The Author and The Illustrator

[StillStunned]

People tend to have a distorted view of what another skill involves. Most of us here have written stories. We know how much effort goes into writing. Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes it's a struggle.

Do we know how much effort goes into illustrating? I've seen people knock off gorgeous drawings and paintings in the space of minutes. Look at what Bob Ross could do within the confines of a single episode of his show. And then think how many hours went into writing your last story.

Talent goes a long way. Craft goes a long way. Understanding what you're doing and trying to achieve goes a long way. But there's still effort required, whether you're writing or illustrating. The more you practise, the easier it becomes, and the more effortless it can appear to an outsider. The more complicated or accomplished the piece, the harder it might appear to that same outsider, even if you're drawing on basic techniques that require little thought on your part.

So in summary: don't use AI.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Why is there a comparison as to who is doing more work or who is more creative?

It isn't ratings, publishing delays, comments, etc .....

 

[Erozetta]

People tend to have a distorted view of what another skill involves. Most of us here have written stories. We know how much effort goes into writing. Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes it's a struggle.

Do we know how much effort goes into illustrating? I've seen people knock off gorgeous drawings and paintings in the space of minutes. Look at what Bob Ross could do within the confines of a single episode of his show. And then think how many hours went into writing your last story.

Talent goes a long way. Craft goes a long way. Understanding what you're doing and trying to achieve goes a long way. But there's still effort required, whether you're writing or illustrating. The more you practise, the easier it becomes, and the more effortless it can appear to an outsider. The more complicated or accomplished the piece, the harder it might appear to that same outsider, even if you're drawing on basic techniques that require little thought on your part.

So in summary: don't use AI.

Again, the people like Ross who could knock something out quick have years upon years of honing their skills involved. To get to that point requires more work than writing ever will.

Like I said, I've done both. I have friends who have done both. One has a book he published with artwork on the cover he drew himself. His artwork is infinitely better than his writing, but his writing is still quite good. His art takes hours if not days to accomplish. His book was knocked out in a few months. His cover design took another few months between initial idea and final. He was going to make it a series of short graphic novels, but didn't because the art side would've taken him significantly longer than just writing the passages out as prose.

However, with your last line, I fully agree. I stand by the assertion that using AI in any artistic capacity is lazy at best, and an acknowledgement that you are fine with AI usage at worst, so making a distinction between AI wording and AI imagery is kinda pointless. They are the same thing.

I have friends who use AI in things (imagery for the most part, research starting points for another) and it was extremely disappointing to find that out. It now colors their work in a different light for me and I don't get as much joy out of their recent works as I did with their earlier works.

 

[Nynah]

However, with your last line, I fully agree. I stand by the assertion that using AI in any artistic capacity is lazy at best, and an acknowledgement that you are fine with AI usage at worst, so making a distinction between AI wording and AI imagery is kinda pointless. They are the same thing.

I have friends who use AI in things (imagery for the most part, research starting points for another) and it was extremely disappointing to find that out. It now colors their work in a different light for me and I don't get as much joy out of their recent works as I did with their earlier works.

The tired refrain from writers who use AI art as covers/promotion for their work is always "oh I have no artistic talent so I'm just going to use AI" is just willful ignorance and toxic hypocrisy because they have been told time and time again that gen AI steals from human visual artists, yet they continue to feed prompts into the plagiarism machine. It's even more inscrutable when they're against AI use in writing because that's honestly just a lack of critical thinking skills at that point.

 

[Erozetta]

The tired refrain from writers who use AI art as covers/promotion for their work is always "oh I have no artistic talent so I'm just going to use AI" is just willful ignorance and toxic hypocrisy because they have been told time and time again that gen AI steals from human visual artists, yet they continue to feed prompts into the plagiarism machine. It's even more inscrutable when they're against AI use in writing because that's honestly just a lack of critical thinking skills at that point.

That's a big part of why I'm tackling learning to draw again. I'll never be exceptional at it, but I might get damn good at stick figures.

A new venue I was going to work with apparently does AI covers if the author is okay with that. I won't be submitting anything else to them. Mine do not have AI covers because I specifically said absolutely not. I was extremely disappointed in that realization. I have a meeting with the owner of the site next week and plan to voice that disappointment as it taints the overall product for me. (I also think the covers I made were better.) and might end up pulling my stories for that reason alone.

 

[crookedletter]

This is an interesting question. I don't think there's one answer: it depends on the art, it depends on the artists. Writing is arguably a more "accessible" art form: most people can do it on at least a rudimentary level. A beginner writer who has the fundamentals of language and grammar can probably create a more legible and passable work of art than a beginner visual artist who has the fundamentals of shapes and forms and color etc.

