100 Things Challenge (#3): Confidence and the Wimpy Writer

[dawn_felagund]

Today, I received good news about a paper I'd written for my recent grad school class, but for the first time in a long while, I'd been very nervous about something I'd written. It's that comfortable old dread, that sudden realization of the possibility that one has labored hard and still produced a dud. As I clicked through the university's

Comments

[myaru]

You know, I thought that gaining confidence in writing would mean an end to that crippling, gut-wrenching feeling that came when I put a story out there, whether on LJ or over to an editor, but it didn't. Maybe it's not as intense, but confidence that one has some skill is apparently not confidence that other people will see it that way. When you send it out, it's not just about the work anymore; it's about every single reader and what they think. It's one thing to feel euphoria over finishing a piece that seems decent, but putting it out there seems to require a different kind of confidence.

Maybe the writers you're talking about, the ones who lack confidence when it comes to critique, are better writers simply because they realize there are areas in which they need to improve, while That Guy is so confident about being awesome that he doesn't bother to look. Your last paragraph demonstrates that pretty nicely. You compare your skill to your own expectations and see room for improvement. That Guy might look at his work and see perfection.

... I hope I did not just repeat what you already said. It's early and I'm tired.

[dawn_felagund]

I think you bring up a great point, which is that every reader will necessarily see a story slightly differently. When I was active in the Critters workshop, I estimated that about 10% of the readers who critiqued my work didn't "get" the story in some major way. That was pretty consistent among the stories I put forward. Of course, I could (and should) look at how that might be my fault as a writer: what I didn't do or could do better. However, it's also very possible--especially in a workshop where one can boost one's own stories up the queue by critiquing a boatload of stories in one week--that the readers were in a hurry and didn't really spend the time with the story that they should have. Especially when the critique itself appeared to have been written in haste! :) So I never worried about it much.

I wonder if writers don't vary somewhat on that dimension as well, and if That Guy is an extreme manifestation of it: how much it bothers me, as a writer, to have my work misunderstood or disliked by readers, and where I place the responsibility for that. If 100% of my readers missed something vital--if even 25% did--I would know I had a problem. I do wonder if Those Guys are apt to explain the same phenomenon as the readers' problem: The reader has to do the work to "get" the story rather than the writer. I don't know. I'm flying off into left field here. :)

At the other extreme are the writers who want to please everyone and angst when they don't.

I think it was very liberating for me, in a way, to realize the 10% rule, and perhaps even more importantly, to realize and accept that a certain proportion of readers wouldn't like my work. I don't want someone blasting through a 5000-word story in 15 minutes to catch the intricacies of what I'm trying to do with the piece; that would make the story far too simplistic, imho. And I certainly don't want people who have fundamentally different ethical/moral views from me to like my writing; that would mean that I'm failing in my thematic purpose (to draw on your most recent 100 Things post [which I do want to comment on, btw] ;). It can be a tough balancing act to know which critiques to listen to and to know when you have to set one aside and accept that that reader probably will just never like your work.