I read about a screen test of The Deer Hunter, in which people said the movie was amazing but the beginning (the hunt, the wedding, etc.) was too long. The producers cut a bunch of scenes and tried again. This time the feedback was, "the movie sucks."
As a pratical lens on this advice: people are excellent at giving feedback on their problems. They are terrible at identifying how to fix it.
"It felt too long" was right. The solution was not to make the story shorter. The solution was to look at the parts that felt long, and believe that feedback.
If you're building something, and your users tell you it's complicated or it's slow or it's not useful, they're right! The fix may or may not be to make it simpler, faster, or more useful. Maybe it needs to be organized better, or to create deliberate moments of action, or to be used at a different time. The problems are real, but the obvious solutions are not always right.
Very useful way to think about politics. Always remember that people have valid concerns you might not understand... but also that their solutions are probably terrible.
It’s more like you should have 5-10 readers. If they all say the same thing they’re right. If half think the pacing is too slow and half think it’s too fast you are probably spot on.
> You don't need advice from editors on rejected manuscripts.
Continues to tell us how he did listen to the advice because the editor actually had a point that made the story better, got the book published and won him an award.
Yeah I think the lesson is that specific suggestions for what to do aren't as helpful as just hearing how someone else experienced your work, and then drawing your own conclusions about how to fix that.
Bug reports should describe the problem but often shouldn't try to prescribe a solution.
There’s a similar situation in game dev. Players are very good at identifying problems - this isn’t fun, this feels too hard, etc. However, the solutions they suggest are often terrible, resulting in broken, unfun games. The same advice applies: Figure out what’s actually wrong and fix that.
Is that level really too hard, or did you just fail to properly introduce a new ability? Is the story boring, or is the story taking away from the enjoyable gameplay?
I've found the traditional publishing industry really interesting. It's so hard to get approved or even noticed from the gatekeepers[0]. Even getting a rejection from an agent can take months. And agents are just the very first gate. Being agented can be lightyears away from getting published.
And after so many layers of gatekeeping and due process, what got to the shelves are like, uh, Kiss of the Basilisk. I mean it totally makes sense in from a marketing perspective, but the whole situation is a little bit funny.
As far as I can tell it's nearly impossible to get picked up by a major publisher now unless you're bringing a very large social media following.
If you've got the social media following, your book can be really bad and it'll still get published (examples... abound). The book hardly matters, guaranteed sales via an audience you bring to the table (so, no work for them) is what they're interested in.
I mean, it was already nearly impossible, but now it's nearly-impossibler (nearlier-impossible?), with the social media following being almost necessary to make it even a very-long-shot instead of a no-you're-definitely-getting-rejected.
The best possible position is to have a breakout self-published hit. An author with that can hand the boring difficult expensive parts - print and distribution - over to a trad publisher, and keep the rights to ebooks, audio books, movies, and the rest, hiring negotiating talent as and when it's needed.
For breakout authors, publishers will often get in touch directly.
Agents are basically - well, I don't know any more. There used to be a point to them, but now they're running a kind of cottage industry of pointless gatekeeping for wannabes who will make pennies even if they are picked up.
It's not the same industry it was fifty years. It's not even the same industry it was twenty years ago.
A lot of wannabes haven't worked this out yet. They still think a proper author goes through proper channels, and is properly anointed with a proper agent and a proper contract.
And then most of them are surprised to discover their properly published book sells less than a thousand copies, and it's off the shelves almost immediately - because that's how print works unless you're a Big Name - and they can't give up their day jobs.
Maybe in this case the editor's comments were not helpful, and maybe OP is right for that. I do not see how this generalises to a rule "do not take advice from editors that reject your manuscripts".
For one, in scientific publications, when you get rejected based on reviewers' comments, chances are if you send the manuscript to another journal the article will be sent to the same reviewers, and if unchanged will be rejected again. Not taking advice into account, as a general rule, sounds like very bad advice.
When anyone rejects you for any reason, job, dating whatever, don’t even ask why it is irrelevant and meaningless information. People rarely if ever are truly honest about why, and even if they were, who cares, move on to someone who accepts you.
Different story if it’s family/friend - if you know them personally.
"If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that motherhood doesn’t require a husband or father, and that homosexuality is as valid a choice as heterosexuality for their future lives, then why in the world should married people continue to accept the authority of such a government?" [1]
"The dark secret of homosexual society —the one that dares not speak its name —is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally." [2]
"In fact, the scientific evidence we have points in the opposite direction: Same-sex attraction is not a strait jacket; people’s desires change over time; gay people still have choices; a reproductive dysfunction like same-sex attraction is not a death sentence for your DNA or for your desire to have a family in which children grow up with male and female parents to model appropriate gender roles." [3]
"I find the comparison between civil rights based on race and supposed new rights being granted for what amounts to deviant behavior to be really kind of ridiculous. There is no comparison. A black as a person does not by being black harm anyone. Gay rights is a collective delusion that’s being attempted. And the idea of ‘gay marriage’—it’s hard to find a ridiculous enough comparison." [4]
In my opinion, it's relevant to Card's credibility. If he shows poor judgement in one area, why would I want to listen to his opinion on something else, even something which is considered to be in his wheelhouse? Poor judgement is poor judgement.