At the level of mediocrity, the difference is distinct: a mediocre drawing is ugly and sloppy and doesn't have much to recommend it. A mediocre story is to some readers ugly and sloppy, but to maybe a less discerning eye it's fine. You can have a plot that moves forward and characters that have something like personality, and it can be "good enough."

But mastery is mastery, and mastery takes work. People who really commit themselves to a craft -- any craft -- spend lifetimes working at it, studying, trying to get better. And whatever medium you're working in there's no upper limit to improvement. You get better, then you add tools to your toolbox, and you get better at those, then you try a new approach, etc. etc. etc.

I'm not convinced that any one art form is "harder" than another, if you're looking at being great at it. But there are some where schlock/mediocrity is a little more easily passable than others.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

^^^ My question has gone off track a bit, as most do here.

It was originally geared towards those more accomplished and experienced in their crafts.

Somebody mentioned how easily Bob Ross drew a tree. So add in an author who is equally accomplished in writing about trees.

For those two, which takes more 'work'? Writing about Maple trees in Autumn, or painting a Maple tree in full Autumn color?

Bob could do it in 30 minutes or less. The author?

 

[Erozetta]

^^^ My question has gone off track a bit, as most do here.

It was originally geared towards those more accomplished and experienced in their crafts.

Somebody mentioned how easily Bob Ross drew a tree. So add in an author who is equally accomplished in writing about trees.

For those two, which takes more 'work'? Writing about Maple trees in Autumn, or painting a Maple tree in full Autumn color?

Bob could do it in 30 minutes or less. The author?

Considering that, based on the results from the typing test joyofcooking posted, a reasonable wpm assumption for an author seems to be about 75-100 wpm, I imagine someone accomplished in writing about trees could get about 2500 words down pretty easily on maple trees in Autumn in that same half hour period. I also imagine they would only need half that time and word count to do it as vividly as the painting.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I've been both. I've done both. I'll say both.

@onehitwanda Does this count as being a switch or a versatile?

 

[onehitwanda]

I've been both. I've done both. I'll say both.

@onehitwanda Does this count as being a switch or a versatile?

Neither - it makes you dexterous instead of sinister!

 

[Nightaelf]

If you mean a collaboration between a writer and an illustrator, then “which is more creative” depends on how you define creative.
Writing invents the world, the logic, the characters, the emotional structure.
Illustration invents the texture of that world , how it looks, breathes, and feels.

If you removed the writer, there’d be no story to illustrate.
If you removed the illustrator, the story might still exist, but it would lose a bit of dimension, it would be less felt.

As for “which does more work”: the writer probably logs more hours wrestling with structure, pacing, and language, while the illustrator does more condensed work translating entire scenes and emotions into single images.

So I think they do different kinds of work, and both are equally creative, one builds the skeleton, the other gives it a soul and a face.

 

[NotWise]

Why is there a comparison as to who is doing more work or who is more creative?

I think the question of who does more work spins off a conversation in the Coffee Shop. I expressed the opinion that the illustrator usually puts in a lot more work than the writer. Not sure where the question of creativity comes from.

 

[NuclearFairy]

That's not remotely true.

Drawing is a skill that can be honed with work, just like music, you're right about that. But talent is only a factor in how quickly you advance the skill. No amount of latent talent will create a good artist if that talent isn't nurtured. However, someone without that natural talent can become a masterful artist with time and a willingness to learn.

Like my younger sister. She very nearly failed kindergarten because of her poor art skills. At eleven she could barely draw stick figures. But she decided that she wanted to get good at artwork. So she asked me to teach her what I knew, she got a bunch of art books, and she not only watched tutorials, but she joined forums where people were willing to discuss techniques and tell her where she was going wrong or right. And then she spent every free moment she could practicing. Which since she was home schooled by my mom was a lot of free moments.

By the time she was 18, she was making fairly decent commissions off of her art online. It still took her a little longer than someone who had more natural talent though, but she learned to be good at it.

 

[Nynah]

Somebody mentioned how easily Bob Ross drew a tree. So add in an author who is equally accomplished in writing about trees.

For those two, which takes more 'work'? Writing about Maple trees in Autumn, or painting a Maple tree in full Autumn color?

Bob could do it in 30 minutes or less. The author?

These questions lack scope. Are you comparing Bob's happy little tree paintings to someone writing a short story or a novel? And what defines 'work' in this context? Level of effort, economies of scale, creative expression? There are so many more parameters that need to be defined to even begin to answer this with any kind of specificity.

