AIAI? Wrting Advice Edition

[hannah]

[Asking because I really don't know. Only the usernames have been changed. After this, the conversation moved onto befriending fellow ex-wives of the same man.]

Person 1: I'm trying to finish this chapter. It was done, and then it wasn't, so now I'm adding another scene...
which will suck.

Person 2: it will not

Person 3: But the spirit of the whole thing, that I love. The crazier the better

Person 2: Yes it will NOT suck

Person 4: It will not suck
We hath spoken.

Me: Yeah, it probably will.
Most first drafts do.
And then you'll put in the work to un-suck it.
De-suck it?
What's the proper conjugation here?

Person 2: [Hannah], no.
As previously discussed, telling people their work will suck is not the encouragement you think it is.

Me to Person 2: I'm thinking of every piece of practical writing advice I've gotten from people who do it for a living, and the advice of "the first draft won't be perfect" is high up there. Right up there with "don't be discouraged by frustrating initial efforts."

Person 2 to me: Yes, and I understand that. But how you say it is not this. And we've asked you to stop.

Me to Person 2: To be clear for the future, had I said, "Whatever you write, I'm sure be able to turn it into something astonishing", would that have been okay?

Person 2: yes

[In retrospect, the "it will suck" could have been in reference to the unpleasantness often associated with new, fresh composition to work already thought complete. But as no one else in the group took it in such a way, it didn't hit me to do so as well. So, AITA here?]

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

I don't think you were being an arsehole; your aim was encouragement! But I think 'the first draft will probably suck' can hit differently depending on how a person writes, so how helpful it is to hear can depend on the audience. I do most of my revising as I'm going along, which means my final drafts are substantially the same as my first drafts; if someone tells me my first drafts suck, that's really bad news for me, because it means the finished pieces I post are bad as well.

Basically, if you're talking to someone whose writing approach doesn't include heavy changes after the first draft, 'the first draft will suck' can be heard as 'the story will suck', which I don't think was your intended message at all.

[hannah]

Sometimes I get close to the final draft right away; sometimes it takes a lot of failed starts. I understand what you mean, and I see what I got wrong in this social encounter. Thank you.

[actiaslunaris]

No. You said something pragmatic; it was not received well, though I don't see Person 1's response here, only Person 2's. I see here a miscommunication where your thoughts were different from the general consensus. This doesn't make you wrong.

Lessons from my own experience seem to indicate most people want commiseration/encouragement when they express themselves like this, not solutions. With closeness in the relationship, it's possible to offer the comfort first and then the pragmatic solution, but even then I find it's best to ask first.

I'm sorry this has caused an upset to your day. I've been there. I hope it gets better.

[slaymesoftly]

Since the author was saying they expected the next chapter to suck, I think it was perfectly fair for you to use their own words. Surely no one is so unaware of that to think you were saying that it was no good. You were just saying that rough first drafts often need a lot of work. That isn't true for everyone, for sure, but often enough for it to be a good rule of thumb. I took it to mean "No worries. You'll have the words and can fix them later."

[hannah]

There's been at least one other instance I can remember of me taking Person 1's words at face value, no subtext whatsoever, and them getting upset because of that.

They'd just finished a long fic and said, "I'll never write again." I said, "Okay. What will you do to be creative? Will you knit? Draw?" And they got tremendously mad, because they'd wanted to hear someone tell them "of course you'll write again someday."

Never mind that they've apparently done this every time they've gone through writing a fic longer than 5000 words.

[rosefox]

I have no idea whether you identify as neurodivergent, but this is such a classic ND/NT interaction that I felt a deep pang of sympathy for you. Why can't people just SAY "Please reassure me that I'll write again someday!"?

[hannah]

Person 1 didn't say anything for a while, and I don't know why. I'd have thought they'd have said something right away.

Person 1 and Person 2 are very close. That said, Person 1 is given to the kind of behavior of - not flouncing, not whining, but something adjacent to it where they'll write verbs like "flounce" or "growl" instead of saying outright "I'm having a bad day and could use a few words of support." They're not really one for being pragmatic.

my €0.02, currently worth $0.0235 or £0.0171

[jadelennox]

This one is complicated for me. Personally, I agree with you. I avoid places where people say "no matter what you do, it's awesome!!!!" because I find it unhelpful. It means when something does suck -- as most first drafts do, as you say -- that it's a devastating, totalizing failure. And it also means that I disbelieve all positive feedback. Whereas "yeah, it'll probably suck, but writing it is the first step to writing the awesome final draft," is actual practical encouragement. (That's probably a brain chemistry and personality thing; I don't understand people like Person 2, but I acknowledge that's how they experience the world.)

But, on the other hand, Person 2 also said:

As previously discussed and And we've asked you to stop.

So this is where context is necessary. Is Person 2 representing consensus/mod opinion, or just Person 2 themselves and maybe one or two friends? Did these conversations actually happen in a way where consensus or a mod hath spoken? If so, then you're not the asshole, per se, but you slipped up on a community rule. Also the community culture might not be right for you, if that's annoying to you (as it would be to me).

On the other hand, if Person 2 really meant, God, Hannah, Carl and I whined about this to you last week, before the rest of the community told us to shut up then Person 2 is the asshole.

