Being an "Author": The Bottom-Up Approach

[SimonDoom]

Debates often pop up in this forum about whether one is an "artist" or just a smut-teller. Or whether one is an artist or a craftsman. Or what it even means to be an "artist."

I don't think about these things at all when I write. I firmly believe that way too many authors get waylaid by pointless internal debates about whether they are really a "writer" or an "author" or an "artist," as though it's a secret society and they're not sure whether they are worthy of belonging.

My attitude is that if you write you are a writer. A great artist is a great craftsman. Rather than starting from first principles and working your way down, start by mastering, the best you can, the nuts and bolts of writing and working your way up. Read a lot. Figure out what great writing means to you by getting experience with it. Study writing and its elements. Learn what you like. Figure out how to handle dialogue and narrative and description. Figure out what the parts of speech are and how to use them in interesting ways. There's an infinite amount of guidance out there. Take advantage of it.

This approach will rub some people the wrong way, because many people seem to want to believe that art is something completely different from everything else. It's magical and mystical and deeply personal. A matter of inspiration rather than perspiration. I don't buy it. I don't think building a good story is that different from building a good chair. I don't want an inspired chair builder. I want one who knows the craft of chair building. I want the same from writers of stories I read.

Everybody would agree that Michaelangelo was a stupendous artist. But he didn't achieve his status by figuring out "what it meant to be a great artist." He started on the ground floor and worked tirelessly to master the craft of sculpture. Then, eventually, he created The David, and everybody recognizes it's great art. There's no conflict between craft and art. Be the best craftsman you can be and you will maximize your chances of creating good art.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

This approach will rub some people the wrong way, because many people seem to want to believe that art is something completely different from everything else. It's magical and mystical and deeply personal. A matter of inspiration rather than perspiration. I don't buy it. I don't think building a good story is that different from building a good chair. I don't want an inspired chair builder. I want one who knows the craft of chair building. I want the same from writers of stories I read.

The advice, "Just write", is frequently offered here, and I don't necessarily disagree with it. What isn't often explained is what comes next.

Where writing is concerned, it is easy for most to get started. This is a good thing in my opinion.

It is a better thing to not stop where you started. Remain humble and hungry for the skills that will make you better.

Michelangelo served several apprenticeships to master his crafts years before he was considered an artist, by himself or by others. Should any writer expect to do less?

If someone wants to give themselves a participation award title of "artist", they are completely free to do so. If their artistry isn't acknowledged, respected, or revered to the degree that they expect, I hope that they understand why.

 

[SimonDoom]

The advice, "Just write", is frequently offered here, and I don't necessarily disagree with it. What isn't often explained is what comes next.

Where writing is concerned, it is easy for most to get started. This is a good thing in my opinion.

It is a better thing to not stop where you started. Remain humble and hungry for the skills that will make you better.

Michelangelo served several apprenticeships to master his crafts years before he was considered an artist, by himself or by others. Should any writer expect to do less?

If someone wants to give themselves a participation award title of "artist", they are completely free to do so. If their artistry isn't acknowledged, respected, or revered to the degree that they expect, I hope that they understand why.

I don't disagree with this. My "bottom-up" philosophy is one of continuing to try to move up rather than staying at the bottom. But, in my view, you do that by continuing to master the craft.

 

[Erozetta]

For me the only difference between the three examples of work is the marketability of the final product. An author is widely marketable. A writer might be marketable at a smaller scale. An artist is usually marketable at a niche level, but sometimes they create a microburst of interest in their niche.

Well written things aren't always marketable. Marketable things aren't always well written. Both can be art.

I believe we're artists learning a craft as we go. Many here have advantages that others don't in the process, whether that advantage is a wild imagination that allows for creativity and novel explorations of concepts, a knack for telling a story in a compelling way, or the base of grammar and structure in language, the advantage exists and they all give a baseline of skills that start strong and skills that needs to improve.

The difficult part is figuring out how and what to improve without losing your own voice and drive in the process. To lose either can ultimately make your work blend into the background in a way that makes it dull while still being extremely well written at a technical level.

