A comment discussion at Eric Mayer’s blog post, Putting Ourselves Out of Business, involved the idea of considering one’s writing just a hobby. I have a feeling that most fiction writers, published or not, feel to some degree as if they’re hobbyists these days. After all, there isn’t much money to be made in this business, except by a very few. But they also have to take it seriously in order to get far, it has to be an intense, obsessive sort of hobby.
Late in 1993, after a lot of discouraging experiences attempting to sell my fiction, I decided to “quit fiction writing for good” and I wrote nothing but personal journals and technical manuals for a year. I began writing fiction again early in 1995, but with a difference. I did it, as I’d begun as a girl, to please myself, primarily to complete a story I thought had to be written or it would drive me nuts. That story had been percolating inside me since I was seventeen. I surprised myself then by doing some of the best fiction writing I had in my life to that point. My decision at that point to please only myself with what I wrote carried me through a kind of barrier into a different way of looking at writing fiction.
There’s a point where the writer has to throw out all the advice, all other opinions, and write the story that’s inside her, the one that haunts her, that begs to be written. If she begins to do it only to earn money or fame, her enthusiasm may dampen. If she exposes her writing to the wrong kinds of criticism at the wrong time, her passion may be crushed, or she may write more to please others than herself—sometimes so many others that she feels pulled in all directions at once. I’ve done that in the past, and I found myself doing it again recently—writing to please too many others. Maybe from time to time I need to “give up” again, if only to get back on track with the writing I’m supposed to do.
Of course the writer needs to learn the basics, hone her skills. Then, after writing for self, she needs to be willing to let someone edit her work and be open to revisions. The two-minute rule mentioned in the blog Eric referred to makes sense, too. Something in any story needs to draw the reader’s interest in as soon as possible, unless the writer just wants to hide her novel in a drawer and bring it out to read on her own now and then.
But I think a writer needs to begin any work of fiction out of love, a personal hunger to write it. Something has to draw the writer in, make it worth the effort, and perhaps make it impossible not to write. It may very well break the writer’s heart. In fact, maybe a writer has to let a story break her heart a little to do it right. Maybe fiction is meant to break out of one’s heart, the way love does. I usually know I’ve gotten somewhere or succeeded at something in a manuscript, when I find it brings me to some deep, heartfelt emotion.
Writing for myself sounds selfish and not very businesslike, but I think my best writing happens when I do. I’ve learned the most about myself when writing this way, and it’s the most honest writing I’ve done.
Themes emerge in what we write, truths we’ve learned about life show up in our stories, and we sometimes come face to face with our own humanity when we realize what we’re capable of imagining, when we think about what we’d do in the situations we place our characters in. These are things that don’t show up in a story intentionally, but in unconscious, serendipitous ways, through the interlocking and intersecting of seemingly disparate elements. The best writing is in many ways a revelation to the writer as much as to the reader. If getting to that necessitates shutting out what others want from our fiction, it’s worth the effort.
I can’t tell anyone how to make money writing fiction. It’s possible no one can tell anyone how. Publishers seem as mystified as anyone as to what will pay off and what won’t. But I do know how to plumb my own heart while writing, how to answer the call of a story. That’s what has kept me doing this so long in spite of all my frustrations and failures. If all I wanted were to make money, I’d have quit—for real and for good—long ago. I don’t advise anyone to write fiction for money. I plan from now on to write fiction that draws me in a way I can’t ignore and can’t resist. Even so, I know it may break my heart. But anything worthwhile in life carries that risk.
I think we each need to find the balance between ourselves and a potential audience that suits our goals and reasons for writing. People write diaries just for themselves, with no intention of communicating with an audience. In that case they can write however they please. Some witers are, it seems, only interested in gaining the largest possible audience, in which case they need to disregard their own predilictions and write in a manner suitable to that potential audience. I doubt anyone’s taste is precisely in line with the sort of lowest common denominator that will appeal, to some extent, to millions. Some writers are probably lucky in that what they really like is closer to what the mass market wants but we all need to decide how much we write for ourselves, how much we write for an audience, and what size and shape we conceive our audience to be.
The Byzantine mysteries are not written for a huge audience. We have tried to write them in a more palatable manner as the series has continued but there’s no way we could make them potential bestsellers and retain what we enjoy in them. We were lucky to find a small publisher. Our recent Victorian Occult thriller we wrote exactly to suit ourselves and have fun doing. It was indeed great fun to write compared to the last Byzantine mystery. I think it is our best work. Not a hint of interest in it so far. I guess I’d waste months writing something I didn’t like, but somebody’d have to offer me a million up front!
Eric, you said: “I guess I’d waste months writing something I didn’t like, but somebody’d have to offer me a million up front!”
I feel the same way. I wrote for a paycheck for many years, and the paycheck was pretty much guaranteed, so it was a secure, worthwhile endeavor. But now that my time is my own, it’s another matter. I read advice that says follow the market, but to me that sounds like a guarantee of always being a step behind the market, letting someone else lead the way—no doubt someone who’s writing exactly what he or she wants. This attitude of writing only what I feel passionate about is freeing. Hey, it worked for Anne Rice.
Your Byzantine mysteries definitely have their niche, which I hope grows as more people discover them. The Victorian Occult thriller sounds intriguing.
Excellent post. If you want to sell your work, or let’s put it this way, have as many people as possible read it, not only should it be something you’re dedicated to but it should have mass appeal as well. You may feel passionate about your great aunt Hannah’s ordeal in Idaho, but unless others can relate, it won’t sell. Trends need be followed and the markets watched if one wants to be published-that’s how the agents look at it. But no writer really wants to write something that no one else will want to read, unless it’s in his diary. Love of what you’re doing and need to share the words, I think, is the right combination.
I think that writing for yourself is the only way to go. That way it is really satisfying, I would think.
Great post. Writing for myself is the only way I can get myself to write anything - even if it is *just* for my website. If I don’t give a damn, I can’t get the umph up to write about it. Even the teaching type of writing - I have to care about the subject, want to point something out - make it clear, give mundane things a new twist, whatever… there needs to be a *need* to express it, even if it is only for me to find out what is underneath so that I can detach or release.
I agree that one needs to write (especially fiction) for themself first, and worry about publishing, making money, etc. later. Everyone wants to be a writer nowadays. Everyone wants to make a living writing. The problem is, with litary fiction specifically, is that the market for literary fiction is rapidly shrinking. At the same time, the number of people producing it is on a dramatic increase (and can be seen by the number of MFA programs popping up and the sheer number of entries a writing contest will receive). Today, more than ever, a writer has to write for the sheer love of the craft, otherwise they’ll get bored and move on to something else (and never make a dime from it).
This is a really good post and I’m adding the blog to my favorites.
Check my website out at: Brad’s World (sorry for the self-promotion)
Links for the Week - June 10, 2006