Quantum Storytelling

In The Midnight Disease, Alice W. Flaherty writes:

“Writers in love with their tools are not unlike surgeons obsessed with their scalpels, or Arctic sled racers who sleep among their dogs even when they don’t have to. Another difference between amateur and professional writers, almost by definition, is that the latter more successfully engage their audience. It is partly a question of skill, but more often a matter of goals. Amateur writers tend to write primarily for self-expression, whereas writers able to become professional can hide or transform their own agendas enough so that they are of interest to others.”

What I find interesting is how many writers I’ve stumbled across, even published ones, who are not entirely in love with their tools. Perhaps it is the like or dislike of one tool over another, but it seems as if many writers have a very limited set of favorite tools, or their only tool is writing itself as a means of self-expression. By Alice W. Flaherty’s definition that would make them amateurs?

The other interesting part is where she notes the ability to hide or transform agendas enough so that they are interesting to others. This is a key bone I have to pick with both fellow writers and many people I know within the game industry. There is a common phrase within the game industry that goes: “I like to make games that I enjoy playing.” Which of course begs the question, “But do others enjoy playing the games you enjoy making?”

The route to self-expression is easy. Just write. Just create. Make stuff. Make whatever you want. That’s the easy part. Getting other people interested in what you’re doing is the hard part. People often give that job to the marketing departments. It’s the creator’s disinterested ego that says, “Selling it? Bah. I’ll leave that to somebody else. I just like making stuff.”

Yet the very same creative person who abdicates all marketing control and shovels it off to a marketing department somewhere, will upon failure, turn right around and blame the marketing department of the publisher for that failure. Is that not only ignorant, but grossly hypocritical? This is why ‘professionals’ enjoy giving up 85% or greater of their profits to publishers. The writer who cares nothing for the interest of others, or selling their work, has only earned 15%. If you want control, take control. If you abdicate control, do not be upset with the results.

Until you can create for the interest of others or take charge of your own marketing, you only get 15%. Want more? Then step up!

If your goals are not commercial, why not just be an amateur? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Yet I sense that amateurs crave the prestige of the professional title, without having to bear the responsibility of being a professional by creating interest for others and selling the work.

It all depends on your goals. What are yours?