Where Did Things Go So Wrong?!?

[queentess]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

So are you going to give up writing or not?

It sounds like he created this thread so we could all rush in and console his bruised ego. He obviously wasn't open to ideas on how to solve problems.

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by queentess

It sounds like he created this thread so we could all rush in and console his bruised ego. He obviously wasn't open to ideas on how to solve problems.

That doesn't seem obvious to me. I saw him latch on to some ideas and not others. Did you expect him to leave his own judgment at the door and rule his body of work by majority vote?

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by queentess

It sounds like he created this thread so we could all rush in and console his bruised ego. He obviously wasn't open to ideas on how to solve problems.

Like I think I said, if that was what he wanted he shouldn't have linked this from the "grab your pitchforks" thread. The pitchforkers following him here was entirely predictable.

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

For the record, I don't consider being directly or indirectly called "inhuman" and "fascist" constructive criticism, and it isn't exactly making me want to visit this thread, nor to heed anyone's advice when I already feel so on the defensive.

In other words, you didn't really want advice. If you can reject advice because people referred to Orson Scott Card, Robert Heinlein, and John Ringo as having fascist-like views, you didn't really want advice. If you really wanted advice -- if you wanted ways to make your writing earn you a living -- you'd dig that advice out of a pig barn manure pit if that's where it was. It would mean everything to you (it is people trying to help you make a living, after all) and you'd be looking for ways to get it, not reasons to reject it.

But every piece of advice I've seen offered to you has led to the same response: you're looking for reasons to reject it.

I think you've showed us what you want: Not advice on how to make better choices, but praise for the choices you've already made. You don't want the answers you've asked for; you want to be treated as a special snowflake and told how good and how perfect you are. Well, you're not. Neither am I. None of us are. But some of us want to get better at what we do, and some of us want to be told we're already the best. You get to decide which category you fall into (one of the few choices you really have in the writing life) but you don't get to decide how your readers are going to react.

So make up your mind, here and now:

Do you want advice?

Or do you want praise?

You can only get one.

And if it's advice, you're probably not going to like some of it. Look at what people said up-thread about Robert Heinlein, and you're no Heinlein (neither are most other people). If that's still what you want, keep asking -- and be more gracious to the people who are giving their time to offer you whatever advice they have. If you want praise, be open about saying so, tell people you want to be petted, not criticized, and don't pretend it's advice you're looking for, and you'll probably get that, too. But don't confuse the two, because they're nothing alike.

Advice? Praise? Pick one.

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

But every piece of advice I've seen offered to you has led to the same response: you're looking for reasons to reject it.

That seems like a wise approach to all advice. Honestly, from my past interactions with you, you don't seem like someone who would value other people's judgment above your own either. If you were to ask for advice (perhaps you wouldn't), wouldn't you run through the implications in your mind and reject it if it did not work for your situation? Wouldn't you see if indeed there were reasons to reject it?

[Tome Keeper]

David, I think the key thing is that the same suggestions have been made again and again to Steven, and he hasn't shown much willingness to do anything about it or even thank people for their suggestions.

It may just be the tone he writes in but his posts generally seem dismissive of advice. He doesn't have to follow through on anything but seeming a bit more accepting would help smooth things along methinks.

[Anke Wehner]

Generally speaking, considering pros and cons would strike as wise. Only looking for cons, not so much. (General comment, not aimed at Steven.)

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by Tome Keeper

It may just be the tone he writes in but his posts are generally seem dismissive of advice. He doesn't have to follow through on anything but seeming a bit more accepting would help smooth things along methinks.

I very much suspect that you are on to something. Part of what prompted me to respond is that very little of the mud in this thread is being slung for the reasons stated. Would he be better off if he were less defensive? Perhaps. If this were your thread, would you have made it this far without defensiveness (Perhaps you would as you seem fairly thoughtful. On average, how many others do you believe would have?)?

The actual hostility in this thread is not coming from the OP. That may well be predictable as the result of a fairly innocent tactical error, as mr. ploppy points out, but predictability shouldn't make those eager to make unfounded personal attacks feel justified.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Advice? Praise? Pick one.

Neither. Moving on.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by David Marseilles

The actual hostility in this thread is not coming from the OP. That may well be predictable as the result of a fairly innocent tactical error, as mr. ploppy points out, but predictability shouldn't make those eager to make unfounded personal attacks feel justified.

Oh, I think there's plenty of hostility from the OP. If he doesn't agree with some suggestions, that's fine, but (1) he asked for suggestions, and (2) he doesn't need to be so darn nasty in dismissing them. Really, is there any incentive for any of us to brainstorm ideas with someone who's acting like that?

