# The "New" Writer- Confused



## Chessie (Sep 6, 2014)

Hi fellow Scribes. This area of the forums seemed like the appropriate place for my question: what constitutes a new/inexperienced writer?

This morning, I was reading a writer's blog and one of her posts left me wondering. It was a post on how writers benefit from writing short fiction. She says that, instead of focusing on novel length works, new writers should do mostly shorts and learn how to write. She then goes on to say how selling short fiction makes more of a return than novel works, BUT that NEW writers shouldn't self-publish their works and by no means was she suggesting that they do. She was pretty adamant about that...and it confused me after her post.

So, I guess this thread is meant to start a discussion of some sort and also gain some clarity. Like, I don't consider myself a new writer. I've been at this writing thing since basically childhood, and although I haven't published anything, I have had short stories recognized in contests before. (Always a bridesmaid, but never a bride) But because I am unpublished, I shouldn't try to get my short stories self-pubbed either according to her post. Yet, I have written A LOT and I have queried in the past...so because I haven't been published I'm still considered inexperienced?

Her post angered me a bit. Why go on giving advice suggesting that new writers should do something and then say "hey, this isn't for you. You should put in 10,000 hours of writing before you try to publish anything". I found this post discouraging. So much so, that I clicked out of the blog after having read other posts of hers all morning (she shall remain anonymous). 

Maybe I misunderstood her message, but I don't think so. What do you folks think? It would be lovely to gain some clarity on this.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Sep 6, 2014)

First things first... If you're writing, you're a writer. Period. Yes, there are obviously different skill & experience levels. That is likely what this person is referring to, possibly in a poor fashion.  

I've heard it bantered about that until you write a million words, you're inexperienced. While I understand the sentiment that says "You need X number of hours in a field to be an expert", this will be widely variable depending on the individual.  

In my view, someone that's taken time to learn principles of craft, utilize them in their own writing, and are on a path toward developing a unique voice, is not "new". A beginner, in my view is just that...they've just started that process. They're largely unaware of fundamental craft issues like head hopping, and active voice. They haven't learned enough yet to develop style or write with clarity. Beginning writers often think they're better than they really are. Experienced writers normally consider their writing worse than it actually is. This is the byproduct of knowledge. The beginner is blissfully unaware of how much they don't know. Those with experience understand how hard it is to write well. They grasp enough about the writing craft to make conscious choices that affect the reader. Beginners stumble through blindly.  

Who gives a damn what someone else thinks of your experience? Where would you place yourself, based on the considerations above? Use honest self-appraisal to determine if you're ready to publish, but do it AFTER a lot of peer review. 

Personally I think a lot of the dreck we see in self-publishing comes from authors who are in that spot of "thinking they are better than they actually are". Often, I find they haven't taken their work through the grinder of peer critique, an absolutely essential step toward getting ready to publish.   

When are you ready to publish? Ultimately, that can only be your call. However, I submit that you need to learn craft, thoroughly understand & practice techniques, give & receive a ton of critique, learn the value of editing & revision, & finish a good number of stories. If you can't do all of those, then in my opinion, you're not ready to publish. Now, I don't expect anyone to adhere to my thinking, this has merely been the expectations I've placed on my own growth.


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## Penpilot (Sep 6, 2014)

Chesterama said:


> Hi fellow Scribes. This area of the forums seemed like the appropriate place for my question: what constitutes a new/inexperienced writer?



That's a pretty blurry line in my books. It's a bit like defining what's art and what isn't. I don't really know, but I know it when I see it. But if someone were to put a gun to my head, generally speaking, I think it's someone who is still struggling with the basic mechanics of telling the story, whether that's grammar or just getting a coherent story down, and finishing. They're struggling with "How do I write a story." instead of "How do I write a good story." 

Of course, I may be completely out to lunch on this.



Chesterama said:


> This morning, I was reading a writer's blog and one of her posts left me wondering. It was a post on how writers benefit from writing short fiction. She says that, instead of focusing on novel length works, new writers should do mostly shorts and learn how to write. She then goes on to say how selling short fiction makes more of a return than novel works,



As a general piece of advice, it's good, but the only way you learn to write a novel is to write a novel. Writing short stories can help you improve your basic mechanics, but you're ever only practising to tell short stories. There are plenty of published short story authors out there with dozens of stories sold that are still struggling to finish their first novel. Then take Brandon Sanderson, he just started with novels and hasn't looked back. He says he has trouble writing short stories. Brevity is not one of his strong points if you look at the size of all his novels. 

As for the return on short stories, I think she's generally right in terms of per word if you selfpublish. Per say 10k word short story, let's say you can charge $2. Per 100k novel let's say $6. If you wrote 100k in short stories, you should get back $20. At least that's the idea. But the reality of it, I'm not so sure. You don't hear about too many people supporting themselves selling short stories, at least I haven't.