It's not just learning the skills, though. It's also learning how to best balance those skills to make them work for you. We can all come to vastly different conclusions about the right balance on things, and we can all be right because our conclusion is what works for us personally. Someone else might benefit from knowing what works for us as individuals and might be able to find their own best blend of skill from reading about the differences in our processes.

Writing doesn't have a single pathway to betterment. It can be winding and intersectional paths that are well worn or it can be ones that you carve out as you go. The well worn paths are the safe and secure ones that are the expected paths, but sometimes you've gotta try something new and be willing to fail at it, just to see what happens.

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

The advice, "Just write", is frequently offered here, and I don't necessarily disagree with it. What isn't often explained is what comes next.

Where writing is concerned, it is easy for most to get started. This is a good thing in my opinion.

It is a better thing to not stop where you started. Remain humble and hungry for the skills that will make you better.

Michelangelo served several apprenticeships to master his crafts years before he was considered an artist, by himself or by others. Should any writer expect to do less?

If someone wants to give themselves a participation award title of "artist", they are completely free to do so. If their artistry isn't acknowledged, respected, or revered to the degree that they expect, I hope that they understand why.

If it wasn't for participation awards, I wouldn't have any at all

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

For me the only difference between the three examples of work is the marketability of the final product. An author is widely marketable. A writer might be marketable at a smaller scale. An artist is usually marketable at a niche level, but sometimes they create a microburst of interest in their niche.

Well written things aren't always marketable. Marketable things aren't always well written. Both can be art.

I believe we're artists learning a craft as we go. Many here have advantages that others don't in the process, whether that advantage is a wild imagination that allows for creativity and novel explorations of concepts, a knack for telling a story in a compelling way, or the base of grammar and structure in language, the advantage exists and they all give a baseline of skills that start strong and skills that needs to improve.

The difficult part is figuring out how and what to improve without losing your own voice and drive in the process. To lose either can ultimately make your work blend into the background in a way that makes it dull while still being extremely well written at a technical level.

It's not just learning the skills, though. It's also learning how to best balance those skills to make them work for you. We can all come to vastly different conclusions about the right balance on things, and we can all be right because our conclusion is what works for us personally. Someone else might benefit from knowing what works for us as individuals and might be able to find their own best blend of skill from reading about the differences in our processes.

Writing doesn't have a single pathway to betterment. It can be winding and intersectional paths that are well worn or it can be ones that you carve out as you go. The well worn paths are the safe and secure ones that are the expected paths, but sometimes you've gotta try something new and be willing to fail at it, just to see what happens.

I had a friend who always joked that authors are the ones who get paid. The rest of us are writers.

 

[Erozetta]

If it wasn't for participation awards, I wouldn't have any at all

And I'm of the opinion that awards are mostly worthless because they often just confirm a natural affinity for the thing being awarded rather than using a metric of actually learning and improving within the thing. I don't need confirmation that I'm good at something that takes no actual effort from me. But to see someone put in the effort and not have that effort recognized is difficult for me.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

If someone wants to give themselves a participation award title of "artist", they are completely free to do so. If their artistry isn't acknowledged, respected, or revered to the degree that they expect, I hope that they understand why.

In his time Da Vinci was known more as an engineer than an artist, and the Mona Lisa didn't enter the cultural zeitgeist until it was stolen.

Mozart always struggled to be recognized among his peers. "Too many notes." And when Beethoven started to lose his hearing, pretty much became the laughingstock until the 9th, when everybody thought he was crazy for putting a choir in a symphony.

Kafka wanted his work to be destroyed; died a ghost of his time. De Sade was always censored and imprisoned; his work destroyed, he became a footnote. Restif de la Bretonne was never taken seriously, and his name is now the namesake for shoe fetishism. Bataille was never taken seriously. Miller got banned for being obscene. When Chandler hit Black Mask, he was ridiculed and considered a hack.

Heavy metal and punk weren't considered music, but rather noise, yet both are products of similar dissents that triggered dadaism, which confused and angered the whole world.

If validation from the masses is all that it takes, you're looking at both a world that hates artists, and an industry designed to be a slot machine.

 

[WittyUserName]

Debates often pop up in this forum about whether one is an "artist" or just a smut-teller. Or whether one is an artist or a craftsman. Or what it even means to be an "artist."

