Before I get to the new series of posts about killing sacred cows of publishing, I wanted to just toss this idea out there.
For a while, I played at playing semi-professional poker, traveling to tournaments, and learning as much as I could from every source I could. (I have a full shelf unit of poker books.) And, as a writer, I liked watching people as well at the poker table, and I came to some conclusions backed up in different ways by different poker experts. Basically, boiled down into my words, there are four basic types of hold’em poker players.
Beginner: This player looks at his cards and that’s all that matters. Often they wouldn’t know a good starting hand, and any two cards suited seems to get this level of player excited. They seldom fold and couldn’t care what any other player is doing, or even what cards are on the board. They are always surprised when they lose.
Intermediate: This player knows decent starting hands, pays attention to the cards on the board, and sometimes even pays attention to other players, but more often than not just gets angry when someone is pushing a pot they want to draw at cheaply. They blame the dealer, blame other players, and want deck changes. They have no real idea what another player has in their hand and often think they should have won a pot when all the clues were telling them otherwise. These players are fond of telling you what cards they laid down that would have won.
Medium Professional: These players fold a lot, are often aggressive players, and know good starting hands. Their focus is still mostly their own cards, but they also can read a flop and have a good idea of what the other players at the table are playing. They win more than they lose and sometimes score big. They are sometimes hard to read, have a vast amount of patience, and can grind out over hours a decent living. Their focus is not only on their own cards, but a great deal on other players and what they hold. They can read some players and can sometimes win with bad hands.
Top Professionals: These players often don’t care a lick what their two cards are, except in showdown situations. Their only focus is WHAT THE OTHER PLAYER THINKS THEY HAVE. They play upper level games and love playing against other players who understand top play as well. They can seem to read your mind, and are fantastic at blocking any reads on themselves. Their table image is critical. They can shift gears instantly from aggressive play to conservative play as situations demand. Again, their main concern is what the other player thinks they have, not what two cards they actually have. It’s why beginning players watch a top player on television win with bad cards and think they can do the same thing at their local poker room. At this level, the cards are secondary in importance.
Now, take that over to writing and let me play through the stages of being a writer.
Beginner:
These writers are focused only on one thing: Writing a good sentence. To this level of writers, sentence-by-sentence writing is all that matters. No clue how to actually build a story or characters or pacing or anything else. Beginners think pretty sentences equal good writing.
Intermediate:
This writer is still focused on sentences, but glimmering of story process is starting to come through. Often this writer does something naturally well and gets praised for it, but this level writer often gets lost and trapped for years in workshops, where people tell them about their sentences, about their grammar, about their syntax, and so on. Understanding story is just a glimmering on the edges and story has no focus to this writer. Writing is still sentences and heaven forbid you change viewpoint in a chapter or paragraph. This level of writer follows “rules” completely.
Early Professional:
This level is starting to get “good” rejections. This writer is starting to understand some of the surface levels of story telling, that plotting and pacing and character voice and cliffhangers are involved beyond just sentences. But mostly the thinking is still just on sentences. This level writer might actually sell a story or two to lower levels, but has no idea what they did correctly in the story that sold. The major flaw with this writer is rewriting. They think that constant rewriting makes a story better instead of actually killing it. You hear these people tell you proudly that they have done a dozen rewrites on something. Of course, they have no idea in each rewrite what is better or worse, but they believe that rewriting always makes things better. Many writers at this level get frustrated and give up after coming close or selling one or two stories. They are also still very trapped by the rules of everything.
Young Selling Professional:
This level of writer has sold some stories, maybe even a few novels. These writers have all the basics of craft under control but often don’t understand that there are higher levels of craft learning yet to come. They are mostly out of workshops that focus on sentences, and their own focus is mostly on story. The good ones, the ones that will continue to move up, are understanding that you can never learn it all in the craft side of writing. They have learned or are starting to learn how to study writing, to get beyond sentences and really look at story structure, at pacing, at character voice, at cliffhangers, at openings and endings and even theme. At this level it is usually a poor decision or two on the business side that stops them, often agents who tell them to rewrite, often bad sales numbers on a book, or worse yet, someone ripping them off in some scam or another. But if this writer’s true passion to tell stories wins over the downturns, they will move onward because they have learned to study and just keep writing. This level of writer is starting to understand that not all the rules are good rules.
Professional Midlist Writers:
Writers in this group are often long term writers who have weathered a ton of business problems, who have kept learning about story and about craft of story, about character voice, about all the thousands of details that make up a good story well told. Often writers in this group have between 50 and 300 novels under their belts, and still love the art, still work to get better. Some are moderate bestsellers, others not. They have been making a decent to great living for a long time and will often tell a bunch of younger writers they were just “lucky.” No real luck involved. This bunch just kept going, kept learning story, and love what they do. This group tends to follow its own rules. I fit right in here.