It also depends on what you know about Person 1. If Person 2 was speaking for them and you don't think they agree, that means something as well.

Re: my €0.02, currently worth $0.0235 or £0.0171

[hannah]

The time I most vividly remember this kind of thing previously being discussed, Person 1 had finished a story about 50,000 words long, and was bemoaning they'd never write again. I said, so what other hobby will you do, are you going to take up needlepoint? And Person 2 told me, don't say that, just offer encouragement. All of this happened in the main chat space.

I'm paraphrasing, but not by much.

It's less the community at large and mostly 1 and 2.

Re: my €0.02, currently worth $0.0235 or

[jadelennox]

That definitely sounds like a person 2 is TA, partially because they are talking like there’s a community rule you’re breaking, and partially because “First drafts usually suck, and that’s OK“ is absolutely encouraging someone to keep writing.

[likeadeuce]

I think what you may be missing is that the first person is saying 'it will suck' with the hope of getting encouragement, not having a critical/philosophical conversation about the quality of first drafts. So your statement wasn't incorrect in general (though consider it might be incorrect specifically, if you don't know this person's writing process; the 'shitty first drafts' approach is NOT universal, some people don't put anything on paper until they have worked it out in their head and it only needs minor tweaks, if any; and I've personally written plenty of scenes that worked great the first time and made it into the final version. So if you are talking to a person who writes that way the subtext they take from it might well be 'because you do not rely on heavy revision to improve your initial drafts, you are an inferior writer and your work DOES suck). Bit in any case, it appears you were misreading what they wanted out of the communication.

Also, perhaps most important here, person 2 is telling you that they have previously discussed this communication issue with you before and, it seems like, after a brief conversation, you were able to work out a better way to handle that specific situation.

Communication is contextual, and a person who is willing to tell you that you've misread a situation is valuable.

[hannah]

I'm used to that kind of "the first draft isn't going to be good" type of phrase being used as collective encouragement in a lot of other fandom and fandom-adjacent spaces. In this case, I thought that telling Person 1 that their first draft wouldn't be good was agreeing with them, and that by removing the pressure to get the first draft perfect would help them get started.

I've never seen their drafts and don't know their process. I don't remember them ever explaining it to me, if it's come up.

In the past, I've echoed Person 1's words back at them - at one point, they said they'd never write again, so I called them on it, asking what else they'd do to be creative, and they got tremendously upset about it because they'd wanted encouragement instead of a challenge or a conversation.

[likeadeuce]

Yes, that seems like more evidence that this person is venting frustration / wanting encouragement/ not asking for advice.

[hannah]

On some level, I was irritated that they couldn't just come out and ask for help. I'll have to figure out how to rein that in for the future. Thank you.

[likeadeuce]

Some people either instinctively or deliberately express despair or put themselves down as a way to get encouragement, and while I can see that getting annoying i think maybe the best way to handle it if it's annoying you is to just ignore it? It's ok if you don't want to be manipulated into an insincere response, but since this seems to be a group chat situation where several ppl ARE ok with responding that way, then just opting out might be best.

[hannah]

It's difficult to ignore because it's done so consistently, and so deliberately. But I'll work on it.

[likeadeuce]

I don't know the whole context of this group, obviously but, again, if she's communicating what she wants to communicate to the extent that at least 3 of her friends are getting it, there is literally nothing wrong with what she's doing (deliberate or not) and it doesn't seem like it's your job to respond in an unwanted way (and, to go back to your original question, frankly, continuing to do so when you know it's not welcome does make you the asshole).

[bonibaru]

^^^^^^^^^^ this.

[bonibaru]

It's a not-uncommon coping mechanism for people who suffer from anxiety, to worst-case things out loud so that their friends will offer encouragement, which can help assuage their anxiety. Based on context that is what seems to be happening here. Based on the fact that you've said it's happened before with this person, that supports the idea that this is their coping mechanism. I agree with the commenter who is saying the best future course of action is to let it go by unremarked. It would go against your own nature to be insincere, and you certainly are under no obligation to change yourself either in this case, so in a situation where two people's forms of communication/response differ this widely, the best thing to avoid confusion or hurt feelings is to just let the social norms play out, let the feedback loop between the person seeking encouragement and the people reinforcing this by offering it in response, complete itself and move on.

[rosefox]

+1 to all the above comments. Person 1 is making what sound like factual statements but have a silent "I fear that" or "I think that" in front of them. This is very very common in people who feel anxious or depressed: their brains tell them a falsehood that sounds like a truth ("Your writing sucks" "You'll never write again"), they believe it, and they repeat it, hoping someone will argue with them and reassure them that their anxiety/depression is wrong.

But you are under no obligation to help Person 1 fight their brainworms. You can just say to yourself, "There goes Person 1, speaking from their brainworms again—welp, not my business," and let Person 2 reply to their friend in the way that they both feel is useful and appropriate.

If for some reason silence isn't an option, you can try asking "What kind of support would be useful to you right now?" or "What kind of response are you looking for when you say things like that?" and then mirror back whatever they say. But it sounds like this is a person who will resent being made to admit out loud that they're looking for a particular response or type of support, because you're supposed to just know. So it's safest to pretend you didn't see it at all—you were up getting a fresh cup of coffee, in the bathroom, waxing the cat, emailing the president, whatever.