Creative Writing | In praise of the plodder

By Ron Irwin

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How many times has an author insisted to me that she is a better writer than some bestselling novelist, and thus it ought to be easy to get her published?
 
My reply is always the same and always will be the same: people do not buy “drivel”. They buy books that allow them to have an emotional experience that is superior to everyday life. The writing people buy may be workmanlike, but it is professional, and the stories and the characters have resonance. 

One of the most surprising things about become a writing teacher, for me, has been watching so many B+ students get published over A+ students. Sure, every so often we have a brilliant, quirky manuscript that gets worldwide publication, and that’s great. But the average student I teach who finds publication is a plodder. A hardworking, competent plodder who does not take no for an answer and does not take out their frustrations on his or her agent and publisher is ten times more likely to get published again and again than a genius who thinks the world owes her a living.
 
Please find me an author who has written a book with a clear idea about who will actually buy the thing. An author who can tell me exactly why a publisher should find a place for her manuscript on their list. Give me a polite, well-spoken author with a sellable manuscript who isn’t afraid to edit the thing to remove every single typo. Give me a person willing to set up a website, a Twitter account and a Facebook page to promote her novel. Give me an author who does not give up or get angry when the publisher asks for a revision or an editorial change. Give me an author who does all this reliably and I’ll show you a published author.
 
On the other hand, show me a decent writer who refuses to listen to what her agent and publisher say about her brilliant but flawed and sometimes offensive and possibly libelous manuscript, and I’ll show you a smart crank. Show me an author who refuses point blank to get involved in the marketing of her manuscript and I’ll show you a person who wants her brilliant fiction to be discovered in the back garden, buried in a trunk, in 200 years time. But I won’t be able to show you somebody who burns up the bestseller lists. And, quite frankly, a cranky writer is more trouble than she’s worth. Sooner or later she has a fight – complete with expletive-laden emails – with a perspective or (worse) current publisher, or bails on a contract, or simply decides that the world doesn’t understand her and she needs to go on a retreat to clear her mind instead of doing humdrum things like attending book signings (I speak from bitter experience). These authors are best left to their own devices.
 
Make no mistake about it: brilliant authors deserve their time in the sun. And it takes an egocentric, driven person to spend a year or more working on a manuscript with the belief that thousands of people want to read what she says. But the real myth in publishing, in my honest opinion, is the myth about the reclusive genius whose novels just “happen” to get wonderful reviews worldwide and legions of readers. Even the real recluses in the publishing world tend to hand in perfect, edited manuscripts. They also do a subtle amount of promotional work that most readers are unaware of, like attending writers’ conferences or helping find friendly reviewers. Often they are luminaries in academia or some other semi-related field that brings attention to their fiction. And sometimes they just grit their teeth and do the interviews and show up at the book signings. Even Cormac McCarthy, one of the world’s great reclusive authors, went on Oprah. JM Coetzee went in person to accept his Nobel Prize, gave the requisite speeches, and often is interviewed in online journals. Fact is, professional writers are, for the most part, methodical people. And, most importantly, their work is dependably timely, polished and provocative. They may be a tad eccentric, they may squabble with their peers or have chaotic personal lives, but their work keeps coming. On time, polished and professional.

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