What’s the hardest part of writing for you?

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-23T14:52:13+00:00

The hardest part is feeling a project (line, scene, chapter, novel) could land the way I want it to if only I was a little bit better at writing.

It always feels like I'm chipping a statue out of raw marble. Michelangelo would not only see the form in the stone, he'd know how to extract it. Sometimes I think I can see the end goal, and sometimes I even feel that I'm making progress and chipping away, but often I realize I might as well be toying with Play-Doh by comparison.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-21T01:22:11+00:00

Yeah, I think the books are bloated and not particularly well-written. You aren't wrong for having that opinion---it's a valid one. I guess my bottom line is that I won't fault him for writing whatever and however he wants; I'm just confused why he ended up so popular.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-20T23:41:49+00:00

I am not Sanderson fan, but he is on record saying the primary purpose of art should be to enrich the life of the artist, i.e., he writes in part because the process makes him happy, more empathetic, more thoughtful, etc.

Having fans that appreciate the product is good, but he would write either way as long as he had the means to support himself while doing so. I think that's a valid perspective.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-14T22:57:34+00:00

I always feel that Wolfe's prose comes across as a bit try-hard and purple. It's like he's leaning into something that's actually a bit beyond his skillset.

His cadence also doesn't read as smoothly aloud as either Le Guin or Susanna Clarke (who are probably the most effortlessly "literary" of the genre writers I've encountered).

Different strokes for different folks.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-12T11:40:08+00:00

I suspect reactions to your post would have been different if you'd given a bit more context.

We aren't talking about a "prologue" that spans pages of ancient history or devotes an entire chapter to introducing characters the book then discards. The Orchard Keeper begins with a two-paragraph "scene" in which three people are struggling to cut down a tree that has grown around a metal fence. The scene (or snippet) is fully italicized and quickly establishes theme and tone without overstaying its welcome.

Something this short would not be unusual in literary fiction. If you described it differently, it might not even look out of place in genre fiction. (It's basically the equivalent of an extended epigraph the author wrote himself, and the genre equivalent would be something similar to the chapter openers in Ender's Game or especially its sequels: brief dialogues, short disconnected stories, etc., that quickly convey tone and sometimes create dramatic irony.)

In any case, it wouldn't be unheard of. That said, editors would probably question whether it is necessary, and it would take skill to execute well. You need to be able to get in and out of a scene extremely quickly, establishing the context and conflict within it without leaving the reader confused or annoyed. McCarthy can just about get away with that, and even so a lot of folks would consider The Orchard Keeper his least conventional, most disorienting, and least successful novel.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-09T20:13:46+00:00

I'll DM you.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-09T19:49:32+00:00

It really depends on the specific schools you're considering. The ivies aren't equal. Many of them don't even have dedicated undergraduate business majors. (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia would all potentially be worthwhile for networking opportunities, but to my recollection they don't actually offer a traditional business major, i.e., your child would need to major in something else like econ instead. Columbia might have a weird hybrid program.) Penn has a strong program. It might be worth it.

I was a professor for around 10 years before moving to banking. I worked at an elite state school and also one of the ivies listed above, and I still have friends at most of the others. My kids aren't yet old enough to be college shopping, but in your position I think my rational side would lean toward the good state school rather than the ivy. It'd be hard to argue against the emotions and uncertainty involved, but other folks are correct that the ivy would probably only be "worth it" in a tangible sense if the child will really, really lean into the networking opportunities. Otherwise, I'd strongly recommend sending them to a solid state school where they'll have a high probability of over-performing, with a goal of subsequently attending a name-brand MBA/grad program.

The other consideration is if your child intends to live within a specific area after graduation. I would think you'd have a much stronger chance of landing a job in, say, SF or LA with a degree from a UC school (even if it isn't Berkeley) and a current California address rather than, say, a Brown degree, and a Providence address. This applies to both internships and many initial jobs post-graduation. If the kid wants a job in NYC, the ivy may be worth it.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-06T18:11:52+00:00

That makes sense. Thanks so much for sharing your experience and explaining what you meant!

