Are writers not as respected as they should be?

[Kyriakos]

I think they aren't, cause most are really utter crap
Hm, i have discovered by now that the vast majority of those in my "profession" (it isn't really one), not only have next to zero things to say/write, but they are approaching what they do as a social relations game, which is really appalling

Thankfully i was afforded not doing so, due to having some groups from my seminar programs that show interest in my book, and a few others who just read it and liked it. But i have by now come to despise how most writers act.

The main issue is that one literally doesn't need to have learned/studied anything at all, so as to become a writer (of fiction at least). It isn't quite like this with painters, cause there a hack is rather glaringly obvious, while here you have to bother reading something first, while up to then those people can smile and present themselves as whatever ^^

This isn't true for all, but it seems to be the norm, sadly. I have met a few who are actually writing something interesting and have ability to express themselves. But i have also met some who... well... really are hacks.

A lot of the following also seems to be happening:

-Is your view of writers more forgiving/positive?

 

[Traitorfish]

I think that writing, as a profession, is probably under-valued. That's probably in part because, as you say, there's really no barrier to identifying oneself as a "writer", so there's no immediate way to tell between serious writers and hacks. Still, there's also a general under-valuing of creative work, and writing in particular suffers from something like the Dunning-Kruger effect, in that a lot of people serious over-estimate their ability to produce long-form writing. As you say, that doesn't apply to visual arts of music in the same way, because even those who don't value that work are usually force to admit that they couldn't produce it themselves.

 

[Kyriakos]

There is a lot of repetition there too

Well, seriously, for me the worst part is the cliques. I don't belong to any of them, but it it a bit annoying. That said, it wouldn't be annoying if i just focus on writing, and it isn't like such traits only exist among writers...

There is a local joke, presenting the agreement between those in cliques to go to one's book presentation so that later on that person will go to theirs: "If you don't come to my funeral i won't go to yours either"

 

[Lohrenswald]

I'm not sure if anyone should be respected

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I think they aren't, cause most are really utter crap
Hm, i have discovered by now that the vast majority of those in my "profession" (it isn't really one), not only have next to zero things to say/write, but they are approaching what they do as a social relations game, which is really appalling

Thankfully i was afforded not doing so, due to having some groups from my seminar programs that show interest in my book, and a few others who just read it and liked it. But i have by now come to despise how most writers act.

The main issue is that one literally doesn't need to have learned/studied anything at all, so as to become a writer (of fiction at least). It isn't quite like this with painters, cause there a hack is rather glaringly obvious, while here you have to bother reading something first, while up to then those people can smile and present themselves as whatever ^^

This isn't true for all, but it seems to be the norm, sadly. I have met a few who are actually writing something interesting and have ability to express themselves. But i have also met some who... well... really are hacks.

-Is your view of writers more forgiving/positive?

Apparently my view of writers is more forgiving than yours, yet you've published professionally and I haven't.

Let's just say this: Would I have hosted Iron Pen on two different forums over a period of ten years (was a competitor before becoming the host on the first forum), joined other writing groups, written and edited fanzines, co-edited a novel for someone who is now a professional fiction writer (before that, his writing credentials included magazine articles and an excellent webcomic), lobbied for the A&E forum here, attended numerous SF conventions where the main guests were authors and editors, and subjected myself to years of NaNoWriMo if I didn't respect writers?

Yes, some of them are not very good writers (Kevin J. Anderson, I'm looking at you). Some write pure formula space opera (a good example of this is E.C. Tubb's Dumarest of Terra series - mostly predictable, every book has stock phrases and situations - and yet I've read the series twice and apparently the final novel did get written and is available Out There Somewhere, for a price completely unaffordable to someone in my income bracket because it's so rare).

And there are some writers whose work I enjoy well enough to fork over the extra $$ for hardcover editions.

Some writers may write well enough that they have lots of fans, but are less than stellar when it comes to actually interacting with their fans. I've become an ex-fan of a few of these people after actually meeting them in person or interacting online.