The not-so-short story Ender's Game was great. The novel Ender's Game was awful. I hope someone told him it was too long, too repetitive, and too Gary Stu. I wish he had taken that feedback to heart.
I don’t like when people use this without all the important context. Showing other quotes from the same person that is giving subjective advice on topics, lends to curiosity around how to filter their advice.
> It's is a complex and hard question, but the principles we apply to it have been around for a long time and are consistent with the site guidelines. If they weren't, we'd change the latter.
>
> I've explained all of this many times. If you, or anyone, would like to know how we approach the question, you could start here:
>
> https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [1]
it did not make me wish to engage in political or ideological battle, i found it an interesting reflection of a complicated person's thought process. So, any battling is on you (you no doubt have a lot of company: "don't you dare feed us raw meat, we'll jump up and down in our cages and spill the poop buckets")
reading TFA gave me a complicated perspective on OSC, and reading this comment gave me a more complicated persepctive on OSC, so I'm glad I read both, and I'm glad the long battle scenes were left out of both.
> Does his opposition of homosexuality some how make his point about writing critiques less interesting?
i'll bite: yes. it belies a lack of compassion, imagination, openness and curiosity required to create compelling fiction or writing advice that resonates with people who aren't bigots.
Orson Scott Card is one of the best selling sci Fi authors of all time, and has won the hugo and nebula award multiple times, and has been translated into 35+ languages. I think you would be pretty hard pressed to show that his writing isn't compelling to many people.
I read about a screen test of The Deer Hunter, in which people said the movie was amazing but the beginning (the hunt, the wedding, etc.) was too long. The producers cut a bunch of scenes and tried again. This time the feedback was, "the movie sucks."
As a pratical lens on this advice: people are excellent at giving feedback on their problems. They are terrible at identifying how to fix it.
"It felt too long" was right. The solution was not to make the story shorter. The solution was to look at the parts that felt long, and believe that feedback.
If you're building something, and your users tell you it's complicated or it's slow or it's not useful, they're right! The fix may or may not be to make it simpler, faster, or more useful. Maybe it needs to be organized better, or to create deliberate moments of action, or to be used at a different time. The problems are real, but the obvious solutions are not always right.
I liked Zvi Mowshowitz' summary of this: If someone tells you what's wrong, listen to them. If they tell you how to fix it, ignore them.
I heard very similar advice from some investors. They said:
> If you ignore what we tell you its possible we'll fire you. However, if you do everything we tell you to do its almost certain that we'll fire you.
Very useful way to think about politics. Always remember that people have valid concerns you might not understand... but also that their solutions are probably terrible.
Yes! Unfortunately, some people with terrible ideas get elected.
It’s more like you should have 5-10 readers. If they all say the same thing they’re right. If half think the pacing is too slow and half think it’s too fast you are probably spot on.
It's more likely that your pacing isn't consistent and is both too fast and too slow.
> You don't need advice from editors on rejected manuscripts.
Continues to tell us how he did listen to the advice because the editor actually had a point that made the story better, got the book published and won him an award.
Yeah I think the lesson is that specific suggestions for what to do aren't as helpful as just hearing how someone else experienced your work, and then drawing your own conclusions about how to fix that.
Bug reports should describe the problem but often shouldn't try to prescribe a solution.
There’s a similar situation in game dev. Players are very good at identifying problems - this isn’t fun, this feels too hard, etc. However, the solutions they suggest are often terrible, resulting in broken, unfun games. The same advice applies: Figure out what’s actually wrong and fix that.
Is that level really too hard, or did you just fail to properly introduce a new ability? Is the story boring, or is the story taking away from the enjoyable gameplay?
I've found the traditional publishing industry really interesting. It's so hard to get approved or even noticed from the gatekeepers[0]. Even getting a rejection from an agent can take months. And agents are just the very first gate. Being agented can be lightyears away from getting published.
And after so many layers of gatekeeping and due process, what got to the shelves are like, uh, Kiss of the Basilisk. I mean it totally makes sense in from a marketing perspective, but the whole situation is a little bit funny.
[0]: used as a neutral term, not a negative one
Everyone and their LLM is flooding them with slop every day, it's no wonder it's hard to get any feedback whatsoever.
And even if you do get selected, you may fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of your writing.
As far as I can tell it's nearly impossible to get picked up by a major publisher now unless you're bringing a very large social media following.
If you've got the social media following, your book can be really bad and it'll still get published (examples... abound). The book hardly matters, guaranteed sales via an audience you bring to the table (so, no work for them) is what they're interested in.
I mean, it was already nearly impossible, but now it's nearly-impossibler (nearlier-impossible?), with the social media following being almost necessary to make it even a very-long-shot instead of a no-you're-definitely-getting-rejected.
The best possible position is to have a breakout self-published hit. An author with that can hand the boring difficult expensive parts - print and distribution - over to a trad publisher, and keep the rights to ebooks, audio books, movies, and the rest, hiring negotiating talent as and when it's needed.
For breakout authors, publishers will often get in touch directly.
