybe not as soon as they want) were/are part of a healing process. How do I give helpful feedback while still being a good friend?

Hi, friend. Thanks for writing in with this one.

You’re in an unenviable position and I think there’s not going to necessarily be a “right” way to handle the situation. Instead, I’ll offer some suggestions that will hopefully ease you through this sticky quagmire.

First off, may I suggest simply telling your friend that you’re not in a place right now to offer feedback? I know they’re a close friend, and I know they are requesting it from you, but that doesn’t mean you have to provide any at this juncture. You are allowed to say no, especially to providing feedback on projects that give you pause or make you feel uneasy. Simply tell your friend that you just don’t have the bandwidth at this point to give anything that would be helpful and leave it at that.

If you still feel that you need to give some form of feedback, might I suggest treating this entire project like you aren’t part of it? Are you able to extricate yourself and try to view it as a stranger might? If you can, then I’d urge you to offer the kind of feedback that someone without any stake in the story would provide. It can be spare. It can also be craft-focused, which would allow you to further distance yourself from the actual “plot” of this book.

A third option, which I would use as a last resort, would be to gently talk to your friend about why you don’t think you’d be a good fit for this project. Gently is the operative here, my pal, because I think that this conversation could go off the rails fairly quickly in you’re not careful. Feelings are involved on both sides (your natural upset about how your friend has portrayed you is completely reasonable here, and it sounds as though it was a traumatic time for them as well) so it could get painful if you dig into why you’re unhappy.

Tread lightly here. It’s okay to take yourself out of the equation. Give yourself (and your pal) some grace.

And that’s all we have time for today. Join me for the next installment when I probe deeply into your questions (and probe deeply into a bottle of wine).

I love you all. Take care of yourselves.

Your buddy,
Dad

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