Attaining Minimum Writing Quality

[BWFoster78]

Here's my thesis statement regarding writing quality versus publication:

Before becoming a self published author, one first needs to achieve a minimum level of quality. To become traditionally published, one must also achieve a minimum level of quality. In general, the quality level needed for self publishers is lower than that needed for those seeking traditional publishing.

If anyone wants to discuss that statement, I'm more than willing, but it's not the point of the post. The question at hand is, "How does one attain the required minimum level of quality?"

I had a few thoughts on this.

First, a self assessment:

- I think, based on trying to be as objective as possible from the feedback I've received, I've achieved that level for self publishing from a writing technique standpoint. From a Story standpoint (assuming that Writing Quality = Technique Quality + Story Quality), I think I'm close but not quite as there as I should have been.
- I do not think I'm where I need to be if I wanted a contract from a Big 5 publisher. Not even close.
- All I can do is tell my experience of how I got where I am; this is not meant to be prescriptive, but more what I wish I could go back in time and tell myself in order to get to where I am now quicker.

How to Attain Minimum Writing Quality:

1. Accept that one will not be able to perceive one's writing in the same way that a reader will. I know my story and my characters and that knowledge creates a bias toward liking and being interested in them. The reader, on the other hand, only has the words on the page to create like and interest. If I haven't put something on the page, it will not exist for the reader.

2. One must read analytically to determine what one finds delightful as a reader. I noticed that I like high conflict and a sense that the character is speaking to me through the narrative. Note that it was much easier for me to determine specifically what I like from a technique standpoint than from a story standpoint, though I did have generalities to go on.

3. Once one has figured out what one wants to accomplish - write! Seek feedback specifically on whether those goals are being met. It's very important to be as objective as possible in evaluating feedback. Being too optimistic leads to one publishing prior to being ready. Being too pessimistic leads to one not being confident enough to put works out there in the world.

4. Once one can consistently meet goals, one can assume that the minimum level has been achieved.

5. Put stuff out there.

6. Evaluate feedback and learn accordingly.

 

[Heliotrope]

1. Accept that one will not be able to perceive one's writing in the same way that a reader will. I know my story and my characters and that knowledge creates a bias toward liking and being interested in them. The reader, on the other hand, only has the words on the page to create like and interest. If I haven't put something on the page, it will not exist for the reader.

.

Totally this. I'm a High School teacher, and it drives me nuts when I hear other teachers in the staff room complain about how inept their class is. Usually they say something alone the lines of "I taught it, they just didn't learn it."

That drives me crazy. If you had actually taught it, they would have learned it. Obviously something went wrong. If they did not learn it, you obviously did not teach it.

I think the same goes for writing. "My readers are just too dumb to pick up the subtle hints I'm dropping. It's not my fault they don't get it." Ummmm, actually, it is your fault. You are the writer. You need to be crystal clear. What's in your head is one thing. Helping the reader see it is another.

 

[Steerpike]

@Heliotrope

I think there is a line there, though how exactly to define it, I don't know. I've read plenty of books with subtleties that I got and others have missed, and that in retrospect end up with subtleties or references or word games that I missed when I was reading it and found out through talking to someone else. I think that's a valid approach to writing so long as you've made the conscious effort to do that. Some novels may well be vague in certain aspects, and may require more work on the reader, or even be susceptible to interpretation where any given reader comes away with something different.

The problem comes in where you meant to be clear, or thought you were clear, but screwed up and weren't.

 

[Heliotrope]

Steerpike, yes, I totally agree. Perhaps I wasn't being 'clear'…lol. As an avid fan of Literary Fiction I have a soft spot of symbols/metaphors in fiction. I love to make connections to things that are perhaps not obvious, and I think subtleties are very important. I love to debate the symbols used in films and fiction with others, and point out things that were missed by others, or have things pointed out to me. An example I can think of off the top of my head is "Life of Pi". That was a fun one to dissect and analyze with peers.

What I meant was more what Foster was saying, about characterization. We 'see' our characters and love them. We have spent hours developing them and writing pages and pages of backstory that the reader never sees. We put our character down on paper and they are alive to us. They are not alive to the reader. I think that often we just assume that our readers will love them as much as we do, but we forget that we have a history with them. We have had conversations with them. Our readers haven't had that luxury. If we aren't totally clear and intentional in the way that we portray them then they will fall flat to the reader.

That is not the reader's fault. That is or fault.

 

[Steerpike]

Heliotrope:

I agree with you, and I think the aspects of certain works we're talking about explain why they have such longevity. A couple of years ago I was talking to a college student who had just read The Brothers Karamazov. He was blown away by the book, and it led to an interesting conversation. He mentioned that he felt Dostoevsky was speaking through Alyosha. I had a different take. Ivan thoroughly takes apart Alyosha's arguments, primarily in the chapter call Rebellion. Dostoevsky was a careful writer, so I don't think that's an accident. I think Alyosha is a distraction, and Dostoevky is really speaking through Ivan, which he couldn't do explicitly. Our discussion led to a third possibility that I'd never considered - that Dostoevsky is speaking through both of them, and that the two characters represent the author's own internal conflict regarding religion. Regardless of where you come out on the issue, here you have two people excited about and discussing a book 125 years after its publication. That's pretty impressive.