Long Term Bestsellers:
These writers are the master of story telling, their books can get hundreds and hundreds of thousands of readers to buy them every book. They could not care about sentence by sentence quality for the most part, with everything they do focused on the purpose of moving a story forward and keeping a reader reading. Although some of them are fantastic stylists and it fits with their stories. They are mind control experts, able to make readers all over the planet think exactly what they want them to think at any given moment in their books. They understand completely that there is an audience and readers on the other side of the words and they know the expectations of readers. They know when a reader wants something and gives it to them perfectly. Not every reader will like every bestselling writer, but that just boils down to reader taste. The long term bestseller gives his or her readers exactly what they want. They are the masters of storytelling in all its art.
So, just tossed this in for summer fun. Starting soon a series of posts about killing the sacred cows of publishing. Stay tuned.
Cheers, Dean
Copyright 2009 Dean Wesley Smith
Dean,
I love this analogy. It’s really helpful.
Thanks for this post.
Best,
Leslie
Great post, Dean!
Looking back at myself, especially since my Master Class in 2002, I can see myself in a few of these categories, and boy, the descriptions are so accurate they’re wince-worthy. Here’s hoping I never, ever think to myself “I don’t need to learn that.”
Annie
I’d like to think I’m at the upper boundary of “intermmediate” and just need to keep firing until I break into “early professional.” Though sometimes the feedback I get on some of my stories makes me think I’m worse than a beginner!
Dean, you and Kris hit on STORY — above all else — back in June, and it’s this aspect that has captured me all summer long: how to get back to appreciating STORY and understanding that the words, all by themselves, are just vehicles for STORY.
I’ve been thinking about it in terms of all the old legends we, as humans, told ourselves throughout the ages. I’ve thought about it as I’ve re-screened such recent films as “300″ and “Beowulf.” Neither of these movies is terribly innovative, in terms of plot or subject matter. And it’s not like I didn’t already know both of them — from the top down, including the endings. But their story aspect seems through the roof.
Same with movies like “Jaws,” which we saw in June, or the movie “Valkyrie,” which I actually watched with my fellow Warrant Officer Candidates when we wrapped up WOCS Phase II. We already knew all the details behind the story. We even knew the ending. It didn’t stop us from being riveted by the STORY of the thing.
I’ve been going back through the short fiction I’ve read in the last 12 months and examining the tales that really knocked my socks off and were memorable. Again, high STORY aspect. Not always the most excellent line-by-line craft. Sometimes far from it. But the story was compelling, or moved me, in some way. Often, it took me on a significant journey of some sort, with memorable characters. These seem to be key: have memorable characters who actually go somewhere in the story. Could be a physical journey. Usually it’s an inner journey dovetailed with an outer journey.
Very recently now, whenever I watch TV or read anything new, I am looking hard at the STORY content of what I am seeing. Used to be I’d get so annoyed at some stories or TV shows. To the point of throwing the book or magazine across the room, or simply turning off the television. I used to not necessarily know why. I am beginning to suspect it was because the STORY aspect was deficient, and this annoyed me on an unconscious level?
Or maybe I am overanalyzing it? I dunno.
As per usual, great post, great good for thought. Buzzing.
Gotta go get some words in for the day…
Really enjoyed this. I passed the link on to my writers group.
Dean, I love this. Thanks for posting it.
–Pati (always willing to learn more about writing and poker)
I enjoyed reading this. As a beginning writer with some very minor credits, I tried to slot myself and found that in a less general sense, there are bits of me in a few categories.
Since we, as writers, have different sets of tools we bring to the table, the levels you describe can be applied to different areas. The sentence-by-sentence analogy is apt, but there are other areas of writing: character, plot, voice, etc. where we are beginners in some areas and a level or two above in others.
Great post and one that gives off some great perspective.
Interesting stuff! I guess writing and poker goes together.
J
Omg I love this. I totally see myself now, before, and (hopefully) in the future. It’s exciting. Thanks!
The poker player/writer comparison is apt in many ways.
I’ve never played tournament poker, well, except for a couple of online tournaments, but I’ve played some seriously high end cash poker, and have for forty years. Over the long term, those beginning poker player always lose, but in the short term, they can kill you when they get hot. On a given day, I’d much rather play top pros than amateurs.
And beginning writers are largely why I gave up reading slush. Like beginning poker players, beginning writers sometimes seem to get smoking hot. . .for half a story. Great start, something to the early middle, and then everything goes kaboom and the story just blows up.
It can be maddening to thnk you’ve found a good story and a good new writer, only to have the good writing and good story end about halfway through, with the second half so bad you’d swear it could not have been written by the same writer.
You nailed it, Dean.
I was lucky to find out about and take a year-long online workshop taught by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (no critiques, just lectures and Q&A). (Note to other readers of this blog: They don’t do the workshop anymore. One time thing.)
Just peeked at my notes from then, and it’s all Story, Story, Story lectures for ten months of the workshop. Lectures with titles like: Core idea; Conflict Box; Structure of Story; Characters (long series of lectures on that topic); Expectations of Readers; Theme; Writer’s voice; etc. etc. etc.
Nothing at all about sentence structure. Nothing about grammar. Not once in 12 months.