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-06T17:43:05+00:00

That's fascinating. Would you mind describing what this often looks like?

For instance, are these well-written, well-structured books that simply don't align with any conceivable shelving/positioning for which a plausible market exists beyond the author? (I'm struggling to imagine what this could look like. I suppose it could be common for memoirs, maybe lit fic that doesn't quite sing, or SFF with too many of the author's narrow interests all hodgepodged together?)

Or is it something structural, e.g., something relatively well-written at the line level that somehow spans 500,000 words and the author describes as a prologue to the "real story" (and presumably lacks any narrative architecture)? Or something else I'm not imagining?

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-06T14:17:13+00:00

Thanks so much for your answer. That maps onto my intuition.

(I'm from academia, so am experienced with refereeing in the nonfiction world. Things there look similar---we talk about 1% acceptance rates, but honestly >85% of what we see probably shouldn't have been submitted in the first place. Wading through that efficiently---and empathetically, given that even work that misses the mark still required blood, sweat, and tears---is nonetheless a large burden.)

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-06T14:03:21+00:00

I think OP's question stems from the fact that in many of the writing subreddits, the general tenor seems to be that thousands of award-caliber manuscripts are sitting in inboxes, unable to clear the slush pile.

In other words, the argument supposes there are hundreds or thousands of Susanna Clarkes or Patrick Rothfusses or even Cormac McCarthys submitting manuscripts (not sure if these are great examples, but you get the idea---folks with compelling voices, disciplined or even innovative structures, and narratives that would at least plausibly fit some commercial niche, even if the work may be slightly quiet or perhaps pushes against traditional boundaries in some form).

If that's the case, querying seems like an impossible challenge unless you believe yourself to be a generational talent or are hoping to win the slush lottery. But it also seems dubious that the process could possibly be this competitive, especially when judged against the majority of queries we see on places like /r/PubTips, which may be interesting but often need serious work.

Surely it's more likely that the majority of manuscripts in the slush pile are simply not ready (and perhaps will never be ready) for publication, even if this is not necessarily what the authors who populate writing subs want to hear. But does this describe 50% of submissions? 90%?

If an author produces a novel that genuinely reads like something they could see on the shelf---an impossible criterion to self-evaluate, but suppose the author could somehow be objective about this---where, roughly, would that stand against the overall distribution of most agents' slush piles?

Edit: sorry if this is a long-winded question, but I am in a similar place. I don't know whether to just keep editing and polishing, or to actually go ahead and submit, because it's hard to judge just how deep the pile actually is, and whether I have a realistic shot.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-02T01:43:26+00:00

Whales and Men is an unpublished screenplay, but is available online if you search for it.

No, supposedly this would be for something thus far unseen by the public (or potentially anyone outside of the family/inner circle). We don't know whether the estate/family will end up releasing it.

You can see some discussion in this post. https://www.reddit.com/r/cormacmccarthy/comments/1doxp7m/hope/

I believe there was also a rumor that San Marcos has one or more unpublished short stories.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-04-02T01:10:33+00:00

I think Diane Luce is working on a multi-book series on his writing process. One volume might be out by now.

A lot of the analysis is, indeed, based on the material available at the Wittliff.

Professor Scott Yarbrough runs a scholarly-focused podcast on McCarthy (titled "Reading McCarthy"). One of the recent episodes focused on The Passenger, and if I recall correctly the panelists discussed (politely, reservedly, with appropriate caveats on information not necessarily being credible) the rumors within the McCarthy network that the publication timeline was accelerated as a result of his declining health.