Chesterama said:


> BUT that NEW writers shouldn't self-publish their works and by no means was she suggesting that they do. She was pretty adamant about that...and it confused me after her post.



Maybe she talking about a person who just finished their first handful of stories. They get all excited, thinking they're awesome without getting crits or any sort of perspective or even proofreading, and decide to just publish them. I mean, we all have those old stories that we look back on and cringe because of how bad they are. They're stories that would make us blush if someone else read them. Now, imagine having that pile of old stories put into the wild for everyone to see... forever.



Chesterama said:


> Her post angered me a bit. Why go on giving advice suggesting that new writers should do something and then say "hey, this isn't for you. You should put in 10,000 hours of writing before you try to publish anything". I found this post discouraging. So much so, that I clicked out of the blog after having read other posts of hers all morning (she shall remain anonymous).



Maybe she's not articulating or framing her point well. (A bit ironic considering she's a writer.)  Maybe she's framing it as "You should never do this" instead of "Here's some reasons why you should tread lightly." One makes you a preacher, the other, someone passing down a bit of friendly advice and perspective.

Anyway my 2cents


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## Devor (Sep 6, 2014)

I think it's clear that many people jump the gun and publish slush.  I don't really want to comment on an article I haven't seen, but I'm not inclined to begrudge someone for urging people to show a little more caution in some form or another - that isn't, by any means, to endorse the language she uses or the advice she offers.

As to your question.

Off the top of my head, there are three things which I think make an experienced writer:

 - You have a strong voice that you can write in comfortably without constantly bantering over word choice.
 - You know how to work with the interplay between conflict and character arc, changing one to get the impact you want on the other.
 - You make "the hard choices" when editing your work.

I don't have a clear cut opinion as to how you know whether you've reached the point of being an "experienced writer" or how to get there, except by soliciting feedback from a lot of people who know what they're talking about.  But sometimes it's a basic skill people struggle with just to recognize what quality work would or wouldn't look like.  And seeing that difference, then trying to live that difference, are definitely the first steps.


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## acapes (Sep 6, 2014)

Chesterama said:


> Maybe I misunderstood her message, but I don't think so. What do you folks think? It would be lovely to gain some clarity on this.



Hey Chesterama, I think you're asking a fair question, absolutely.

The problem I see with her article seems to be the undefined nature of 'new' or 'inexperience' writer - and in fact, both terms could certainly have great difference in this context.

For instance, we could have a writer who has been writing for 10 years but is inexperience specifically in 'publishing' etc etc

So I wish she'd been clear in her article about what she meant by either of those terms.


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## skip.knox (Sep 6, 2014)

To me, the experienced writer is one who has been through the entire process. This means writing a complete novel, having that novel critiqued and having to rewrite it, submitting, getting rejected, submitting again until accepted, doing book tours or signings or whatever marketing is required by the publisher, and cashing the check.

Self-publishing has changed the landscape, and I'm less sure about what constitutes the "entire" process, but let me take a stab at it. The process forks at the "submitting" stage. From that point we go instead to hiring an artist, hiring an editor, going through the self-publishing steps on a minimum of two places (e.g., Amazon and one other), creating the dreaded "author platform" (website, blog, etc.), marketing. Then we converge again at cashing checks.

That's experienced. "New" means you haven't got through the edit phase. You may have written a novel. You may have written ten novels. But if they have only been read by your Mom, then you're still new. Putting the thing out to strangers for a critical read, then actually revising based on feedback, only that moves you beyond New.

Then there's the Great In-Between. What about the person who has published (complete with revisions) a dozen short stories to online magazines, but never got paid? What about the blogger who is very widely read? What about the person who wrote one published novel but never got a second? The Great In-Between covers much ground.


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## Philip Overby (Sep 7, 2014)

Been out of town so I couldn't properly reply to this, but I thought I'd give it a shot now. 


Chesterama said:


> Hi fellow Scribes. This area of the forums seemed like the appropriate place for my question: what constitutes a new/inexperienced writer?
> 
> This morning, I was reading a writer's blog and one of her posts left me wondering. It was a post on how writers benefit from writing short fiction. She says that, instead of focusing on novel length works, new writers should do mostly shorts and learn how to write. She then goes on to say how selling short fiction makes more of a return than novel works, BUT that NEW writers shouldn't self-publish their works and by no means was she suggesting that they do. She was pretty adamant about that...and it confused me after her post.



I think I understand what she means...maybe. That writing shorts can get a quicker return than writing a novel can. This is definitely true in some regards. I sold a lot of stories this year and was paid for almost all of them. Yet here I am writing a novel and haven't earned a dime off it yet. Writing a novel is a bigger time investment and will likely return more money in the long run if you publish it. I think most novelists will say they made more money on their novels than their short stories. If anyone can say to the contrary, please correct me. 