I don't think about these things at all when I write. I firmly believe that way too many authors get waylaid by pointless internal debates about whether they are really a "writer" or an "author" or an "artist," as though it's a secret society and they're not sure whether they are worthy of belonging.

My attitude is that if you write you are a writer. A great artist is a great craftsman. Rather than starting from first principles and working your way down, start by mastering, the best you can, the nuts and bolts of writing and working your way up. Read a lot. Figure out what great writing means to you by getting experience with it. Study writing and its elements. Learn what you like. Figure out how to handle dialogue and narrative and description. Figure out what the parts of speech are and how to use them in interesting ways. There's an infinite amount of guidance out there. Take advantage of it.

This approach will rub some people the wrong way, because many people seem to want to believe that art is something completely different from everything else. It's magical and mystical and deeply personal. A matter of inspiration rather than perspiration. I don't buy it. I don't think building a good story is that different from building a good chair. I don't want an inspired chair builder. I want one who knows the craft of chair building. I want the same from writers of stories I read.

Everybody would agree that Michaelangelo was a stupendous artist. But he didn't achieve his status by figuring out "what it meant to be a great artist." He started on the ground floor and worked tirelessly to master the craft of sculpture. Then, eventually, he created The David, and everybody recognizes it's great art. There's no conflict between craft and art. Be the best craftsman you can be and you will maximize your chances of creating good art.

I agree. If you write, you're a writer. If you make art, you are an artist. Are you a good one? That's a different question. One that doesn't necessarily matter. Art is creative expression. It doesn't matter if you make money off it, or if other people like it. Doesn't even matter if they see it. You can write and just keep it for yourself and still be a writer. Calling yourself a writer or artist doesn't imply you're saying you are at the level of someone historically famous for being exceptional. It doesn't belittle them or take away from them. We are all human and part of humanity. We're all artists, capable of using various means to express ourselves.

 

[sijopunk]

Debates often pop up in this forum about whether one is an "artist" or just a smut-teller.

You've been here longer than me, but I've broached this subject twice in the last year (specifically from the "is what we do art" standpoint).

I'm fairly alone in my viewpoint that all creative writing is art when it's is approached with originality (I'm including that to exclude AI generated art) and for the purpose of self-expression (so I put purely commercial efforts into their own category, but enthusiastically agree that there is a lot of crossover between "art" and "commercial product').

I don't get preachy about this viewpoint because it's a purely philosophical stance that defines my own work and nothing else. It's also compatible with every other viewpoint out there, so it's not one I feel needs to be defended.

A great artist is a great craftsman. Rather than starting from first principles and working your way down, start by mastering, the best you can, the nuts and bolts of writing and working your way up.

This is a statement I'd almost violently agree with. A great artist is a great craftsperson with a point of view. I was conflating the two for a long time (Chloe Tzang offered the first framework I encountered for differentiating them, which is very in line with the recurring ideas in this thread), but I've started to recognize some fantastic craft with no point of view, as well as original authorial perspectives that were inelegantly expressed.

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

And I'm of the opinion that awards are mostly worthless because they often just confirm a natural affinity for the thing being awarded rather than using a metric of actually learning and improving within the thing. I don't need confirmation that I'm good at something that takes no actual effort from me. But to see someone put in the effort and not have that effort recognized is difficult for me.

I was just trying to be funny

 

[Erozetta]

I was just trying to be funny

I didn't mean to take away from the joke. It was just a jumping off point for my "Awards fucking suck and here's why" rant. Apologies.

 

[StillStunned]

When I was at uni, the question often arose of what literature is. The usual answer that received most support was that a work has to have an enduring meaning or beauty; our professors were snooty enough that anything from more recently than fifty years was generally dismissed out of hand, and often anything more recently than a hundred years too.

Going by this, what makes something literature (and by extension art) isn't determined by the creator: it's decided by the audience. We can pour our hearts and souls into our stories, but if the readers shrug and click back, it doesn't offer them any meaning or beauty. Maybe we're ahead of our time, or the right people haven't found us and later readers will come to appreciate our works, but that's not for us to say.

The best we can do is our best. If recognition is important, it starts with the craft and our ability to master it. So write your stories, enjoy the process, try to improve your skills if that's important, and leave the question of art to the critics.