 

[Perfection]

Everybody writes. I'm writing right now, and I write a lot in the course of my job (engineering). Moreover, I'm good at the kind of writing I do, electrical schematics are a language of their own and it requires a real aesthetic taste to pull off correctly. Now, of course, I can't right a novel or a short story for crap, but it's interesting that what I write doesn't make me a writer but what a novelist writes does.

Writing was invented to keep track of livestock and grain and it was only a very long time after when the novel came out.

I dunno exactly how that dovetails into the questions asked in this thread, but I think it's related so that's why I'm posting it.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Kyriakos; I rather reckon that writers get the respect they deserve.

Some are very good and are much admired.

Others are not so good and are not much liked.

And this is an ongoing thing.

If a writer with a good reputation writes a flawed book, its flaws get noticed.

And like all professions, their reputation is limited to their field of proven expertise.

I may admire a writer for their literary skills, but such admiration does not cross
over into their views on other topics for which they are less informed about.

Where writers do not get the public respect is when they are ghosting i.e. writing the so called
auto-biographies of the otherise famous. Indeed some auto-bios are extraordinarily well written.

Similarly when diligently assisting out with the work of those better known but in aged decline.

There is also a skill in translating a book where it is often difficult to determine how
much credit should go to the original writer and how much to the translator.

 

[Mouthwash]

Apparently my view of writers is more forgiving than yours, yet you've published professionally and I haven't.

You actually think that's determined by quality.

 

[Kyriakos]

How cute, you actually think that's determined by quality.

Not really, i mean in the current flowing-rivers-of-money situation here it is very common for a new writer to be given a free contract, Mouthwash.
The difficult things are more like enlisting with the IDF

 

[Mouthwash]

Not really, i mean in the current flowing-rivers-of-money situation here it is very common for a new writer to be given a free contract, Mouthwash.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be sarcastic or whatever.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be sarcastic or whatever.

You will do fine as a writer, given the acute picking up of connotation.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You actually think that's determined by quality.

I'm honestly confused by what you mean. To me it sounds like Kyriakos has less respect for his own profession than I do. Since he's been paid and for me it's a hobby (although I wouldn't turn down money if it were offered legally), I thought that a bit odd.

Where writers do not get the public respect is when they are ghosting i.e. writing the so called auto-biographies of the otherise famous. Indeed some auto-bios are extraordinarily well written.

Or they might well get that respect if it's publicly known that they ghost-wrote certain books.

Anyone here read the original Star Wars novel (from the movie released in 1977, before Lucas mucked it up)? It's pretty good... because George Lucas didn't write it. It's an open secret that Alan Dean Foster wrote it and included a lot of extra material that was either dropped from the movie or never made it into consideration for the movie in the first place.

Some people praise William Shatner's books, but it's another open secret that he has professional SF authors collaborating with him (the writing team of Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens).

Similarly when diligently assisting out with the work of those better known but in aged decline.

Some authors, when they become ill or aged and want to finish whatever series they've been working on, will hire a collaborator to do most of the writing (or all of it, working from the original author's notes). Sometimes this works so well that the reader can't tell.

One example where it doesn't work is the Darkover novel Rediscovery. I can tell exactly which parts of that book were written by Mercedes Lackey, because the style is different, the characterization is different, and some of it tackles themes that Marion Zimmer Bradley never considered touching in all the decades that she was the sole writer for that series.

 

[Mouthwash]

I'm honestly confused by what you mean. To me it sounds like Kyriakos has less respect for his own profession than I do. Since he's been paid and for me it's a hobby (although I wouldn't turn down money if it were offered), I thought that a bit odd.

Getting published, like all things in a market economy, is based on luck more than anything else. Connections are a distant second. Skill almost never figures in- I've seen astounding writers get completely ignored and most of the authors at my bookstore are terrible.