If you removed the writer, there’d be no story to illustrate.
If you removed the illustrator, the story might still exist, but it would lose a bit of dimension, it would be less felt.

I understand the thought exercise in the OP is about artists collaborating with authors but I don't think you lose dimension or have things "less felt" just because your story doesn't have an illustration. Writing is, in a way, a much less constrained medium than visual illustrations are so there is so much more leeway to add description to help the reader imagine things in the theater of their mind. You can add dimension to a story with art (from a human artist, fairly paid, not AI-generated slop) but I disagree with the notion that writing loses anything if it doesn't have an illustration.

 

[THBGato]

The visual artist spends years honing their skills to be able to put them to work. An author doesn't have to do that. It's helpful, but it's not required to know anything beyond the basics.

Wait, what? So you mean the 15 years I spent in compulsory education learning how to physically hold a pencil, then pen, form letters, keep them on the lines, learn how to decode phonemes, blend them, spell words correctly, punctuate, form grammatical sentences, paragraph, use the correct register for the task, draft and redraft, proof read, obey the conventions of genre, (not to mention type and use word processing software), were unnecessary? Could I really have done that in less time? Or are those not the very "basics" you are talking about?

I think you are doing a disservice to all the teachers (and probably your parents too) who spent days, weeks, months even years of their time forming you into the literate adult author that you are.

 

[StillStunned]

Wait, what? So you mean the 15 years I spent in compulsory education learning how to physically hold a pencil, then pen, form letters, keep them on the lines, learn how to decode phonemes, blend them, spell words correctly, punctuate, form grammatical sentences, paragraph, use the correct register for the task, draft and redraft, proof read, obey the conventions of genre, (not to mention type and use word processing software), were unnecessary? Could I really have done that in less time? Or are those not the very "basics" you are talking about?

I think you are doing a disservice to all the teachers (and probably your parents too) who spent days, weeks, months even years of their time forming you into the literate adult author that you are.

I'm going to add mastery of language to the list of skills. I've been an editor for a few decades now, and there's "being able to form a sentence" and then there's "being able to use words and sounds and word order and imagery and rhythm and stress to bring the language to life in the reader's mind."

 

[StillStunned]

I don't mean to deprecate the skill necessary to create visual art, by the way. But if writing was easy and effortless, people wouldn't be turning to AI to do it for them. The fact that so many people are happy enough with crappy GenAI writings goes to show how difficult good writing actually is.

 

[THBGato]

I'm going to add mastery of language to the list of skills.

Quite. (I mean, I really could have gone on - command of narrative tenses, distinguish homophones, etc - but I figured I'd made the point.)

An ex of mine has a degree in English and an MA in poetry. She writes pretty well as you might imagine, yet has never been able to make a living from writing. However, she also has pictures in the National Portrait Gallery despite having had no artistic training since she was 14. Just saying.

 

[StillStunned]

An ex of mine has a degree in English and an MA in poetry. She writes pretty well as you might imagine, yet has never been able to make a living from writing. However, she also has pictures in the National Portrait Gallery despite having had no artistic training since she was 14. Just saying.

Don't you just hate overachievers like that?

"Oh, they're just doodles, don't you know? I'm not a serious artist of course. And what have you been up to?"
"I write sex stories and publish them online for pervs to masturbate to."

 

[crookedletter]

Considering that, based on the results from the typing test joyofcooking posted, a reasonable wpm assumption for an author seems to be about 75-100 wpm, I imagine someone accomplished in writing about trees could get about 2500 words down pretty easily on maple trees in Autumn in that same half hour period. I also imagine they would only need half that time and word count to do it as vividly as the painting.

To describe a tree, sure. And to just draw a tree takes about 10 seconds, and anyone can do it. A couple curving vertical lines for the trunk, something vaguely billowy for the leaves. Maybe a stray branch or root if you're feeling detail oriented.

I think you're comparing good drawing to bad or middling writing. The writerly equivalent to a Bob Ross landscape isn't just writing "There was a landscape, with rolling hills and pine trees and some wisps of cloud." It's describing it in such a way that evokes some simulacrum of the feeling you get when you see a vast and beautiful landscape. The sense of distance, the time of day. The sense of movement, the sense that it existed before you stepped into it and will exist after you turn away. Not everyone can do that effectively. And those that can work hard at it and spend years getting to that level.

