Giving bad advice to a good friend.
I was flattered when a good friend of mine, a professor and a street brawler for democracy in strange foreign lands, made all the stranger in 1997, asked me to read his first manuscript. I can not adequately convey how difficult it is to write your first novel. They’re easy to start but they are a bear to finish. I also can’t tell you what, giant, brass, balls (or whatever genital reference you identify with) it takes to show that first manuscript to someone. On top of that to ask them to give you critical advice.
My good friend, who goes by White Bison, you have to ask him about that, reached out to me. Not only did he send me his first manuscript but he asked for my honest criticism/advice. Which is a huge honor, that left me filled with trepidation. What if it was bad? Was I supposed to really be honest with him? While I like to front like I am the guy not to ask if you look fat in that outfit, the truth is I try not to hurt people’s feelings. There are exceptions, mean people, assholes, the smug.
In the end I agreed. I read the manuscript and when the moment of truth came I offered what I thought was good, honest, advice/criticism. I didn’t love it. There were plot points and characters I didn’t care for. That was and is entirely a me thing. I also told him, that in spite of that, I found that I couldn’t stop reading it. That the quality of his writing was excellent.
Most of my criticism was and is stylistic. Again, it was a rough draft of a first manuscript and his looked a lot better than my first one. We had a series of phone calls and direct messages to talk about it. I tried to give him, honest and more importantly, useful advice. Then he started asking me questions.
I am a moderately successful writer whose written and by fall of next year will have published seven novels. I don’t think I am the best person to offer advice but I am the one he asked. I say this because when WB asked me a question about the importance and use of chapters, I, in the moment, gave him what I thought was a good answer.
The problem was that as I thought about it I gave him an Okay/easy answer. Then a day later I sent him a message and sent him an answer to that question which, albeit pretentious, wasn’t a bad answer. A couple days, later it still nagged me. I was also trying to come up with a topic for my weekly Substack. Thinking about the nightly fire in our hearth inspired me to write about fires and fire lays (if you don’t know Google it or ask a Boy Scout).
Via Substack I was able to spin out a pretty good metaphor about gathering the tinder, kindling and wood for a campfire. Each component has a role and they feed each other, also the the construction of the fire is the key to success. HA a metaphor for chapters! Pretentious? Yes! Apt? Also yes.
WB will pick and choose from my good or bad, though never indifferent advice. Hopefully, some of it is helpful. Either way WB has accomplished something of note. He sat down at his computer and ground out 80,000 words. Not just ground them out but turned out a pretty captivating story to boot. That’s pretty hard to do, it’s even harder to put it out there and ask someone to punch holes in it.