Writing to Expectation Versus Writing From Inspiration
When it comes to evaluating failure, blame generally falls to the powerless
No matter where you are in society, you have people you’re forced to pay attention to and people you have the power to ignore. The problem is that we end up ignoring people because of their status and not because of the merit of their ideas.
I try to be mindful of this particularly when it comes to my kids. They are young and they have less to remember than I do. Quite often, they’ll recall something that I’ve forgotten. It could be anything from a line in a movie to the location of a favorite restaurant. Even when I am absolutely sure I’m right and they are wrong, I defer to their suggestions.
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When it comes to fresh memories, they’re always right. Now, this doesn’t mean I defer to their position on everything. They haven’t completed their professional degrees yet, they don’t have a lifetime of experience. But in their area of expertise their observations are extremely valuable.
No matter what choices we have to make, there are always more variables that influence our decisions than might be immediately apparent. There’s a lot of data that needs to be interpreted without the influence of hubris. Unfortunately, we’re far too dismissive of valuable insights that come from people that we perceive as having a lesser status.
Expectation versus execution
When an initiative succeeds, everyone is happy and everyone takes credit. When an initiative fails, everyone tries to escape the blame. In reality, both of these responses represent a missed opportunity for further understanding.
When a book fails to gain an audience, too often it’s the author who doesn’t get another chance. The truth is you can’t assume it’s the fault of the author. Instead, you have to evaluate every decision from editing to marketing. Maybe the author turned in six manuscripts that would have been bestsellers and they were all rejected.
A bad idea can be made to look good if it’s implemented by a talented team. There are also ideas that are so bad that no amount of talent can save them. For example Tom Brady might be a great football player, but if you line him up at running back rather than quarterback you deprive yourself of the advantage of his talents.
A great idea can also be destroyed by a bad team. No matter what you’re attempting to accomplish, you have to consider whether you are being held back by expectation or execution. Pride obscures our ability to discern the truth.
The high status individuals involved with a project are inclined to assume that the fault lies with the women and men in the trenches doing the actual work. “If only you tried harder, my perfect plan would succeed! You’re all fired!”
The value of a different perspective
My wife’s been working on her master’s degree in education. Recently she came to me and said she was exhausted from reading all the academic articles she needed to review for her thesis. Her native language is Spanish, but she’s been reading articles in English.
“Why don’t you find some scholarly articles in Spanish?” I asked. “Academic articles are published in Spanish all the time, and translating quotes into English would be an effective means of paraphrasing without getting flagged by plagiarism tools.”
She ran this idea by her professor who said he didn’t think it was a good idea because articles from other parts of the world would have a different educational philosophy.
I thought that was a baffling viewpoint. The scientific method is the same no matter what country you’re in, and academic papers should be evaluated precisely because they feature differing educational philosophies. It seems to me that the program had a marvelous opportunity when it came to my wife. Her background allowed her to do a survey on research that wouldn’t normally be available to them.
But her status in that class was “student” and the professor had the ultimate authority. In the end, she wrote her thesis based on English language sources because she wanted to pass.
She still wrote a very good paper, but that doesn’t mean the paper she might have written wouldn’t have been better. She conformed to the expectation of her professor, but her execution was limited by the parameters that professor put into place.
Ignoring publisher feedback
In the afterword of The King Beyond the Gate, David Gemmell discusses getting feedback from his publisher on his second book. He sent in two different manuscripts which were both rejected. With his confidence shaken, he decided to write the book he wanted to write rather than continue attempting to conform to the expectations of his publisher. The third manuscript was enthusiastically accepted.
The problem with writing to expectation is that it can be a moving target. I’ve been in meetings where a supervisor kept telling me “no.” Finally, I asked, “Why don’t you give me an example of what you want?”
“I’ll know it when I see it,” he said.
Essentially, I took that as a proof that he didn’t know what he wanted. It’s like a guy sitting next to a helicopter pilot who starts fiddling with the controls thinking they’ll make it fly better. In reality, all they’re going to do is make it crash.
In my professional experience, whenever I start to get frustrated by inconsistent feedback, I remind myself that I’m good at what I do. “What they want to see is quality work.” Then I put aside my frustration and write from inspiration.
It doesn’t work all the time, but nothing does. I don’t completely disregard expectation, but I try to find inspiration within the established parameters as I understand them. Over time you’ll gather up more wins than losses if you follow this approach.
Pride doesn’t help when it comes to making decisions
I often worry when I see signs that the scientific method isn’t being followed. You see claims that people have made “evaluations,” but if the parameters of those evaluations are not revealed, and the sample size isn’t relevant, then you can’t trust the conclusions. Hubris sneaks in there.
The truth is a lot of decisions are made with the appearance of following some sort of analytical process, but that process rarely meets a scientific standard. More often these evaluations are designed to justify the impression of whomever happens to have the highest status.
The process of peer review means that everyone involved in an undertaking should have equal access to the data, and they should be able to offer criticisms based on their individual area of expertise. Disregarding this process only creates the appearance of expediency. In reality, anything other than appropriate peer review ends up taking longer because no feedback is provided from the experts within the system who might be able to identify the problems.
The woman on her first day might have the right perspective precisely because she hasn’t been working at the company for years. She hasn’t become acclimated to adapting to an inefficient system.
Systems that end up spinning their wheels
Everybody always wants to save their job. A coach blames the players for a loss. The players blame the coach’s scheme. The truth is that there is always room for improvement for both the players and the coach.
As a writer, you are not very high on the status list. Your job is to come as close as you can to fulfilling the publisher’s expectation without sacrificing your artistic execution. I often feel I have to camouflage quality work in the trappings of mediocrity. Writers have always had to disguise their message.
There’s a caveat to these observations. I’ve often gone back to look at things I wrote years ago. There have been times when I thought my initial impression was right, and other times when I saw advantages in the work the publisher approved. At this point, I’ve written thousands of articles, so my perspective is nearing the point of statistical significance.
Pride still clouds my judgment.
How inspiration and expectation can work together
Writers have to be mindful of expectations, but you also have to follow your passion. You cannot write to expectation alone, you always have to be true to the inner calling which compels you to create.
If expectation leaves you stuck in a cramped cage with your inspiration, then write about the details on the feathers. If that works, maybe you’ll be given a cage big enough to observe your inspiration in flight.
The creative mind must constantly test boundaries. In the absence of action you can create a boundary out of nothing. That gives people something to fight about. But the arbitrary starting point must be adjusted based on the conclusions of the inquiry.
Every cage must be broken. Don’t allow ego to compel you into maintaining the cage you created.
Expectation gets the process started, but it’s inspiration that will lift you to even greater heights.
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Yes, exactly. I have almost finished one I started yesterday about getting a brussel sprout from behind the oven. I didn't intend to write this essay but once I started to think about the process it just came right out. Bizarre topic, I know - but it's really about relishing life's small victories.
Sometimes passion and expectations click, and sometimes they don't. It's important to be open-minded and flexible and not get stuck in ruts that you think are right.