Ask the Author: Monalisa Foster
Answered Questions (1)
Monalisa Foster
Not everyone who is nice to you is your friend, and not everyone who is mean to you is your enemy. This is especially true when it comes to writers and writing. You will inevitably run into criticisms that hurt your feelings and it's natural to have a knee-jerk reaction to them. No one likes to hear that their baby is ugly.
There is nothing easier in the world than telling a writer "I liked it. Keep writing." It costs nothing. And some people may mean it. "I liked it" is about as subjective as it gets. I like chocolate. So what? "Keep writing" may sound just like the encouragement you want to hear, but is it? Or is it a cop-out? The writer can't get mad at the person saying this. It's such a safe answer that it too has little or no meaning. When it comes to feedback, I like to dig a little deeper.
Think about it. You've asked someone for their help on something. The easiest way NOT to help them but still get karma points for being supportive is to say something like, "Keep writing." or "I think that's a great idea. You should write it." If that's all there is to the response, it may be nice, but it's certainly not helpful. It may have no ill intent behind it, but it's quite useless unless you were just going for the ego stroke (and that's okay too; sometimes that's all we really want, right?)
Writing can be work (even when it's fun; even when it's passion). Yet I see struggling writers being told not to bother with rules or conventions (usually by successful writers) because so-and-so broke this rule and that rule and they went on to be a big success. Again, that may sound like encouragement, but is it? It's certainly a lot easier than telling someone that breaking rules may have worked in certain cases because that story or that writer had something else going for them. It's easier than delving into why so-and-so got away with it, but why you as a nobody, certainly can't. That would actually involve a lot more time, energy, and effort.
Imagine telling someone not to bother with spelling because spell-check will catch it. Or not to bother with grammar, because some editor will fix it. While that may be true for someone like a celebrity whose name alone will sell millions of copies, it's not going to help you out of the slush pile. And furthermore, you will never advance to the nuances of "voice" which are the breaking of rules for a reason (at least where grammar is concerned; spelling, not so much) or any of the other aspects of craft which may have been a part of the reason why so-and-so got away with breaking/bending/twisting/ignoring "the rules."
You have to know what the rules are before you can break/bend/twist/ignore them. It's one thing to do it for a reason. And another to do it out of ignorance. A slush reader or editor is far more likely to think you broke, bent, twisted, or ignored a rule on purpose (when you do) if you consistently demonstrated that you are aware of what the rules are in the first place.
It's entirely possible that you may be the next unicorn that can ignore everything out of the gate and still go on to sell. Unfortunately, it's far more likely that you won't be.
There is nothing easier in the world than telling a writer "I liked it. Keep writing." It costs nothing. And some people may mean it. "I liked it" is about as subjective as it gets. I like chocolate. So what? "Keep writing" may sound just like the encouragement you want to hear, but is it? Or is it a cop-out? The writer can't get mad at the person saying this. It's such a safe answer that it too has little or no meaning. When it comes to feedback, I like to dig a little deeper.
Think about it. You've asked someone for their help on something. The easiest way NOT to help them but still get karma points for being supportive is to say something like, "Keep writing." or "I think that's a great idea. You should write it." If that's all there is to the response, it may be nice, but it's certainly not helpful. It may have no ill intent behind it, but it's quite useless unless you were just going for the ego stroke (and that's okay too; sometimes that's all we really want, right?)
Writing can be work (even when it's fun; even when it's passion). Yet I see struggling writers being told not to bother with rules or conventions (usually by successful writers) because so-and-so broke this rule and that rule and they went on to be a big success. Again, that may sound like encouragement, but is it? It's certainly a lot easier than telling someone that breaking rules may have worked in certain cases because that story or that writer had something else going for them. It's easier than delving into why so-and-so got away with it, but why you as a nobody, certainly can't. That would actually involve a lot more time, energy, and effort.
Imagine telling someone not to bother with spelling because spell-check will catch it. Or not to bother with grammar, because some editor will fix it. While that may be true for someone like a celebrity whose name alone will sell millions of copies, it's not going to help you out of the slush pile. And furthermore, you will never advance to the nuances of "voice" which are the breaking of rules for a reason (at least where grammar is concerned; spelling, not so much) or any of the other aspects of craft which may have been a part of the reason why so-and-so got away with breaking/bending/twisting/ignoring "the rules."
You have to know what the rules are before you can break/bend/twist/ignore them. It's one thing to do it for a reason. And another to do it out of ignorance. A slush reader or editor is far more likely to think you broke, bent, twisted, or ignored a rule on purpose (when you do) if you consistently demonstrated that you are aware of what the rules are in the first place.
It's entirely possible that you may be the next unicorn that can ignore everything out of the gate and still go on to sell. Unfortunately, it's far more likely that you won't be.
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