Those Writers Suck!

Imagine a reader that just finished reading The Selection by Kiera Cass. Their friend recommends reading A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas, and they respond by telling their friend, "no thanks, I've already read one book." Does that sound like any reader you've ever met?

There's inherent competitiveness built into writing that doesn't exist in reading. Writers will compare themselves to other writers and their books to other books, but it's the kind of comparison that's born from ego. We hear reviews and think, "my book has those elements too, maybe this person would like my book." Or "do I do that? I probably don't. I'm such a hack." Not every writer does this but I'm definitely guilty of this myself.

These comparisons can go beyond content and seep into publication, representation, and sales. This is when the ugly side of writer's talk starts to rear its ugly head. People will bash characters, tropes, and even entire genres in some misguided attempt to elevate themselves. "They write Chosen Ones, I would never do something like that myself." But just because they've written a story without prophecies or overpowered chosen ones doesn't mean that they've written anything good. This kind of thinking isn't just bad because it's an attack on a nonexistent competition.

There are hidden truths about the nature of creativity that are tainted by pride and preference. If a writer never writes stories about Chosen Ones then they are restricting their creative process. These rules might seem like a way to make sure that their stories are compelling and original, but their writing will inevitably fall into different tropes. From there the writer might decide to remove the next trope but this is an extreme course of action that will only lead to being unable to write. What's more, is that some of the greatest advances in fiction have come from authors writing to genres and tropes that they detest. If a writer hates Chosen One stories they'll know exactly why people hate them and will actively try to find new solutions to the common problems of the trope. Creative processes can benefit from working around problems because it forces a different perspective on the genre. I've done this in my own writing, broken every single one of my rules. Sometimes I've written entire books built around the idea of breaking my self imposed rules, and while I don't always like the results, the exercise is always freeing.

But back to the main problem. Why do writers compare themselves to others?

Well, I think the question is really, "why do I compare myself to other writers?" and the answer is obvious: I'm insecure. I have a deep lack of confidence that occasionally manifests through isolation, self-hatred, and self-harm. It's more than just a character flaw of mine, it's a problem. Of all of my problems, my insecurity has been the most successful at ripping apart my life. Every single time I quit writing it was because of my insecurity, so it's important for me to remember why I write. If I don't write, my creativity turns inwards. My sense of tension turns shadows into monsters, silence into schemes, and friends into enemies. Beyond that, the stories don't just go away. Characters, plots, and worlds keep bringing me back to writing because it is a foundational part of my mind. I can't afford to let my insecurity get in the way of my creative process because when I have it's made things so much worse than simply worrying about whether or not my writing sucks.

I don't know if every holier-than-thou writer feels this way, but I think it's a more common story than not. To some extent, we writers can't help but compare ourselves to others. There is no chemical test to see if prose work. Every short story, novel, poem, and experimental bit of writing exists within that nebulous thing called art. What inspires some offends others. Beyond that, there is technique and skill to consider and we start to enter a conversation much more complex than "why do writers compare each other?" I think the important thing to remember is that since art is subjective, most writers don't know if they've written anything of value at all. This applies to writers with varying degrees of success. George R R Martin can't deny that he's had an impact on modern fiction, but he'll never know if it was a positive one. He won't know how the writers of the future will look back at his work. There isn't some magic threshold that a writer can pass and be content with their work, because there is no objective value to art.

I spent most of 2019 networking with other writers. After spending an entire day on twitter all I had was a metric of followers to judge my success. I hated what that did to my brain, so I vowed to move away from hunting for followers and trying to gain social capital, but where did that leave me? For all of my work interfacing with people, very few people were legitimately interested in my writing. This isn't a new lesson for me. I've been on five different platforms full of writers and the one constant I've always seen is that interest in the writing of others is viewed like charity work; it's kind, it's wonderful, but it's work and not everyone even bothers to do it. When writers surround themselves with other writers it can start to feel like a marketplace full of competing stalls. The only customers are vendors on their way to their work. This is an illusion. Writers aren't our customer base, but they're also not our competition.

Most people aren't readers. They might read one book a year because people won't shut up about it. Readers don't read to fit in. They read for the love of prose. Writing has survived the birth of comics, radio, television, video games, and it will survive the early days of the internet (yes, these are still the early days) because it offers a completely different kind of experience to any other form of storytelling. Readers love that experience and when they finish a book, they already have eight more that they want to read. This is the audience that writers desperately seek to reach. Competition doesn't exist within that space except to win out on the other TBRs, but in this context, stories benefit from being similar to the reader's go-to books and favorite reads. Originality isn't needed to get someone's attention, sometimes all it takes is for a character to be like a reader's fictional crush or ideal self.

I really feel like a lot of the fears and posturing that happens in writing communities come from a kind of bubble. Among so many writers how does one distinguish themself? How do they stand out? I don't know if there's an answer to this. I think writers have stories that they love and all we can do is get better at conveying those stories through the endlessly complicated practice of writing. Stories are the only reason I keep writing, but it's also the reason people read. If we focus on getting better at interfacing with writers, does that translate to cultivating a healthy readership? Only if the writers you are talking to are also readers that read and enjoy YOUR work. But there's something disingenuous about that. They're there to promote their work and you're trying to hook them into your stories so if it is a con, you're kind of existing in this state of mutual bamboozlement.

Writing isn't a game to be won, it's an art form. There is no perfect story. Every trope, simile, conflict resolution, plot twist, and character arc used leaves behind a million Frostian timelines. All we writers can do is get better at controlling the narrative we show others. And I need to stop comparing myself to the success, failure, and lives of other writers. I have LOTS of stories to tell, but I will never succeed if I don't write them.