 

[MrPixel]

As far as being an "author", I prefer the bottom-in-the-chair approach. Get 'r done.

 

[Dearelliot]

I think a smut teller is just an old fashioned storyteller for a different crowd, as in, back in the day, there were people, usually an old guy with a deep voice, who would sit around and weave a tale that others found entertaining. Back in the 40s, when I was a kid, I'd sit around and listen to the men, talking...By a boat house, a fire going, often a little rope from boat lines burning, seldom if ever alcohol, never any women, never sexual. All of them spoke, but only a few really had the floor. The best were the men who used inflection and hesitation, a little dry humor, and the truth didn't matter, but it had to be reasonable and probable. It was our television.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

He started on the ground floor and worked tirelessly to master the craft of sculpture. Then, eventually, he created The David, and everybody recognizes it's great art.

Just as a matter of historical accuracy, this isn't really correct.

Michelangelo was creating art before he'd fully mastered the craft of sculpture. There is arguably more art in his wooden sculpture of Christ - which he made when he was 19 and hangs in Santo Spirito in Florence - than there is in his David. (It's all arguable, this is the joy of art).

And he made David when he was only 26 years old; he wasn't a grizzled old man full of a lifetime's experience when he made it. I don't think Michelangelo, or anyone else in fact, would argue that between 19 and 26 he had 'eventually' mastered the craft of sculpture.

To my mind, these two facts rather undermine your point that mastering craft is the same as being an artist. Or that art is not a separate thing.

In fact, if I can sound a bit snobby, it's a little ironic that you've picked Michelangelo because what you can see over the course of his career is his mastery of art, as a separate thing to craft. He made a pietà when he was in his early 20s and one when he was in his 70s. The first has plenty of craft, excellent craft in fact, but look at the second - made by the same man after a lifetime of mastering his craft - and you'll see it has less craft. But it's a much greater work of art. If craft and art were the same then this couldn't be so.

(And, just while I'm artsplaining...Michelangelo's David is famous not because it's great art but because Florentines saw the figure of David as a symbol of their city and so put it in a prominent public position. It's generally considered to be 'great' because of its art historical importance and not because of its art.)

 

[crookedletter]

I think art is a matter of intent: you're trying to do something interesting, maybe express something or give form to an idea. Maybe you're trying to generate a response or a feeling.

Hanging a shovel from the ceiling because that's where your shovel goes isn't art; hanging a shovel from the ceiling because you're trying to make a statement about the nature of art itself, because you're trying to get people thinking about these questions, is art.

The degree to which you fail or succeed at eliciting that response is entirely subjective. Just because a thing doesn't resonate with some particular subset -- or any -- of its consumers doesn't, in my opinion, give those consumers standing to declare whether or not it's art.

It's art if it's meant to be art. It doesn't have to be good, whatever that means to whoever is trying to play gatekeeper.

 

[AStrangeDesire]

Is there a single answer? Probably not.

But, as someone who's done a lot of photography, I'd like to quote HCB "Your first 10,000 pictures are your worst." In a time when a long roll of film was 36 images, that's a lot of rolls of film.

Becoming good at the 'craft' is hard, takes time, practice, sweat. "Seat time". I'm not there, though I'm working at it.

I hate the term 'creator', but it does capture the making of a new thing. That's all I do. I make things. Sometimes they're pictures, sometimes stories.

Some are liked by a few people, which is nice. But I'd make them anyway.

 

[SimonDoom]

Just as a matter of historical accuracy, this isn't really correct.

Michelangelo was creating art before he'd fully mastered the craft of sculpture. There is arguably more art in his wooden sculpture of Christ - which he made when he was 19 and hangs in Santo Spirito in Florence - than there is in his David. (It's all arguable, this is the joy of art).

And he made David when he was only 26 years old; he wasn't a grizzled old man full of a lifetime's experience when he made it. I don't think Michelangelo, or anyone else in fact, would argue that between 19 and 26 he had 'eventually' mastered the craft of sculpture.

To my mind, these two facts rather undermine your point that mastering craft is the same as being an artist. Or that art is not a separate thing.

