or, Why All Comparisons Are Not Just Useless But Dangerously Discouraging - Every writer has a unique perspective. There's room on the bookshelf for all of us!
I'm relatively at the start of my writing journey, so it is easier for me to compare my writing with myself from earlier. Am I writing better than 2 years ago me? If the answer is yes, I feel good. If the answer is no, I have the advantage of analysing my own writing, putting myself in the same mindspace, trying to conjure up the same point of view, and rewriting. If I can, I usually end up writing something better. If I can't, I still publish anyway haha!
Wow - well said! This can be applied to everything we try to do in life. We have to learn to stop comparing ourselves to others - and thinking that another person's way, style, method, etc. is the only way to be a great writer, painter, teacher, chef, etc. Learn from others, create your own style, continue learning, and it will all fall into place. Thanks, Graham!
I agree Donna! Didn't really think about it that way, and you're absolutely right.
I think it's only natural that we compare ourselves to others in any endeavour. We are a social species who keeps careful tabs on where we stand in the group, either consciously or subconsciously. There must be some evolutionary reason for it, but it can be harmful in terms of creativity. Fighting against that natural urge is difficult, though.
I’m with you Graham. Just the other day I was reading Robert Caro’s Working, a “memoir” of sorts about how he research and wrote biography. I was so blown away by the quality of the writing in one long passage that I wrote it all down: while I could comment on what I liked about it just by reading it, it was all the better to have re-written it myself and I understood it far more deeply. After writing it, I went and annotated it with a bunch of notes about structure.
Ah yes -- that's a good idea! I haven't really done that myself, unless it's to quote the passage and I can't copy and paste for some reason (like, for example, if it's in an actual book). It does help you see the structure better that way, doesn't it? Never really realized. But then, I should have -- I knew that story about Thompson for a lot of years now. What was he doing if not that?
I didn’t specifically know the Thompson story, but I’d heard it was a good practice and never tried it. Then I was reading along and there was a 2500-word stretch of this book that I was just blown away by. It seemed so “normal,” nothing dramatic, but I sensed some power there. So I read it aloud to my wife and that still didn’t help. Writing it down did the trick: there was alliteration, this lovely movement between abstraction and detail, and then a rhetorical technique that I don’t know the name of where he proposed an idea, immediately cast doubt on it, then moved to a solution that was really satisfying. It’s that last move that I’m most interested in.
Wow, that sounds really interesting! It's funny, when I'm stuck in certain sections of my novel, I look at what has come before to try to solve it. But I've never used this level of drilling down into the structure. Glad it's working for you! I'll have to give that a try.
I'm relatively at the start of my writing journey, so it is easier for me to compare my writing with myself from earlier. Am I writing better than 2 years ago me? If the answer is yes, I feel good. If the answer is no, I have the advantage of analysing my own writing, putting myself in the same mindspace, trying to conjure up the same point of view, and rewriting. If I can, I usually end up writing something better. If I can't, I still publish anyway haha!
That's a great way to look at it!
The best way to celebrate great writing is to write some more. The best way to counteract self-perceived "bad" writing is to write some more.
lol - I guess no matter what the question, the answer is always: Write.
Wow - well said! This can be applied to everything we try to do in life. We have to learn to stop comparing ourselves to others - and thinking that another person's way, style, method, etc. is the only way to be a great writer, painter, teacher, chef, etc. Learn from others, create your own style, continue learning, and it will all fall into place. Thanks, Graham!
I agree Donna! Didn't really think about it that way, and you're absolutely right.
I think it's only natural that we compare ourselves to others in any endeavour. We are a social species who keeps careful tabs on where we stand in the group, either consciously or subconsciously. There must be some evolutionary reason for it, but it can be harmful in terms of creativity. Fighting against that natural urge is difficult, though.
I’m with you Graham. Just the other day I was reading Robert Caro’s Working, a “memoir” of sorts about how he research and wrote biography. I was so blown away by the quality of the writing in one long passage that I wrote it all down: while I could comment on what I liked about it just by reading it, it was all the better to have re-written it myself and I understood it far more deeply. After writing it, I went and annotated it with a bunch of notes about structure.
Ah yes -- that's a good idea! I haven't really done that myself, unless it's to quote the passage and I can't copy and paste for some reason (like, for example, if it's in an actual book). It does help you see the structure better that way, doesn't it? Never really realized. But then, I should have -- I knew that story about Thompson for a lot of years now. What was he doing if not that?
I'll have to dig a bit deeper into that myself!
I didn’t specifically know the Thompson story, but I’d heard it was a good practice and never tried it. Then I was reading along and there was a 2500-word stretch of this book that I was just blown away by. It seemed so “normal,” nothing dramatic, but I sensed some power there. So I read it aloud to my wife and that still didn’t help. Writing it down did the trick: there was alliteration, this lovely movement between abstraction and detail, and then a rhetorical technique that I don’t know the name of where he proposed an idea, immediately cast doubt on it, then moved to a solution that was really satisfying. It’s that last move that I’m most interested in.
Wow, that sounds really interesting! It's funny, when I'm stuck in certain sections of my novel, I look at what has come before to try to solve it. But I've never used this level of drilling down into the structure. Glad it's working for you! I'll have to give that a try.