Five Things Your Writer Friend Is Tired Of Hearing
Do you know someone who writes? Whether they’re a dabbling hobbyist, an author in the process of publishing, or somebody with three books currently out and more on the way *cough*, your writer acquaintance is probably tired. Specifically, they’re probably tired of hearing these five things. (I’m sure they have other things to be tired about as well, but I can almost guarantee these grievances are in the mix).
“Can I Have A Free Copy Of Your Book?”
I’m not entirely sure why this specifically happens with the creative professions. You would never ask your friend who’s a doctor for a free colonoscopy. You wouldn’t ask your friend in construction to build you a pool for nothing. You wouldn’t ask your accountant friend to do your taxes for free (or maybe you would. Dick move if so.) Yet, creative people are supposed to give their work away, and are jerks for daring to ask to be compensated for it.
Plus, if your writer friend is working on a book, and you want to read it but are short on cash, there are so many ways you can do so, and still help your friend, for no money! Ask to be a beta reader, or ask for an ARC and leave an honest review of the book when it’s released. (And please don’t use these things as a way to ghost your friend for a free book. That’s not cool.) I totally get that books are a luxury for some, and we all fall on hard times. But it’s pretty insulting when a friend shares something they’re working really hard on, and your immediate reaction is, “How can I get thing that benefits me for nothing in return?”
“Can You Write Me Into Your Book?”
Andy Warhol said that in the future, everyone would be famous, but only for 15 minutes. The way to get your slice of the fame pie is not to beg to be a character in your writer friend’s story.
Now, it’s different if the author bases a character on someone they know of their own volition. I even get the appeal of wanting your super cool D&D character to be immortalized in somebody’s fantasy story. But most of the time, the people strongly hinting that their writer friends write them into a book mean them. Like, “I’m Joe Schmo, and I’m so interesting that there should be a book about me. My life is so crazy!”
Listen, Joe Schmo, I hate to break it to you, but going through two divorces and taking a cruise to Mexico last summer doesn’t make you interesting.
“I Have A Cool Book Idea. You Should Write It For Me.”
This sort of goes hand in hand with the point above. I need two hands to count the number of requests I’ve gotten to be someone’s unpaid ghostwriter since I started publicly writing. Yes, unpaid – having a book idea but not the time/perseverance/inclination to write it is perfectly fine if you’re willing to pay someone else to do the job. But the people I’ve had contact me think I’m just strapped for ideas, I guess, and I should take valuable time away from the two series I’m working on to write their book for them, just because the idea is that good.
Requests range from “my life is very exciting, write my biography,” to “I’ve spent 10 years building this world, but I need characters to, like, do things in it.” This may sound a little harsh, but honestly, ideas are a dime a dozen. Having a cool idea is incredibly easy. It’s incredibly hard to draft a coherent story out of that idea, then have the follow-through to subject it to critique and editing, and finally publishing. If you want to outsource that part of the writing process to someone else, be prepared to pay them for their work.
“Are You Getting A Movie/TV Deal?”
Maybe it’s the fault of movies and TV shows themselves, but some people seem to think that all writers are just using publishing books as a stepping stone to the real action. This may surprise you, but there are a ton of writers out there, making a living off their work, and they don’t have any movie or TV deals in the works. And they’re fine with that. Frankly, not all authors want their work to be brought to the screen, big or small. Some stories just work better in books — if the author wanted to write a movie, they would’ve written a movie script. Not to mention that some people don’t want to see their work get bastardized to a more marketing-friendly TV or movie version.
Less than a fraction of a percent of all authors ever get approached about turning their stories into movies or TV shows, let alone actually have that project come to fruition. Adaptations are notorious for getting mired in development hell before being abandoned. Lots of authors don’t want to put themselves through that crap, even if their work is a bestseller.
“Yeah, I’m Gonna Write A Book Too, As Soon As I Get Around To It.”
For some reason, when an author tells other people that they write, there’s always someone who comes out of the woodwork as a frustrated novelist. They’ve never mentioned it before, but now all of a sudden they’re planning their memoir, or they had a cool dream three years ago that would definitely be the next NYT bestseller, if they just got around to writing the book.
Saying something like this is frustrating because it implies, once again, that the cool idea is the main ingredient in making a book happen. The act of writing it is easy, once the would-be author “gets around to it”. There’s no self-discipline, ability to edit, or talent involved, just a chunk of time in your schedule needing to be blocked off. It’s a pompous, out-of-touch thing to say. And, as the old saying goes, “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you famous?”