In fact, if I can sound a bit snobby, it's a little ironic that you've picked Michelangelo because what you can see over the course of his career is his mastery of art, as a separate thing to craft. He made a pietà when he was in his early 20s and one when he was in his 70s. The first has plenty of craft, excellent craft in fact, but look at the second - made by the same man after a lifetime of mastering his craft - and you'll see it has less craft. But it's a much greater work of art. If craft and art were the same then this couldn't be so.

(And, just while I'm artsplaining...Michelangelo's David is famous not because it's great art but because Florentines saw the figure of David as a symbol of their city and so put it in a prominent public position. It's generally considered to be 'great' because of its art historical importance and not because of its art.)

I'm not an expert art historian, so I take no offense at a bit of "artsplaining."

Michaelangelo was obviously enormously gifted. At the same time, he got started early. He was apprenticed to some of the leading artists of the day at an early age, and he learned the "craft" from them and from the experience he had. By the time he was in his 20s he was an experienced and accomplished artist/craftsman by any reasonable standard.

I would disagree about your appraisal of the David and whether it's "great art," but I agree there's no universal standard and disagreements about taste are part of the fun of art.

 

[CalBishForNow]

If you write stuff for an audience, you're an author. (I hope we don't have to define "write" or "audience" here.) This excludes anyone who just keeps a diary, writes the occasional email, or argues back and forth with random people online, and catches all the technical writers, journalists, novelists, academics who publish stuff, and creators of memoirs and screenplays out there in addition to the smut-tellers here. Sounds fair to me.

Writing can be a hobby or a job. If it's a job, being good at it (and while we're at it, "good" is a multidimensional thing connecting prose, plots, characters, and more, but I'll cut myself short because this is turning into Zen and the Art of Forum Posting) is useful in measurable ways, like money and subscribers.

If it's a hobby, being good at it may still be measurable but is probably harder; witness the roughly daily arguments here about ratings. You may personally care about how good at it you are, but if you don't, does it really matter? Probably not.

Personally I care more about being good at this now than I did before I started writing here a year and a half ago. I planned to really polish and perfect my last story, but unfortunately it was a good fit for the April Fool's Day contest and I put it off until the last minute. Oh well, maybe for the next one. But I'm feeling pressure to complete that too, because it's in an ongoing series. Oh well, maybe when I'm done with that...

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I had a friend who always joked that authors are the ones who get paid. The rest of us are writers.

The quote goes, "Writers want to get published, authors want to get paid."

 

[BobbyBrandt]

If validation from the masses is all that it takes, you're looking at both a world that hates artists, and an industry designed to be a slot machine

Validation by oneself is adequate if that is what it takes to motivate a person. However, it takes more than self-validation to achieve respect and recognition as an artist by others. Wishing otherwise won't make it so.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with pursuing writing or any other "artistic" endeavor purely for oneself. That's what hobbies are for.

It's when one aspires to be more - to be recognized and accepted for their abilities and creativity that they will typically need to elevate themselves through learning and developing their skills to the point of mastery.

Do your best, but know that your best could always be better.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

I'm not an expert art historian, so I take no offense at a bit of "artsplaining."

Michaelangelo was obviously enormously gifted. At the same time, he got started early. He was apprenticed to some of the leading artists of the day at an early age, and he learned the "craft" from them and from the experience he had. By the time he was in his 20s he was an experienced and accomplished artist/craftsman by any reasonable standard.

I would disagree about your appraisal of the David and whether it's "great art," but I agree there's no universal standard and disagreements about taste are part of the fun of art.

Fair enough. But if, as you said in your original post, you don't buy that 'art is something completely different' - how would you explain Michelangelo showing less craft and more art as he mastered sculpture over the course of his career?

Edit: doesn't this imply that at some stage 'craft' stops and 'art' takes over and therefore art is indeed something that is different from craft?

 

[Britva415]

you'll see it has less craft

Was he less of a craftsman?

 

[Britva415]

It's generally considered to be 'great' because of its art historical importance and not because of its art.)

I don't agree with this at all. That isn't present to any degree whatsoever in contemporary analysis or appreciation of the piece and its composition and craft.

The historical details don't erase the artistic innovation and power. They may have elevated its prominence and gotten it looked at by more critics for a time (long ago), but the exact same piece, "undiscovered," wouldn't somehow be better or worse art.