Dean,
What a great post! Uh, so can one person be all of the above from “Beginner” to “Young Selling Professional” at the same time? Cause that’s what I feel like.
I have eyes on the “Midlist” and “Top Pro” slots, though. Still working toward those!
D.
What a great analogy!
And just like poker players, if you’re gonna be serious about a writing career, you have to go “all in.”
Great post, Dean. Sometimes the hardest part is knowing where you are and being impatient to move to the next level. Not much you can do but work, work, work.
And for myself, I can’t wait for some sacred cow bloodletting to begin . . .
Thanks, Leslie. And Annie, I can’t imagine you ever getting into that mind set, which is why you are such a good writer.
Cheers, Dean
Interesting, thanks for posting it. Looks like I’m one of those stuck on the intermediate stage. Now to figure out how to get out of it. Yeah, work on story. That doesn’t seem to work when I’ve tried it though. That’s one reason for being trapped I think.
Louis
I’m sure you have answered this question before but can we copy these posts for our own use? This is good enough that I think I’m going to have to reread the levels on writing a few times.
And I know someone who wants to break into playing poker. I don’t know for sure but he’s probably a definite beginner. Maybe I could give him a copy of the poker levels.
Louis
Wow. Just…wow. After years of failed attempts at novel-writing I thought it time to really learn the craft of story and structure. I realized I could never get past page 30 because I’d just start wandering story-wise. Nothin’ happenin’. No conflict.
“But,” i’d cry, “I get praise for my sentences! I am a great talent!”
So I studied (ie Read lots of books). Many by women who wanted me to “embrace the interstices” and “write down the bones” and meditate for thirty minutes to quiet discordant voices. All geared toward “fine writing.” none were helpful at all regarding telling a compelling story.
Then I read where Elmore Leonard seeks out fine writing in his own stories and cuts it right the hell outa there. And he leaves out the boring parts. GREAT advice!
But when I found Dwight Swain’s Secrets of Selling Authors I finally learned how to structure a dang scene. (A must read, people!)
Now your post will help me break past the mythology and disinformation out there that tends to stifle and terrify and discourage wannabe writers. Thanks for the heads up. ??
What about voice?
I notice that most of the good, successful authors may not care so much about literary style or sentences or grammar, but they all have a very finely developed narrative “voice” that is easily recognizable, and makes people trust the author, feel at home with them, and this allows the story telling to unfold.
Look at Steven King – not a great stylist, but he has a great voice. Or Elmore Leonard, now that someone mentions it. Sure, he cuts out the fancy stuff, but what he leaves behind isn’t just story, it’s also “voice”.
Like all your analogies to poker, but I think the mistake beginners make when they focus on sentences and grammar, is that they don’t realize what they need to develop is their voice, their own personal rhythm and style, something that not only their readers can rely on, but that they can rely on to get them through difficult sections of writing. Story is of course very, very important, but without a good voice, no one is going to listen to your story. Readers really like to be able to feel that there’s a real person there telling them this story. That’s why they go back to the same writer over and over again. It’s not just that they have found someone who’s good at telling stories, it’s that they’ve found a human voice in the wilderness who they can feel comfortable with an engaged by, who they know they can trust and count on and enjoy being around. The best writers know how to do this.
I notice you do, too.
Conradg, personal voice, writer voice, as you are talking about, it what a writer thinks of as dull. A writer can’t hear their own voice. No writer can because it’s natural to us. When a writer seems to develop more of a personal author or narrative voice is when they stop or major cutback on rewriting. Rewriting, as an English teacher teaches, cuts out the author voice because it seems to be the dull stuff. Long term writers like me have just learned to leave all that in and trust our writing subconscious to just write.
That’s very helpful. I like the notion that re-writing destroys the author’s natural voice, and that maybe this is the best reason not to do much re-writing, other than to fix obvious problems. Never thought of it that way before. It requires trusting in that part of us that we can’t see, but which appears on the page anyway. Altering that perhaps destroys the best part of us and denudes the whole narrative. Really appreciate that insight.
Ken, I agree completely. All of us bring certain elements to our fiction early on, some good, some not so good. I started as a poet, so when writing stories, my setting was always thin, at best. Took me years to figure that out. My intent with this article was just to show the general areas of how we move up through the levels as we learn and keep writing, often with feet planted in a couple of levels at the same time.
Cheers, Dean
Deborah, yup, I think a person can have elements of a number of different stages. None of us move along this path at the same rate or with the same talents and/or problems. And Randy, I agree, at times you do have to go “all in” but only when the time is right. That’s where understanding and learning comes in as well. Knowing when to push in and when to lay the hand down. No rules in poker, just as there are no rules in writing as to when to do what. Everyone is different. It’s what I love about writing. And what I love about poker. It’s never the same and never boring.
Cheers
Dean
Oh, sure, copy them for your own use or forward them. No problem. Just can’t republish them.
Cheers
Dean
Matthew, sounds to me like you are now on a great path. You want myths banged around, keep reading my future posts of Killing Sacred Cows in Publishing. Those posts ought to blow up a few myths for you.
Cheers
Dean