Some experts are useful, telling us what medications to use or which dress to wear to prom (the pink one with frilly sleeves by the way). Others are less useful, telling us how to write the perfect novel or be the perfect mum.
In the vast world of online writing education, experts are seemingly everywhere. But in such a vast ocean, how can you navigate the dangerous swell of crap advice? Being that some are useful, some useless, and others out and out charlatans, how do we approach them? How should writers consult the experts?
Secret Shortcuts.
I have a secret. A simple narrative trick that the publishing gatekeepers don't want you to know. For only $100 dollars, I'll teach you how to write the great novel and how to get noticed by agents, so that publishing houses will be begging to represent you. You can finally achieve your dream of being the next great novelist. People will line up to read your book. You won't believe how easy it is!
And nor should you believe it.
You may have seen this before, pedalled by a moderately intelligent person with an abundance of unfounded confidence. Just because a person speaks as though they have authority, doesn’t mean they have it. And even if they did, there is no shortcut so stop looking.
Knowledge.
To be clear, I’m not a full-blown sceptic about writing expertise. There are real writing experts, and we should see them as having specialised knowledge not available to every old John and Jane.
People who have a lot of experience producing high quality texts, tend to have some reasonable understanding of what works and what doesn’t. When Steven King says "the road to hell is paved with adverbs", he's onto something. Adverbs are easily overused, and it's not simply one of many equally valid opinions.
Likewise, there are writers who know a few things about how to write excellent dialogue, or build coherent plots, or select the exact right tea (Earl Grey) for a sunny autumn morning.
Reasons.
Despite the fact some experts really do know things, it's not the particles of knowledge that matter, these little facts and titbits, rather it's the reasons they give.
We should not listen to Steven King just because he says adverbs are dangerous. We should listen to him because he offers a number of compelling reasons (see On Writing). Likewise, you should not drink Earl Grey on sunny Autumn mornings just because I say. You should do it for the compelling reasons I assure you I have.
Much of what we think of as knowledge isn’t really about the facts per se. It’s about the process by which we’ve come to those facts. In science, it’s the empirical method. In the humanities, including creative writing, it’s a process of justifications. It’s reason.
Confidence.
You know what’s more persuasive than good reasoning? A donut filled with chocolate cream. Well that and a bucket load of confidence. Just look at every demagogue and success coach in history and you'll see it unbridled and overflowing.
You’ll see a great many writing coaches and like speak with total confidence. And all you need to do is follow what they say for perfect novels, fresh out of the oven, every single damn time.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with confidence per se. But in writing, confidence isn't all that justified, because aesthetic and intellectual judgements are deeply subjective. So, I argue, the experts that matter are the ones who demonstrate their doubt. The ones who teach from the point of view of their own evolving explorations. This shows they are aware of their own fallibility. It shows good thinking rather than right answers.
Function.
Having said everything I just said about who to believe, it might not even matter that much. What good is knowledge if you can’t use it? That being the case, what ultimately matters is not even if an expert is correct or not, but whether their instruction is useful to our progress.
I read philosophy, not because I want to know what to think, but because it stimulates my own thinking, expands my range of possible thoughts, and makes me pay the kind of close attention a lazy gamer so often lacks.
The same goes with writing experts. Some will make you more productive. Some will improve your process. Some will improve the quality of your work. Which experts should you consult? Easy. The ones who reliably improve you as a writer. Little else matters.
Reflection.
Learning isn’t about what you take in. It is about how you yourself process it. So try these reflection questions for yourself:
Are there such things as writing experts?
What makes someone an expert or not?
Who are your favourites? Why?
Do you uncritically accept the advice of experts?
How has expert advice improved your writing?
How has it set you back?
👏 well said