He could have simply taken the ideas presented as food for thought and not been defensive on each and every point.

[Penforhire]

I don't see Steve here as rejecting all advice but he is resistant to some good ideas. Maybe not rooting around enough in our manure, lol.

That word you used in a title is precisely the sort of ego item a good editor spots and a successful author accepts as a cut. You are in love with the word, as much as we become enamored of other clever turns of phrase. Writing 101 tells us we have to be willing to let those personal things go if enough readers point it out as distracting.

There are a couple of very good reasons others gave why it should be cut. It is hard to remember or spell and therefore to search for. Since it is made-up it also contributes no reader "pull" in the title.

No, you don't HAVE to do anything. I recall being jarred constantly by Neal Stephenson's huge ego showing in his writing, his oh-so-clever phrases, but he's good enough that I keep reading. But it is still good advice to an author trying for a break.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Sure, I'd like to live in a post-scarcity world. I'd like to live in a world where I didn't have to worry about being hungry, or wanting clothes, or needing medicine. I'd like to live in a world where I could do just the things I wanted to, relax when I wanted to, create art, and so on. But I wouldn't want to read stories about it, because they'd all be the "Mr. Smith had a nice day" kind, and that's no fun at all.

"Post-scarcity" doesn't have to mean "post-conflict." There is plenty of fiction set in a post-scarcity world that still manages to find a story-- Ian Bank's Culture novels, for example. And all Star Trek post-TOS, where people work not because they need to so that they can have food, shelter, and medical care, but because they want to.

And on a more practical basis, the earliest "replicator" type technology already exists in 3D printers, which become cheaper and more sophisticated every year. We won't have a future where the replicators are pure magic like in Star Trek, but I find it hard to imagine a realistic future (that doesn't come after a total collapse of current civilization) that doesn't have some form of 3D printing that is far more advanced and widespread than what we have today. Writing a plausible "modern future" where people can't simply print out a free (excluding costs of raw materials) copy of a large variety of things whenever they want is as realistic as a "modern future" where people don't have any form of portable electronics.

[Penforhire]

Scarcity will change but never go away. If we "upload" ourselves, how many copies will we be allowed to make? How fast will we be allowed to process? Even if we don't upload, and continue physically, how much real estate will we be allowed to live in? In more general terms, how much energy will we be allowd to consume? Unless we're talking magic there should continue to be a form of scarcity.

Charlie Stross' Accelerando shows a few possible levels of scarcity in a far future.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

"Post-scarcity" doesn't have to mean "post-conflict." There is plenty of fiction set in a post-scarcity world that still manages to find a story-- Ian Bank's Culture novels, for example. And all Star Trek post-TOS, where people work not because they need to so that they can have food, shelter, and medical care, but because they want to.

As I pointed out elsewhere, concerning the replicator's inability to create anything that would screw up the plot, even under Gene Roddenberry's direct supervision, and more so after his death, many ST stories depended on scarcity.
TNG is one of my favorite shows, yet I still have to work to suspend disbelief each time they contradict that element, which they frequently give lip service to having achieved in the Federation.
Whether it's "Our replicators can't create the needed vaccine" or whether they travel to an outpost or alien world where they have to deal with scarcity in that culture, it does indeed drive a huge number of the stories.

Even in "Down And Out in the Magic Kingdom" for purposes of the story, there simply wasn't enough Haunted Mansion to go around.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

For the record, I don't consider being directly or indirectly called "inhuman" and "fascist" constructive criticism, and it isn't exactly making me want to visit this thread, nor to heed anyone's advice when I already feel so on the defensive. . . . I guess this was just a bad idea gone worse.

Since this is a very long thread, it's possible the above quote is addressing someone else's comments. But if you're talking about my post, then let me point out what a deluge of criticism might have obscured: I never called you a fascist "directly or indirectly," nor "inhuman[e]," nor was that ever my point.

Others on this thread have called you a fascist and said they wouldn't read you for that reason. I merely pointed out that some of the most respected writers in English (particularly the modernists) have literally believed in fascism, and that we still read them despite that fact. Even if such hyperbolic charges were actually true of you, they would not be a useful criticism of someone's writing -- yours or anyone else's -- nor a reason to dismiss it.

Pity you stopped there (assuming you did), as my own best advice to you came later.

I do hope you read the bit about putting your anxiety into the writing itself instead of diverting it to marketing. To paraphrase Rollo May, we live in an age of anxiety. Let that anxiety fuel your novel.

Anxiety works in the context of fiction in the sense that tension makes people keep reading. However, making one's own anxiety the subject of public communications about one's work merely paints a target on one's back.