Are You Too Ambitious for Your Own Good?
Ira Glass has some of the best advice I’ve ever read for writers, at least in relation to great storytelling. He’s said that you have to be willing to be…
Ira Glass has some of the best advice I've ever read for writers, at
least in relation to great storytelling. He's said that you have to be
willing to be bad at what you do for a long time until you actually can
achieve the vision of perfection you have in your head. He even puts
himself out on a limb and offers recordings illuminating how bad he was at radio when he first started.
I
was reminded of Ira when my writer-friend Teresa Fleming shared with me
the following letter from Charles Dickens, where he responds to an
aspiring writer.
Tuesday, Feb. 5th, 1867.
DEAR SIR,
I
have looked at the larger half of the first volume of your novel, and
have pursued the more difficult points of the story through the other
two volumes.
You
will, of course, receive my opinion as that of an individual writer and
student of art, who by no means claims to be infallible.
I
think you are too ambitious, and that you have not sufficient knowledge
of life or character to venture on so comprehensive an attempt.
Evidences of inexperience in every way, and of your power being far
below the situations that you imagine, present themselves to me in
almost every page I have read. It would greatly surprise me if you
found a publisher for this story, on trying your fortune in that line,
or derived anything from it but weariness and bitterness of spirit.
On
the evidence thus put before me, I cannot even entirely satisfy myself
that you have the faculty of authorship latent within you. If you have
not, and yet pursue a vocation towards which you have no call, you
cannot choose but be a wretched man. Let me counsel you to have the
patience to form yourself carefully, and the courage to renounce the
endeavour if you cannot establish your case on a very much smaller
scale. You see around you every day, how many outlets there are for
short pieces of fiction in all kinds. Try if you can achieve any
success within these modest limits (I have practised in my time what I
preach to you), and in the meantime put your three volumes away.
Faithfully yours.
Yikes, right? (You can read more Dickens letters here.)
Here's the secret, though: If you're the writer, do you read this and think: I should just stop trying.
Or do you read this and think: He doesn't know how wrong he is!
Writers in training know they're not good, but they know they're getting better. And they go on to fight another day.
Jane Friedman is a full-time entrepreneur (since 2014) and has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. She is the co-founder of The Hot Sheet, the essential publishing industry newsletter for authors, and is the former publisher of Writer’s Digest. In addition to being a columnist with Publishers Weekly and a professor with The Great Courses, Jane maintains an award-winning blog for writers at JaneFriedman.com. Jane’s newest book is The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press, 2018).