 

[StillStunned]

To describe a tree, sure. And to just draw a tree takes about 10 seconds, and anyone can do it. A couple curving vertical lines for the trunk, something vaguely billowy for the leaves. Maybe a stray branch or root if you're feeling detail oriented.

I think you're comparing good drawing to bad or middling writing. The writerly equivalent to a Bob Ross landscape isn't just writing "There was a landscape, with rolling hills and pine trees and some wisps of cloud." It's describing it in such a way that evokes some simulacrum of the feeling you get when you see a vast and beautiful landscape. The sense of distance, the time of day. The sense of movement, the sense that it existed before you stepped into it and will exist after you turn away. Not everyone can do that effectively. And those that can work hard at it and spend years getting to that level.

My opening snippet for the most recent Writing Exercise ("The Story Tree") was only a hundred and fifty words, but I remember it taking me probably about 20 minutes:

Our story begins, perhaps appropriately, with a tree. A great chestnut standing proud on a hill, visible for miles around. In the spring its buds shone green in the fresh sunlight, and in summer its flowers rose like candles from broad leaves. In the winter, stark and shorn, it stood out black against the grey skies.

A mighty tree it was, with memory reaching back in time like its roots reached into the earth below. It had suffered storms and weathered winds. It had felt the bite of ice and the warmth of sunshine. Birds and animals had lived their lives in its shelter, and travellers had followed its landmark on their journeys.

Broadsheets and proclamations had been nailed onto its tough hide. Lovers had made pledges beneath its bows, and more than one had later stood there, lost and alone. Children had climbed in boughs where more than once the hangman’s rope had swung.

There's describing, and then there's writing.

 

[Erozetta]

Wait, what? So you mean the 15 years I spent in compulsory education learning how to physically hold a pencil, then pen, form letters, keep them on the lines, learn how to decode phonemes, blend them, spell words correctly, punctuate, form grammatical sentences, paragraph, use the correct register for the task, draft and redraft, proof read, obey the conventions of genre, (not to mention type and use word processing software), were unnecessary? Could I really have done that in less time? Or are those not the very "basics" you are talking about?

I think you are doing a disservice to all the teachers (and probably your parents too) who spent days, weeks, months even years of their time forming you into the literate adult author that you are.

I mean, I learned how to accomplish the majority of that by 2nd grade, and I'm dyslexic. Though "obeying the conventions of genre" sounds like an anchor rather than a skill. The only thing that took longer was typing, but it wasn't a necessary skill for writing. I could still write in notebooks.

How much time was actually spent in those fifteen years exclusively on English writing skills? Spelling was less than 20 minutes of instruction a week. Maybe an hour a day on Grammar and Literature combined from 1st-12th grade. I didn't finish college because of finances, so your skills are much more honed than mine, but mine still exist. How much of the study in your fifteen years was actually necessary for learning to write? How much was reiterating things you already knew?

My parents were barely present in my upbringing, let alone my education. They kept me out of school for long periods of time to care for my nieces. The teachers were wonderful, but English was only a portion of my education.

I'm not saying writing requires no skill. I'm saying the skill required takes less time and effort to learn at a basic level. Hell, even cooking requires more effort to learn than writing does.

 

[Erozetta]

To describe a tree, sure. And to just draw a tree takes about 10 seconds, and anyone can do it. A couple curving vertical lines for the trunk, something vaguely billowy for the leaves. Maybe a stray branch or root if you're feeling detail oriented.

I think you're comparing good drawing to bad or middling writing. The writerly equivalent to a Bob Ross landscape isn't just writing "There was a landscape, with rolling hills and pine trees and some wisps of cloud." It's describing it in such a way that evokes some simulacrum of the feeling you get when you see a vast and beautiful landscape. The sense of distance, the time of day. The sense of movement, the sense that it existed before you stepped into it and will exist after you turn away. Not everyone can do that effectively. And those that can work hard at it and spend years getting to that level.

How does what you described translate into "maples in Autumn"?

The writing equivalent to drawing a basic tree is "A tree exists."

You can't get that image down in 1,500-2,500 words?

 

[Britva415]

For this thread, there is a distinction.

There isn't any measure by which an author or an illustrator is "more of an artist" or "does more work" than the other, generically speaking.

Any individual artist in any medium could be more or less of an artist or do more or less work than some other individual artist in the same or a different medium.

There can be collaborative projects where one is expected to contribute more or less, according to the requirements of the project or the agreement of the collaborators.

There just isn't an unequivocal answer to this question. It could be the author, it could be the illustrator, it just depends.

 

[Britva415]

It isn't ratings, publishing delays, comments, etc .....

That's a dodge.