In a post on Writer Unboxed, Keith Cronin shares some tough love from F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“Nothing any good isn’t hard,” Fitzgerald wrote in a letter to his daughter Scottie, referencing her dreams of becoming a writer. “Nobody ever became a writer just by wanting to be one. If you have anything to say, anything you feel nobody has ever said before, you have got to feel it so desperately that you will find some way to say it that nobody has ever found before, so that the thing you have to say and the way of saying it blend as one matter—as indissolubly as if they were conceived together.”
If you think that’s tough, wait til you read what Fitzgerald wrote to Frances Turnbull, a Radcliffe College student who asked him to read one of her stories.
“I’ve read the story carefully and, Frances, I’m afraid the price for doing professional work is a good deal higher than you are prepared to pay at present,” Fitzgerald said. “You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell.”
Cronin notes that this kind of critique probably wouldn’t fly in today’s feelings-focused participation trophy atmosphere. Of course, writers should be supportive, especially of those just starting out, but is kindness the only kind of support?
“As cliché as it sounds, I’ve learned more from my hardships – and, let’s be honest: my flat-out failures – than I have from any positive feedback or successful experience,” Cronin says. “And so often the crucial lesson I need to learn is what NOT to do. That is a lesson I keep boomeranging back to, in any field I’ve pursued. What can I say? I’ve found ‘tough love’ to be one of life’s greatest teachers.”