 

[Kyriakos]

Getting published, like all things in a market economy, is based on luck more than anything else. Connections are a distant second. Skill almost never figures in- I've seen astounding writers get completely ignored and most of the authors at my bookstore are terrible.

Luck is important. Eg for me luck was having had 40 printed stories in literary magazines up to getting a deal for a book. You don't know what you are talking about if you think people publish someone who isn't known if they don't even regard his work very highly. Publishing a book costs money. Think of it as someone giving you 1000 euros cause, whatever, why not?

While it can - and often does- happen that good writers don't get published, it virtually never happens in this economic climate that a bad writer (and unknown) will get published: They will pay for their book, cause publishers are primarily a business.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Getting published, like most other things in a market economy, is based on luck more than anything else. Connections are a distant second. Skill doesn't really figure in- I've seen astounding writers get completely ignored and I most of the authors at my bookstore are terrible.

Yes, I know skill sometimes takes a back seat to luck and connections. I've mentioned co-editing a friend's novel. That was his first novel that he tried to get published, and he was absolutely serious about this; in fact, he quit hosting Iron Pen on the forum so he wouldn't have that to distract him.

He assembled what he called his "E-Team" ("Editing Team") to help him. My role in that was to help him with the technical things like format, how to punctuate dialogue correctly, and other grammatical things. We'd have chats at 3 am about the correct use of semicolons (well, 3 am for me, and noon for him since we lived 9 hours apart at the time). Other people on the team helped him with suggestions for plot, characterization, and consistency. He even ran his letters to potential agents past us, for feedback.

The novel itself was about a young American man who goes to Japan to teach English, and the crazy misadventures he gets into. Personally, I really enjoyed the story... all six versions of it, at approximately 100,000 words each. I still think it's a shame that's not the story his eventual agent managed to sell (the one that did sell was some urban gothic mystery - a genre that's not really my cup of tea, though I am glad he was finally able to get a novel professionally published).


I'm coming at this from the perspective that the profession itself is worthy of respect. I'm quite aware that a lot of stuff that does get published is crap (Sturgeon's Law, after all ). That's why I read so much fanfiction. Most of the Star Trek novels I've seen during the last 20 years or so are just really boring. I even nodded off during the first chapter of a Star Trek novel involving the Department of Temporal Investigations; I love time travel stories, but Christopher L. Bennett is a rather pedantic person to interact with on TrekBBS and his writing style didn't hold my interest past page 2.

 

[Mouthwash]

Luck is important. Eg for me luck was having had 40 printed stories in literary magazines up to getting a deal for a book. You don't know what you are talking about if you think people publish someone who isn't known if they don't even regard his work very highly.

Getting known is still a matter of luck. Are you really a better writer than this guy?

Publishing a book costs money. Think of it as someone giving you 1000 euros cause, whatever, why not?

Profit-seeking doesn't fix the problem; most investors are absolute idiots.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Are you really a better writer than this guy?

Who? I don't see his name anywhere.

 

[dusters]

I have published a lot of stuff online and very little in printed form. The hassle required to get a book out is too much for me and if I don't earn at least 10 eur/hour for writing something very serious, they can stop asking me to publish a collection of my stories.

 

[warpus]

Aside from basic human decency, respect is something that is earned. You don't deserve respect just because you took the time to sit down and write a novel, IMO. Maybe if the proceeds of the book are going to some charity, that's pretty respectable.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's a subjective thing, that of what people think merits respect. I respect people who sit down and write a book if they try to do it well. I don't respect people like KJA, because of all his boasting and bragging, and the fact that he makes no effort to write well. He's the JJ Abrams of Dune - neither Abrams nor KJA understand the source material they work(ed) with; all they see are fans willing to pay $$ for new Star Trek and Dune stories and the quality of the stories is a very distant concern that's barely on their radar. And for some reason they get highly irate or dismissive of people who call them on their sloppy storytelling and can give them solid reasons why it's sloppy.