Are You Too Confident About Your Writing?
Have you ever noticed how some writers are totally confident about their abilities as writers, while others struggle every day with whether or not they’re good enough to make it?
If you’re anything like me, you worry. You worry you’ll never be good enough, and that you’re wasting your time.
Part of me wishes I could sit down at my computer each day and tell myself, “You rock. You’re the best. You ARE good enough.” Thing is, I don’t believe that kind of attitude is necessarily helpful. In fact, I believe it can be downright harmful.
Here’s why:
When we get cocky, we fall flat on our faces.
Some reasons why being overly confident can be detrimental are:
You might be deluded about your abilities
Several months ago, literary agent Nathan Bransford posted a thought-provoking article on the Dunning-Kruger effect.
He says:
The basic theory is that when people are incompetent at something they tend to lack the ability to realize it and they overrate their abilities relative to others. Meanwhile, people who actually are good at something tend to underrate their abilities and may as a result suffer from lack of confidence.
If you’re completely confident about your writing abilities, consider that you might be kidding yourself. Even the best writers have room for improvement.
You’ll overlook your writing flaws
If your writing is perfect already, you have nothing to do but sit back, relax, and wait for that publishing house to snap up your manuscript. Right?
Fellow writers might give you feedback on how to make your work better, but you’ll be unlikely to make any necessary changes if you’re totally assured it’s at its best. That means your writing doesn’t improve.
In the end, you’re only doing yourself and your writing a disservice.
You’ll be less motivated to study the craft of writing
Sure, you might hear about the overnight success of writers like Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling, but I assure you a great deal of study goes into any writer’s career. A few authors are lucky enough to discover the magic bestseller formula on the first try, but to repeat that success takes time, practice, and study.
Save yourself a lot of heartache by recognizing the importance of learning about the craft of writing early on.
Others won’t want to work with you
Even if you’re as talented and polished as you think, most writers, agents and editors won’t be keen on working with you if you’re not open to suggestions for improvement.
No one enjoys having their writing ripped apart, but using constructive criticism as an opportunity to improve your work automatically makes you a better writer.
Of course, if you alienate others by letting them know you don’t value their opinions, you won’t get a whole lot of meaningful feedback.
Are You Too Confident?
I think most writers are like me: we’re cautiously optimistic about having what it takes to get published, but we realize the long, uphill battle we still have ahead.
Still, when we get too close to our work, it’s sometimes tempting to think our writing is perfect. Taking some time away from your writing is one of the best ways to help you see those flaws you missed the first time around.
So, are you deluding yourself about your abilities as a writer?
Photos courtesy of soei_cs_82 and alexanderward12
Suzannah Windsor Freeman writes and teaches in Canada and Australia (but never at the same time). Pop over to Write It Sideways for more great writing tips, or follow her on Twitter.
Nice post!
I think you need a certain amount of swagger in what you do, but you always need to recognize you can constantly improve and keep up with what is going around you.
I just came from a blog where the blogger asked if writers were confidence in their writing and abilities, but in a different way from this post – how some writers never believe in themselves.
Anyway – balance – all about the balance. Confidence infused with a lot of reality.
@Kim: Thanks!
@Donnie: Too true. Confident is good–overly confident isn’t!
@Kat: You’re right. It’s important to have confidence, and it’s important to to believe in yourself… but all without being blind to what lies ahead.
Rats! Donnie and Kat stole my inspire comment. Without some ego, none of us would have the temerity to expose our thoughts to the world. It is essential that we hold the idea that we have something of worth to say. But, to acknowledge Kat’s golden word, ‘balance’, we must realize that we NEED those other eyes and interpretations to burnish our ideas to their manifest destiny. Just the understanding that my words will inevitably come under scrutiny makes me craft the writing carefully from the first keystroke and continue to reread through those other as-yet-unseen eyes. That said, not EVERY comment or suggestion can or should be accepted. A certain amount of self protection is appropriate. It is, after all, MY story, not theirs. But, all comments should be welcome.
I was reading this and thinking I’d like to meet writers who are too confident! As for me, I am barely confident in my writing, though I hope to improve that.
Love this post!
It is such a difficult balance. Some days I think I just flat out rock and others, I’m like — what am I doing? I’m a horrible writer and no one would ever want to read this dribble!
The main thing you hit on that resonated with me, though, is that if you think you’re too good, you’ll never get better. I *want* to learn. I want to grow as a writer. I adore critiques and have learned to take only what I want out of them…what makes sense to me. But if never listened to anyone else, my writing would neither evolve nor advance.
I look back at things I wrote a few years ago and just laugh at it. Not that it was ridiculously horrible, but I can see the progress I’ve made. The fact that I doubt myself at times (ok, a lot of the time) and know there’s ALWAYS room for improvement has helped me immensely.