The closest thing I can think of in Fantasy is Steven Erikson's Malazan series. Erikson puts the reader into the world and story. He doesn't often explain a lot of backstory. His characters don't explain things to each other during their conversations, because they exist in the world and already know it. So you end up with a series that is kind of a partnership between the author and reader in more than the usual fashion. You're actively engaged in piecing together hints about the world and characters and what is going on. When you meet another Malazan fan it leads to an instant sort of camaraderie. I remember after reading the 5th book in the series I went back and read the first (Gardens of the Moon) just for the heck of it, and I had a dozen light bulb moments where I said "Aha! Now I see what he's getting at here." Things I missed the first time around. I enjoyed the book a great deal the first time, and even more the second. There is some risk, of course. I've recommended the books to people, some of whom have felt cast adrift in a story that was hard to figure out, and they didn't like it. But it works for a lot of readers. Erikson has done well with the series, and I was in Barnes and Noble yesterday and there was a copy of Gardens of the Moon right there on the shelf. The booksellers are still moving it. If you looked at everything on the B&N shelves and counted up how many of them were published in 1999 and still selling enough to justify the shelf space, I bet there wouldn't be that many.

I like new writers to keep sight of the fact that you can write that kind of stuff. In fact, I'm damned glad people DO write that kind of stuff. But I also read a lot of light, entertaining fiction that you probably won't see on the shelves anymore a few months after release.

 

[Heliotrope]

SteerPike: Absolutely. Like I said above, I love the fiction that keeps you guessing. What I especially love about it is that you can come back to it years later and it suddenly has a totally different meaning. That is impressive. It is also really cool, like you said, when two or three different people can have a different perspective of what the author was getting at. I particularly love open ended endings for this. But you are right, a lot of people hate that. Kubrick (2001: Space Odyssey) comes to mind?

My husband hates that sort of thing. He loves Transformers and Terminator. I love something with a bit more depth.

I would probably love Malazan, I should check it out.

 

[Chessie]

This topic is one that's been on my mind a lot lately. I ghostwrite for a living. Typically when I interview with clients, they send a few sample stories of what they'd like or links to ones on Amazon for me to study. Now...I'm not a terrific writer. I have no idea what kind of writer I am, only that I do my best to polish my work over and over again so that it's clear enough for further processing. I use all of the resources available to me in order to have presentable work and still find a lot of mistakes.

Yet, the samples I get for study don't have the greatest prose. They're often simple, sometimes in omniscient pov, and have a lot of no nos that I feel constantly bombarded with by other sources. But if these clients keep returning for more work, then it means that they're doing something right.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but lately I've been feeling pretty darn frustrated with the fact that so much perfection is expected out of me as a writer when simple prose with plenty of don'ts sells books. Every author has their journey in mind. How they go about achieving that means they need certain levels of skills and knowledge. Yes, I want to do the best job possible on my manuscripts. But I'm starting to believe that the pushing of perfection is just part of the system.

 

[ThinkerX]

I just wrapped up the current round of editing on my WIP to begin prepping for NaNoWriMo. Ran each chapter through two online editors. Those programs hated some of my best lines. Sometimes I tweaked those sentences. Other times I didn't. Because proper editing and grammar can turn a good story into a poor one.

 

[BWFoster78]

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but lately I've been feeling pretty darn frustrated with the fact that so much perfection is expected out of me as a writer when simple prose with plenty of don'ts sells books. Every author has their journey in mind. How they go about achieving that means they need certain levels of skills and knowledge. Yes, I want to do the best job possible on my manuscripts. But I'm starting to believe that the pushing of perfection is just part of the system.

I think a constructive way to view the situation is to imagine all readers as making a value judgement on the quality of writing by putting you in one of the five following categories (Note that I'm defining "quality of writing" of some combination of technique and story telling, not really grammar and punctuation):

Cat 1 - Writing Stinks. The reader won't even finish the book, or if they do, they certainly won't buy any more books. In fact, they actively remember your name so that they never have the misfortune of having to read anything else you wrote.

Cat 2 - Writing is Poor. The reader probably finishes the book, but while they lack any real animosity for you, they're not going to buy anything else of yours unless it's totally by accident.

Cat 3 - Writing is Okay. The reader will continue the series as long as it keeps them interested, but they're not going to search out any more of your books.

Cat 4 - Writing is Good. The reader will finish the series and give serious consideration to buying other books of yours.

Cat 5 - Writing is Great. The reader becomes a True Fan and buys everything you've ever written and ever will write.

I think that two truths are self evident:

Truth 1 - No matter how good (or bad) your quality is, your book will be placed in all five categories if you get it in front of enough readers.

Truth 2 - The higher your quality of writing, the more readers will rank you in the higher categories.

If you want to attain a minimum level of success, you need to be able to hit Cat 3 with a good percentage of your readers. If you want long term super success (5 figures a month on a regular basis), you need to find a couple of thousand True Fans.