Advise and Consent

When it comes to advice, it is better to give than to receive. Advice is cheap, requires little effort to give, and is easily washed off your hands. It doesn’t always require much thought. As long as you’re not easily offended, there is even an upside to your advice being rejected.

As an Air Force crew chief, minister, and registered nurse, I’ve given a great deal of advice, most of which was quickly rejected. I didn’t mind because rejection is absolution from responsibility. When I became a writer, I found it necessary to take more advice than I gave. There were two reasons for that turn of events.

First of all, there was a knowledge/experience gap. I had never written any fiction longer than a couple thousand words, and none meant for anyone else to read for enjoyment. A teacher’s grade for technical correctness and a reader’s emotional reaction are worlds apart, and the difference between a student and a professional writer.

I read other writers’ opinions that there are no rules to writing. I would advise them to rethink that opinion. Yes, there are famous authors who told rather than showed, never met a verb that didn’t need an adverb, wrote things they didn’t know, and broke every other rule imaginable. I am confident they did not do so for lack of knowledge.

The other reason has more to do with human nature than rules and skill. According to the women who know them best, men are notorious for having selective hearing. I offer no counter-argument and have learned not to provide an explanation for why it is so. When it comes to seeing our own faults, both sexes are equally at fault. We are blind to our own mistakes…like the ones saying to themselves, “Not me”, right about now.

One of the pluses to self-publishing is that you are in complete control. Being in complete control is also the greatest drawback to self-publishing. I’ve stared my mistakes in the face and not been able to see them. Listening to advice provides another set of eyes and a chance to re-evaluate. That’s much harder to do and not nearly as enjoyable.

Jack LaFountain

Author of Letiche Moon