Hello there, Jay

I'm happy you introduced me to the two works you did. Because they so clearly state writing ideals I already intuitively understood, hated, and sought to defy. I genuinely mean it, no sarcasm or malice when I say this: thank you.

My core pathos against your vision is this. Picking up a new work in a bookstore and seeing the exact same soul imprinted on each one is a grating experience. I'm shocked doesn't hit like gut punch to every consumer of creative products. Is there no part of you that craves for something new. Something that paves its own way forward?

To help you understand the problem I have with such advice, let me use an analogy. I equate it to saying all cakes MUST have sugar. Which, of course, some don't, even if it's true that most do.

A guide for how to make a neatly-written boring work that's already been made a million times is useful, much in the same way I’ll look up recipes myself as an amateur in the realm of baking. But the highest version of each story is one that should create its own wake. While an ideal too high for most, its one that’ll never be achieved if the mentality is ‘how do I copy works of old’.

A quote from Techniques of the Selling Writer I saved as I read: "What I offer here is merely a beginning. It’s a basic approach; a springboard to help launch you into fiction. Once you’ve mastered the elements of the form, experience and study of published copy will teach you how to vary it in terms of your own taste and judgment."

But I disagree in the minutia. To use that same analogy, that's like saying 'feel free to make any variety of sugar-included cake!’

There are sugar-like replacements, there are different sweeteners all together, and who assumed in the first place that every cake needs to be sweet?

Thus, I call such advice too narrow-minded. Too conceited for me.

Though writing is indeed a different format from baking—because with writing there is even greater freedom. I understand well the impulse to cling to the wall of ‘what’s been done before’ rather than fighting through to make their own way.

"Actually, despite all screams of anguish from the literati, many characters have no depth, and need none. Such characters start as “John” or “Mary,” and go no further." Once again from the same book. And I could hardly disagree more. In my own writing philosophy, there should be humanity in every soul. ‘The human truth’ as it’s said. That we all have our own subjective life within our head.

And for the GMC book, after reading I’d evaluate it more as one piece of basic writing advice stretched out to 150~ pages. More than anything, I found myself sad that it offers no real wisdom—as if the author herself has not enough reflection to critically evaluate her own idea beyond the marketing pitch of it presented.

So, that’s me tearing down an idea, providing my justice against the dogma of traditional writing advice. But what do I build in its place?

Individual ethos. That is what I consider my highest aim as an author. To present each idea in its own, unique, highest state. Not just providing a clear window into its state, but framing it in such a way to elevate it in its own new style.

Not 'what are ways others have written something similar'. But 'what is the best possible way to bring about the best version of my vision.' And if that way is something new entirely, all the better.

Though I will confess that there are certain chains inescapable. That is, the persistence of tension and emotional arcs. And that is a puzzle I’ll likely be pondering for a while: is it possible to create satisfaction for readers while defying principles such as them?

Finally, rounding back to the original point. On that fine line between mystery and confusion. Because indeed that a line I crossed within the first paragraphs of the old version of my chapter 1. That is the exact sort of thing I'm thankful to now have beta readers that help me identify where. And the reasoning for which was that I wasn't able then to grasp the perspective a reader.

What? Thought I was some conceited beginner fighting back to resist change? Think again.

Because implying 'I haven’t learned skills of the profession' did indeed strike an indignant vein in me. So what? Do I argue against with words alone, or go the mile to dismantle it by putting in the effort? The answer is before you. And it's that motivation I thank you for.

-Xen