Your “Writing” Advice Makes Me Want to Gouge My Eyes Out
I thought I escaped this nonsense after my MFA program, but no.
When it comes to writing, nothing sends me into a blind rage like reading articles entitled Why No One is Reading Your Writing, Why No One Cares About Your Writing, or How You Should Write, You Loser, The 5,606 Things You’re Doing Wrong with Your Writing. These articles — and I use that term generously — are merely a subjective collection of one person’s experience with a few Stephen King quotes thrown in for good measure because apparently, every single person in the world has read that Stephen King book and feels the need to quote from it.
PSA: Many other writers have written books on writing. Maybe read them?
My first reaction is: well, who the fuck are you to make sweeping, blanket statements about what works when it comes to writing? Who made you judge, jury, and executioner? Because you’ve made a little coin on this platform you can craft scare tactics? You’ve been writing on Medium for a hot minute, and suddenly you’re positioning yourself as an oracle of the written word? Complete with formatting your articles like they’re a fifth-grade book report?
Come now.
Isn’t the beauty of writing in its sheer diversity? The fact that experimental writers like Amy Hempel, Kelly Link, Jenny Offill, and Ben Marcus can be just as successful in their careers than deft storytellers like Marilynne Robinson, Elena Ferrante, Lauren Groff, Laura van den Berg, Colson Whitehead, and Zadie Smith is proof that there is no single standard. Half the time, I can’t even make sense of what Ben Marcus writes, but it doesn’t make him any less potent or influential to the people who revere his work.
Try convincing Faulkner to punctuate. Try telling Samuel Beckett to follow the rules when he was ridiculed when Waiting for Godot debuted on stage. Try telling Virginia Woolf (a writer who directly influenced Marquez) to not write a whole book from multiple interior points-of-view, which was just not done in the modernist fiction of her time. I can see her telling Leonard, fuck that parade before she set off to write The Waves. Try telling Zadie Smith anything.
People who blindly follow the herd are sheep. People who listen to what their voice is telling them are artists.
There are rules that writers break every day in their own way, and that is what makes literature remarkable. Not every writer formats their paragraphs, chapters, and dialogue in the same way. Some writers add dialogue tags. Other writers blend dialogue into the narrative — deliberately. Some writers completely forgo plot in favor of the rhythm and cadence of a line. Their passion is in the architecture of a story through language, instead of plot or character. Language is the story.
Whenever I read this sanctimonious “rules” nonsense here on Medium — on how one should write, format, and publish their stories lest they are met with crippling failure — I want to gouge out my eyes with an acetylene torch because these people preach a specific format for a specific platform rather than encourage exploration and experimentation. Are novels formatted this way? Are essays in Longreads formatted this way?
Have you ever published anything outside of your sphere on Medium? Have you ever worked with a book editor? If not, your articles should be titled, “The Very Specific Way I Write That Made Me $1,000 On This Very Specific Platform. Maybe, I Dunno, It’ll Work For You Too.” I tried blocking and muting all this nonsense, but it’s a contagion that is intent on sullying my feed.
A quarter million people read this essay I wrote on Medium and it wasn’t formatted in the way the gurus prescribe. People didn’t read it because I spoon-fed them their medicine, they read it because it was honest. My friend Deenie Hartzog-Mislock wrote this raw, beautiful, incisive essay, and do you see her cutting up your meat for you?
The oracles tell you not to use big, difficult words as if adults are feeble children who don’t have access to the internet. I was the kid who grew up dirt poor in Brooklyn, and I often mispronounced words I’d read in books because I hadn’t heard them spoken aloud. I learn new words every single day, and I use Google’s audio tool to make sure I’ve got the pronunciation. Why would I want the command of my primary language to ossify? Why would anyone want to stop learning?
Even when I was getting my MFA at Columbia, there were sanctimonious assholes who bemoaned styles, genres, and formats that weren’t their own. Thankfully, there were a handful of teachers who made it clear that the best way to help someone on their journey is to give them advice that helps them get better at their particular style and voice. The point isn’t to homogenize — what is this, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis? — it’s to stand out.
They tell you not to use “flowery” language or write very simply — that’s cool if that’s the way you naturally write or if you’re writing pop-culture self-help, but it’s a death sentence for line writers where manipulation of language is the objective. Instead, follow this advice from Jenny Offill, a writer who actually wrote a New York Times bestseller:
“But if you’re someone who is trying to move to a more pared-down language, or language that is trying to do things at a couple of different levels at the same time, the workshop environment can be difficult. So I try to teach my students to read at the line level, because I think that’s what’s helpful: to start thinking about what they’re writing line by line, as well as the bigger picture. I’m also always trying to make them read things in different genres: poetry or essays or non-fiction or primary sources from science or anthropology. I want them to get a sense of the strangeness of language. It reminds you that there are all these different ways in which you can create density and give a vital feeling to the words on.”