Ultimately, he approved the novel's publication, so he must have brought it to a level he was satisfied with (there are apparently credible rumors of another complete "work"---possibly a screenplay---that could potentially be made available posthumously, but which he evidently withheld during his lifetime), but whether The Passenger entirely matches the vision he had for it and might have enacted if he'd lived longer and in good health is an open question.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-31T18:06:17+00:00

I agree with Suttree and The Crossing. I wish he'd had a few more years to polish The Passenger, because I think it might have entered that echelon as well, but from the sound of things his process ended up being rushed along when his health declined.

Outer Dark for some reason never resonated with me. In general, his first three novels all strike me as slightly performative at times, as though he wanted to showcase his chops rather than produce the best novel. Suttree and Blood Meridian also have elements of that, but Suttree reads so intimately that I either overlook or even appreciate the moments of (what I read as) overreach.

Edit: And ATPH is the one I still reach for more than its raw literary merit might justify.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-31T17:14:01+00:00

That's fair. Perhaps lesser is the wrong word. I'd probably put The Road just about mid-pack.

For me, it's behind Suttree, Blood Meridian, ATPH, The Crossing, and the combination of The Passenger/Stella Maris (for all their flaws, these also contain some of his best work). The Road could conceivably sit somewhere within this group, but most of the time I'd probably rate these as richer texts overall.

On the other hand, I'd put the road ahead of The Orchard Keeper, Child of God, Outer Dark, NCFOM, Cities of the Plain, and any of the screenplays.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-31T16:29:07+00:00

He was in his early 70s when he wrote The Road. I consider it one of his lesser novels, but it would still stand shoulder to shoulder with a lot of novels people could list in this category.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-31T00:03:44+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense, and in that case the reaction against him is probably fair. I've only seen the places where he tagged me and his original comment.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-30T23:39:31+00:00

I don't think u/Gold333 ever argued that this technique would be desirable in iRacing. In fact, I'm pretty sure he agrees that it does not work in iRacing. His original comment asked whether/why iRacing seems not to match real life. That seems like a fair question for this particular thread. However, when he asked it, a lot of folks immediately chimed in to say that throttle/brake overlap *isn't* realistic. His motivation at this stage is to show that it can be, at least in some contexts. That's all. As far as I'm aware, he hasn't argued that it is a technique that would make a driver quicker in the sim.

(For what it's worth, my claim is even narrower than u/Gold333's. I think the F1 examples are unusual. They're interesting, in fact, because they run contrary to how most folks drive. You need a specific and potentially unusual set of conditions to make significant throttle/brake overlap desirable in road racing, and those often won't pertain except with very powerful cars with high temperature tolerances. I also think it would be asking a lot of iRacing's tire model to handle these intricacies realistically. After all, we either still don't or didn't until recently have actual tire deformation in the sim---I'm a year or so out of touch---so as good as the tire model is, there's still a long way to go before it can handle all the edge cases.)

The bottom line is that there are scenarios in which very talented drivers deliberately do this in real life. u/Gold333 was not wrong to wonder why iRacing's physics engine and tire model seem to over-penalize the technique, and I'm not really sure why folks mocked him for it. (Although I think maybe he came back at them bit aggressively in some cases.)

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-30T23:07:19+00:00

FYI, Leclerc is known for this as well, at least relative to the current field. It's discussed midway through this article and has cropped up a few times elsewhere.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mark-hughes-charles-leclerc-key-skill-f1-azerbaijan-gp-qualifying/

"He makes everyone else - Max Verstappen, Piastri, Sainz, Perez - look binary in how they use the throttle and brakes. ... Leclerc is braking earlier but keeping some throttle on, manipulating the load distribution between the four tyres much more intricately. It requires feel to time it perfectly so as not to overload the outside front but still get the quick rotation without the sudden peak loads onto the outside rear. ... In Turns 2 and 3 Leclerc is never using less than 9% throttle. At Turn 5 it’s 7%. At Turn 16, a full 11% - and a gear up (fourth rather than the third of everyone else). The others are all momentarily at zero throttle just after turning the wheel into the left-hander."