Agents are basically - well, I don't know any more. There used to be a point to them, but now they're running a kind of cottage industry of pointless gatekeeping for wannabes who will make pennies even if they are picked up.
It's not the same industry it was fifty years. It's not even the same industry it was twenty years ago.
A lot of wannabes haven't worked this out yet. They still think a proper author goes through proper channels, and is properly anointed with a proper agent and a proper contract.
And then most of them are surprised to discover their properly published book sells less than a thousand copies, and it's off the shelves almost immediately - because that's how print works unless you're a Big Name - and they can't give up their day jobs.
Well, perhaps Orsen Scott Card does not need editors’ advice. But odds are you do.
"Don't try to make a living writing genre fiction for established publishers".
The money in literary fiction is even worse.
You are basically working for exposure until someone puts it on a screen.
This is a great blog post and very sound advice.
I, however, miss twitter's "twitterness". 140 characters and a link.
I am not sure how this is "sound advice".
Maybe in this case the editor's comments were not helpful, and maybe OP is right for that. I do not see how this generalises to a rule "do not take advice from editors that reject your manuscripts".
For one, in scientific publications, when you get rejected based on reviewers' comments, chances are if you send the manuscript to another journal the article will be sent to the same reviewers, and if unchanged will be rejected again. Not taking advice into account, as a general rule, sounds like very bad advice.
It's only a failure if you give up and stop moving
There’s one person I really wish still posted here. He’d light this place up.
When anyone rejects you for any reason, job, dating whatever, don’t even ask why it is irrelevant and meaningless information. People rarely if ever are truly honest about why, and even if they were, who cares, move on to someone who accepts you.
Different story if it’s family/friend - if you know them personally.
Also Orson Scott Card:
"If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that motherhood doesn’t require a husband or father, and that homosexuality is as valid a choice as heterosexuality for their future lives, then why in the world should married people continue to accept the authority of such a government?" [1]
"The dark secret of homosexual society —the one that dares not speak its name —is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally." [2]
"In fact, the scientific evidence we have points in the opposite direction: Same-sex attraction is not a strait jacket; people’s desires change over time; gay people still have choices; a reproductive dysfunction like same-sex attraction is not a death sentence for your DNA or for your desire to have a family in which children grow up with male and female parents to model appropriate gender roles." [3]
"I find the comparison between civil rights based on race and supposed new rights being granted for what amounts to deviant behavior to be really kind of ridiculous. There is no comparison. A black as a person does not by being black harm anyone. Gay rights is a collective delusion that’s being attempted. And the idea of ‘gay marriage’—it’s hard to find a ridiculous enough comparison." [4]
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20090122061141/http://mormontimes...
[2] http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2004-02-15-1.html [original link now broken]
[3] http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/hc.e.211703.lasso [original link now broken]
[4] http://www.salon.com/2000/02/03/card
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
In my opinion, it's relevant to Card's credibility. If he shows poor judgement in one area, why would I want to listen to his opinion on something else, even something which is considered to be in his wheelhouse? Poor judgement is poor judgement.
Everyone shows poor judgement in one area.
It sucks that he has those ideas, but he's a good writer.
He's a popular writer, but hardly good. No one is going to be reading his books in 50 years, let alone 200.
That's an extremely high bar. But to the extent that critics and awards are the metric we have, he is an objectively good writer.
I don't know that you can establish objectively if someone is a good writer. He's an acclaimed, award-winning writer, sure.
The not-so-short story Ender's Game was great. The novel Ender's Game was awful. I hope someone told him it was too long, too repetitive, and too Gary Stu. I wish he had taken that feedback to heart.
I don’t like when people use this without all the important context. Showing other quotes from the same person that is giving subjective advice on topics, lends to curiosity around how to filter their advice.
> It's is a complex and hard question, but the principles we apply to it have been around for a long time and are consistent with the site guidelines. If they weren't, we'd change the latter. > > I've explained all of this many times. If you, or anyone, would like to know how we approach the question, you could start here: > > https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [1]
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47373246
it did not make me wish to engage in political or ideological battle, i found it an interesting reflection of a complicated person's thought process. So, any battling is on you (you no doubt have a lot of company: "don't you dare feed us raw meat, we'll jump up and down in our cages and spill the poop buckets")
How is this relevant to his opinion on writing fiction ?
reading TFA gave me a complicated perspective on OSC, and reading this comment gave me a more complicated persepctive on OSC, so I'm glad I read both, and I'm glad the long battle scenes were left out of both.
Does his opposition of homosexuality some how make his point about writing critiques less interesting?
I can't believe you wrote your comment on a computer with wouldn't exist without eugenicist shockley's nobel prize winning invention. Shameful!
> Does his opposition of homosexuality some how make his point about writing critiques less interesting?
i'll bite: yes. it belies a lack of compassion, imagination, openness and curiosity required to create compelling fiction or writing advice that resonates with people who aren't bigots.
Orson Scott Card is one of the best selling sci Fi authors of all time, and has won the hugo and nebula award multiple times, and has been translated into 35+ languages. I think you would be pretty hard pressed to show that his writing isn't compelling to many people.