You’re not going to learn how to write if your diet is filled with Medium articles written by people telling you how to write. You’re going to learn how to write by reading across styles and genres until you find work that speaks to you. Then, you study it. Deconstruct it. Learn from it. Determine how it can inform the words you put to paper (or screen). And then you write and then you don’t stop writing. Ever.
Don’t confuse “growing your audience” [marketing] with getting better at what you live to do [studying others, practicing your craft, refining your work and honing your voice]. But hey, if you started writing five minutes ago and want to make $10,000 a month, my screed isn’t for you.
Language is a crucial weapon in my arsenal. Language gives me the freedom to interpret the world and translate it in new, inventive ways. Language gives me access to libraries of images I can use and manipulate. So, for me, a limited vocabulary is imprisonment. Why must we pander to readers instead of challenging them? Are a few new words in a story really going to alienate them? It’s not like I’m publishing scientific peer review papers on Medium.
Seriously. Are you that afraid?
The oracles tell you that you must join groups, be part of the crowd. If not, then poor you, little newbie, wading out in the dark waters without a life jacket. Read this carefully: you don’t have to join any social media groups to be a successful writer. If you want to, awesome, but it’s not a requirement and it’s certainly not a guarantee. Half the time these communities turn into catty cliques that have a certain think speak. Better to find a handful of readers who can help make you the best writer you can be.
We spend our time devoted to the periphery. As if the periphery was an altar where we’d all gather and worship. We cleave to the shiny objects that are social media, email, Facebook groups, podcasting — we’re told we have to be diversified — at the expense of the one true thing you create. The thing by which you want to be known and remembered. We give equal (if not more) weight and devotion to that which surrounds our thing instead of getting laser-focused and refining our skills, being a student — all to keep getting better at the thing.
Trust me, I want to do ALL THE THINGS. Now, I ask myself what portion of my day have I committed to being a better writer, a better storyteller, and a brand builder? Am I learning something new, regardless of how minor that something is? Or am I zeroing in on the things that are conduits and bridges to and from the work? You’ve created all these points of entry to a thing that isn’t as good as the vehicle that got them there. And I say this as a marketer of 20+ years. And someone who has published professionally for the same amount of time, and has worked at a traditional book publisher (HarperCollins).
Prioritize the writing, not the distribution of it.
The oracles warn you about formatting. You have to have big, bold headers everywhere. Your headers are the coming attractions. Beware of large blocks of text — their eyes, their eyes! Everyone’s reading on their phone, and they CAN’T HANDLE IT. Many single-line paragraphs are the rage.
And then you start to notice that all the writing looks the same. It’s well-packaged, well-spaced — formulaic in form, but not marketed! Oh, no. Marketing is such a smarmy practice. We don’t do that. No one sees the irony that their formatting rules are a form of marketing — focusing on the presentation of the work versus the work itself.
Yes, you want breathing room on the page, but if someone is really pulled into a story are they really going to quit because they’re SUFFERING THE TORTURES OF THE LONG PARAGRAPH DAMNED? You’ve pretty much excluded all literature written before the iPhone. People still remember Faulkner, and that fucker had a real rap battle with the run-on sentence.
I’m wading through a sea of same, and although I have the means to block the writers who flood my homepage, or opt to “see less of this,” etc., it pains me that people think they have to abide by some arbitrary rulebook to write out their heart.
Think about it. Do you read books? Have you read short stories in literary magazines? Essays in print and online periodicals? Do they follow your “rules” format, which is actually best served in non-fiction, pedagogical books with their frameworks, studies, and instructional steps? Do your readers need to be hand-held every step of the way? I’ve been writing the same way for decades, and my audience has only grown.
If you are telling stories that teach, inspire, motivate, and touch people, they’ll cope with a few big words and long paragraphs. Great stories bear the weight of the ephemeral. There are no rules, only the ones you make for yourself that align with your work and how you wish to communicate it. If a certain way of formatting suits you, fine, but don’t run around telling people it’s the standard.
There are so many ways to be a writer. There is an infinite number of ways to tell a story. Why pander to one? Why not experiment with multitudes? Why not play? Isn’t that what we’re here to do? Write, experiment, learn, play, and write some more.
How much freedom is there in a confined box? Quit it with the dogma. Forget the arbitrary rules. Write how you want to write, for long as you want to write it, in a style and format that suits you. Don’t be a copy. Fight to be singular, an original.