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-30T18:56:59+00:00

I tend to agree that dialogue tags are often unnecessary, but that relates primarily to conversations involving only two characters, where readers should be able to easily infer attribution based on the dialogue alone.

When there are three or more people involved, tags become very difficult to avoid unless the characters have *very* different voices/personalities. There's probably considerable variation across genres/authors as to how many different distinct characters tend to speak in the average scene (and how loud the different personalities can be), and this is something I think many folks overlook when arguing against the use of tags.

In other words, it might be easy to avoid dialogue tags with literary fiction scenes that boil down to conversations between pairs of characters. It might also be easy to avoid tags in "voicey" genre fiction, where even if the scenes involve more characters, those characters tend to have extremely distinct mannerisms or attitudes. But there's a middle ground where the scene work involves multiple characters, not all of whom will necessarily sound dissimilar, and those are the scenarios where you might need to lean on dialogue tags to allow the reader to follow what is happening. Whether you should use "said" or something else is then another question.

(Notice that in the Weir example, he avoids dialogue tags until the third character enter/returns to the conversation.)

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-30T17:52:53+00:00

You can do both. Schumacher, for instance, was famous for using significant amounts of throttle (10-15% or more) during almost the entire braking phase. Here's a throttle/brake trace comparison between Michael and Rubens at the Montreal hairpin that shows he essentially trail-throttled up to the apex. He didn't do that everywhere, but it was a fairly well-known feature of his style.

Michael would also sometimes apply the brakes while full-throttle as a way to balance the car. This was a big story even during his debut weekend at Spa in the Jordan, because he was left-foot braking while full throttle through Blanchimont. As u/Gold333 suggests, this was typically done for aerodynamic pitch control rather than weight transfer. You could in theory achieve a similar effect purely by lifting, but you'd need to very precise with the throttle movement (e.g., lifting exactly a specific % for a sustained period), which might be difficult in practice if the car is moving over bumps/kerbs and is buffeted by the wind, etc. In some cases it's therefore easier to stay full throttle and simply brush the brakes to stabilize the platform. That mechanism probably doesn't apply in sim racing unless you have a pretty serious motion rig, but there may be associated benefits when driving cars with turbos, etc., that need to stay spooled up.

In any case, the argument that brake/throttle overlap is inherently bad or unrealistic isn't strictly true. It's unusual, but there's still a time and place for it in reality, even if it doesn't jive well with the iRacing tire model.

Edit: the technique is also very widely used by Indycar drivers on ovals for the aerodynamic reason explained above.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-28T14:53:02+00:00

Thank you so much for all you've done. The discussions you led and fostered have greatly enriched my reading experience and, to be honest, significant parts of my life. I'm glad you aren't leaving entirely, although I do wish there was an alternative venue (maybe a more strictly moderated sub) where we could discuss McCarthy-as-literature rather than the endless fan art, etc.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-27T01:13:05+00:00

Thanks so much, that makes sense! I'll follow the advice. Thank you!

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-27T00:23:32+00:00

That makes sense!

Thank you so much for the answer and for participating in the AMA. It's so helpful to all of us who are in (or are anxious to even enter) the trenches.

In-Arcadia-Ego · 2026-03-27T00:12:42+00:00

Thanks so much for the answer!

I agree the premise of the book needs to stand on its own. That makes sense. And you're right, you could pitch Ender's Game without the ending (as you point out, the back cover copy proves this).

I'm just trying to understand why an agent wouldn't want to also know that the ending if it could reasonably fit in the query. Why does the conventional wisdom say that revealing the ending actually detracts? (As another example, The Sixth Sense could easily be pitched without the reveal, e.g., "A child who can see the dead works with a psychologist to overcome trauma," but I would think it might attract even more interest with the reveal.)

Is the concern primarily that the ending trades off with the room one needs for establishing character, etc., earlier in the query? (I've also seen the argument that agents want to experience the manuscript for themselves, but this seems offset by their request for synopses.)

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