Entitlement in Writer Culture

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I do wonder if this is the International Year of the Self-Righteous Internet Rant, because it certainly feels like it sometimes.

I’m not sure where this belief that the unpublished are owed anything from more successful writers comes from, anyway.

I don't think this is a self-righteous rant. From my experience it's spot on to the reality of amateur writers trying to break in, fans, and professionals. Granted, my experience is my own, but it happens to line up with quite a few others' experiences as well.

This perception largely comes from the unpublished themselves. Every time you see someone complain about a professional writer refusing to read a newbie's piece, that's entitlement. Every time you see someone complain about an agent not responding, that's entitlement. Every time someone complains about an editor rejecting a piece, with or without a personalized response, that's entitlement.

Each one of these is the complainer feeling entitled to someone else's time. That professional writer can't read your piece, they're too busy writing. And on the off chance your piece has anything to do with something they might ever work on in the future, they simply cannot take the chance you'll claim plagiarism and sue.

Agents are busy as hell just trying to keep up with their query letters, submissions, negotiations, meetings, and phone tag with their writers and the publishing houses. They don't have time to personally get back to every person who sends them something.

On and on and on. None of these professionals (or fans, or other amateurs, or newbs) owe anyone else even a second of their time. If you expect someone else to do something for you, you'll have a crappy attitude and be disappointed. If you don't expect someone else to do something for you, you'll have a better attitude and be pleasantly surprised if they happen to do something for you. But no one owes you anything.

The closest thing I can think of is a couple of occasions where people (not here) have expected their work to be greeted with unanimous praise and are angry when the explanation for lack of success is that it isn’t very good. If you want to get in, you have to put the hours in and try to improve, which is what I see a lot of people doing both on this site and in real life. Maybe I need to be more famous and successful, and then loads of people will demand stuff from me.

And all the ones I mentioned above, and basically any time anyone complains about some professional in the industry not doing something for them.

But yeah, work in the industry for just about any length of time (agent, editor, etc) and you'll be amazed at the kind of cloying, needy crap that goes on. Or be a lot more famous. That works too.

As for not helping the (potential) competition, the fact that Writer A writes a certain type of material doesn't mean that Writer B, who writes similar stuff, will necessarily be squeezed out of the market by Writer A. People often want to read more, similar things in the same sort of genre and style. I don't think there's a finite amount of books that you can have in one area.

No, but there is a finite number of readers with a finite amount of money and time to spend on books. If that reader spends $5 on your book, that's $5 less they have to spend on my book. If that reader spends 10 hours reading my book, that's 10 hours less they have to read your book. Every writer is in direct competition with every other writer for that reader's time and money, but writers are generally way too nice to present the situation that way.

 

[Brian G Turner]

As I mentioned in another thread, I think expectations with writing are too high.

After all, if someone completes a first draft, it is obviously best seller material, and the publishing world should beg to have the pleasure to publish it.

I used to think that way, too.

Now I realise the value of earning your way, as opposed to expecting the world to hand everything on a plate.

 

[Ursa major]

The closest thing I can think of is a couple of occasions where people (not here) have expected their work to be greeted with unanimous praise and are angry when the explanation for lack of success is that it isn’t very good.

Pieces of dross, whose authors thought they'd written pure gold, used to appear in Critiques, and some of those same authors refused to believe they'd written dross and went out of their way to blame those who'd put in the effort to critique the dross and politely point out some of the gross errors.

Typically, the dross arrived as the author's first post on the Chrons; this is one reason why we now require 30 previous counted posts before allowing stuff (whether gold, dross or somewhere between) to be put up for critique.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Before I started my business as a developmental editor and charged for such things, it often happened that someone (usually someone fairly new here) would PM me and ask if I could look over their synopsis and give some advice. And I would do it. Usually they would revise the synopsis and ask me to look at it again. And again. And again. I just didn't like to say no to anyone who was a member here. (I would and did say I hadn't time when someone wanted me to look at the whole manuscript.) Finally, whenever I agreed to look at a synopsis, I said I would not look at multiple revisions.

Eventually there came a time, after I had put a lot of effort into helping someone with a synopsis, they came back to me saying that all my advice was wrong, they were going to do it their own way, and that someone else, who was a writer had said they were doing it the right way. (Like I wasn't a writer.) I thought it was one thing to decide not to follow the advice they had solicited from me and which I had given them for free -- I thought they were wrong to do so, of course, but it was their book and their synopsis and it was no loss to me if they ignored my suggestions. But it seemed to me that there was absolutely no reason for them to tell me so, much less in such a discourteous fashion. They could have just said "Thank you for your time and I'll think about what you've said" and then done whatever they wanted to do.

But no, they had to "prove" that I was wrong. Instead of saying nothing at all and going their own way -- which would have been ungrateful enough without as much as a thank you, but at least not offensive -- they had to castigate me for saying what they didn't want to hear. I believe I sent a curt PM back to them saying that I wasn't going to argue about it because I had already wasted enough time trying to help them. And that was the end of it, although of course I was very, very angry about it for several days, and resented that I had been made to feel that way so unnecessarily.

Needless to say, after that I stopped saying yes to such requests.

I don't know why I didn't say no to everyone from the beginning, because I already knew that there were people who reacted badly when the advice they asked for and received was not the advice they wanted to hear.

And over the years, with other things I have seen or heard or experienced, I have gained the impression that the people who feel entitled to feedback -- I am not talking about people who just want an answer when something is rejected, I mean the people who feel entitled to know why the manuscript was rejected -- are the ones most likely to take it badly.

 

[J Riff]

Accepted is nice, accepted then cancelled happens too. The magazine folds, or the anthology goes on eternal hold. You show up at the bar and the owner has scarpered, and you have to swipe some speakers and sell them to cover expenses. A cruel, cruel life. )

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I could not imagine behaving in the way you describe, Teresa. I thought - still think - I was lucky to get people here to beta and review queries and synopsis. To expect that to be done is shocking altogether, in any walk of life, not just writing.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

If you want a service, you need to pay for it. We only get to breath for free.

Putting the effort into writing hardly is any entitlement except to get paid if people want it or someone is selling it. I only inflict early versions on willing family and friends.

 

[tinkerdan]

I'm still really unclear what the person the ranter was ranting at was thinking they were entitled to.

The way I see you get what you get when your born and that's about what you're entitled to. The rest you gotta work for.

Of course it doesn't take much time before someone does com along to show you how to use the toilet. Then they take back all the diapers.