The Advice

Based on an actual, true event

Once upon a long ago there was a Young Person who aspired to literary greatness. He dreamed that one day he would write the Next Great Novel that would take the world by storm and enshrine his name in literary history as well as considerably boost his bank balance and vastly improve his general lifestyle.

There was one intsy-teensy-weeny flaw in the young person’s plan however: he had absolutely no talent for writing whatsoever.

Oh, he had the vocabulary because he had taken the time to learn some long, impressive-sounding words, all of which he incorporated into the first part of his magnum opus. Unfortunately he had very little idea of how to draw character, lay a plot or even string an interesting sentence together let alone develop tension or excitement in his writing.

The sample he allowed his soon-to-be-adoring-public to read, pre-publication of the whole nove,l was about as bland as a white-painted wall. Not that he saw it in quite those terms. Pleased as punch with his first foray into the world of literature the Young Person sat back and waited for all of the plaudits he felt he had earned and deserved to be heaped upon him.

And he waited…

And he waited…

And he waited…

He waited until a Kindly Soul who, although not a published author, was a very experienced writer of several decades standing, read the Great Work and found it to be… well, less-than-great. In fact, he found it to be of a very poor standard for one who aspired to the higher echelons of literary recognition. Truth be told, the work would have struggled to find acceptance at any level of literary merit, let alone the greater literary world.

In the spirit of sharing knowledge and expertise in the writing arena the Kindly Soul took it upon his shoulders to compose a message containing some helpful advice and information regarding plotting, character development and building tension and excitement in a story; in short a little help in all of the areas where the Young Writer’s work was lacking. He even took a small sample of the authors’ original work and slightly reworked it to incorporate his advice, which seemed to him to be a helpful and practical application of that advice. The message was forwarded to the appropriate party along with warm regards and best wishes for the future.

The Kindly Soul did not expect thanks or even gratitude from the Young Writer. Neither did he expect the nastiness and abuse that was directed towards him from the same person. Much to the Kindly Soul’s shock and dismay the Young Writer revealed himself to be completely delusional and had notions that he was already a great writer. All this in spite of there being no evidence on which to form such an outlandish notion. Indeed, the Young Writer was so obnoxious as to suggest that the Kindly Soul had such limited experience himself that he was not even qualified to comment on the Young Writer's work!

Shocked and dismayed at the unforeseen turn of events the Kindly Soul decided that further involvement with such an immature and talentless, delusional and rather unpleasant person was not conducive to his long term mental and emotional health. He decided that forthwith he would never again freely share of his experience and knowledge with anybody. He vowed to keep it all to himself for the furtherance of his own literary career, which had already lasted considerably longer than the Young Writer’s was ever likely to.

ooOoo

Reviews

[M.R Steiner]

well I for one was happy to take your advice on board :) no writers is born, they are made, and you have a great sense of flow :D I hope I get that one day, till then I will keep at it. this other (fictional) guy needs to realize every opinion is valid, learn from them or you will be left in the dust.