Perhaps what she means is that new writers shouldn't jump to self-publish short stories hoping for big returns right out the gate. I can't really comment more directly without seeing the blog post, but I assume you haven't linked it for a specific reason. 



> So, I guess this thread is meant to start a discussion of some sort and also gain some clarity. Like, I don't consider myself a new writer. I've been at this writing thing since basically childhood, and although I haven't published anything, I have had short stories recognized in contests before. (Always a bridesmaid, but never a bride) But because I am unpublished, I shouldn't try to get my short stories self-pubbed either according to her post. Yet, I have written A LOT and I have queried in the past...so because I haven't been published I'm still considered inexperienced?



I've seen these kind of semantics bandied around and it really doesn't matter. If someone calls you a veteran author, a mid-list author, a self-published author, an indie author, a traditional author, a newbie writer, an inexperience writer, it doesn't _really_ matter that much. What matters is what goal you are trying to achieve as a writer. If your goal is to be published once and sell a modest amount, then cool, that's your specific writing goal. If your goal is to publish here and there and make some pocket money, cool that's your goal. If your goal is to shoot for the moon, shoot for the moon. 

When I did professional wrestling people used to ask me how much I got paid or if I made a living at it. I didn't get paid that much and I certainly didn't make a living off of it. But I was still an indie wrestler. I was out there doing it. I think what separates a vast majority of writers from each other is "those out there doing it" and "those talking about doing it." Sometimes the two intermingle.


> Her post angered me a bit. Why go on giving advice suggesting that new writers should do something and then say "hey, this isn't for you. You should put in 10,000 hours of writing before you try to publish anything". I found this post discouraging. So much so, that I clicked out of the blog after having read other posts of hers all morning (she shall remain anonymous).



I do think putting in a substantial amount of time writing, editing, critiquing, and doing various writing related things makes you better prepared for publishing. I've seen these various reactions from published authors:

1. I MADE A CRAP LOAD OF MONEY OF MY FIRST BOOK!11111 LET ME SHOW YOU HOW1!!!!!!!
2. The night is dark and full of terrors. (Writing is awesome, but publishing and marketing sucks.)
3. I do pretty well, but it's still a lot of hard work.
4. I put in a lot of hard work, but it feels like throwing darts at a board blindfolded and I hope I hit something.

Number 1 may be true in some regards, but down that path madness lies.

Number 2 seems to be a pretty common opinion actually. Writers tend to be introverts, but nowadays they're expected to be marketing gurus, engaging social media wizards, and masterful bloggers. Not that you need these things to be successful, but it seems to be the standard by which a lot of writers live now. 

I'd say if you put in the work, number 3 is an admirable and attainable goal. 

Number 4 can be depressing for some, but sometimes luck hits or your work hits a chord with a segment of an audience. 

So I'd say hard work=goals attained. They might not be monumental goals, but for me, I take every victory I can get.  I think that's what this particular author is trying to get across. You need to feel comfortable in your own writer's skin and find some others that agree with you before jumping in the publishing deep end.


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## Alyce (Sep 7, 2014)

IMHO the word NEW has so many different meanings when it comes to the craft of writing I no longer see it as the slap in the face it used to be. These sorts of articles do their very best to separate those at the big table from those relegated to the kids table. It's taken me seven years and a LOT of "HOW TO WRITE" books to realize it doesn't matter what I'm called as long as I see some kind of return on all those hours of work. Shorts stories make fast money-indeed they do. Short stories can be kicked out every week and they carry that kind of cache'. Novelettes can be kicked out in two weeks to a month by many and again they make quick sales and fast money. But here's the thing... short stories and novelettes do NOT have the bite that a novel does. It's going to take less than a day for the reader to ingest the piece and move on to something else. Do you really think the reader cares if you are considered new? That she cares if you self published or were dropped onto the net by a major e-publisher? What the reader cares about is well written, well edited work that keeps them diverted for a period of time. 

As for the subject of the submission-rejection-submission cycle. It's a given in this craft. You might get lucky and get picked up right away or your piece might be a bridesmaid for months or even years. Writing ain't for wimps. You have to develop a very tough skin if you are going to make a living at this. And that of course is the fine line between writers who write because they have an inner impulse that they cannot refuse forcing them to put words on paper regardless of the return and those who don't. I network with both kinds of writers for the simple fact I never know which camp is going to open my eyes to a new idea on writing, marketing, swag, conventions, publishers or book cover deals. 

So, here I am;NEW to this group but an oldie to the craft. I'm new to steampunk but I have a handful of short stories and a novelette published by a major publisher so I'm considered an established author. I'm 53 years old, write from the seat of my pants, and am embarking on both self publishing thru B&N and sending out MS to e-publishers. Not sure if that makes me New, New/Old, Old/New or Old/Old. Between you and me- I'm just plain tired after writing for fourteen hours yesterday.  Label me any way you like it really doesn't matter in the long run.


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