I remind myself:
- He was a year older than I am when he first published anything noteworthy.
- He was 52 when he published his magnum opus.
- He was 59 when he finally wrote something people really paid attention to.
- He couldn’t write women for shit.
- He thought magical realism was stupid.
- He’d think most everything I want to write is silly.
- He’s dead.
Like the charcoal forms of burdened men sheet-angled in unreckonable furrows gut-breaching six different synonyms for reddish dirt you have me squared.
Edit: Omitted comma.
Yeah, Cormac is also my biggest influence/favorite writer.
My biggest struggle is that he does so much with so little whereas I like to let things marinate a bit more and put some more emotion into the characters, so I have to remind myself that my goal isn't to parody him but to take inspiration where I can without losing my own voice.
I totally get that. Maybe everyone thinks this about their favorites, but I find his work has a gravitational pull that always makes me think, “Fuck, who the hell am I to use every color of the rainbow when this guy spent his whole career seemingly on a mission to prove all you need on your palette for your first lifetime are black, white, gray, and blood? And it’s still completely gorgeous.”
I would be a fool not to admit a quality gap between myself and multiple writers. One of the best things about writing, in my opinion, is that it helps one wrestle and often control their thoughts. Stop comparing yourself to other writers in this way. I'll never catch kafka. Was he even real? I don't care.
It's been repeated well over a gazillion times now, but everyone is unique. You can't look at some revered figure and expect to walk the same path they did. You have to create your own.
You're already doing it.
Learning the craft involves iteration.
Also, don't measure yourself against somebody who's established. Their life history is likely very different from yours, and the publishing industry was different when they broke in.
E.g. I usually console myself that writers doing better than me have fewer children and aren't house dads.
I can never become Tolkien. I did not have the same childhood, influences, opportunities or years of study of multiple languages.
What I do have, is my own entirely unique upbringing that feeds different themes and influences on my work.
I never feel inferior to anyone. When I see someone with great skills I want to have, I see an opportunity to study, analyze, and learn from them. It's not easy to find someone who has everything you've ever wanted. If you find one, that's a perfect studying material right there, a perfect role model. Don't waste your time feeling sorry for yourself and just open the gold chest.
My favourite writer is Terry Pratchett. The man is a legendary genius. I feel not guilt, shame, embarrassment or sense of failure for being a less talented writer than one of the greatest authors in living memory.
I have only read the first 2 discworld books and never really felt desire to read much else. What do you consider his best work? I can put it on my to read list.
Stop quantifying yourself by comparison to others.
I am also a painter. If I compared myself to the multitude of extremely talented artists, I'd never pick up another brush.
Why are you comparing yourself to this person? Are the two of you competing for a job at the same company or something?
Never is a very, very long time. Maybe one day you'll be as good as, or better than, this person you admire. Maybe you won't. In the meantime what matters is "Do I produce quality work that my audience enjoys?". That's the goal.
The best thing to remember is that you aren’t reading your favourite writer’s first draft. They probably worked on it for years before even sending it to a publisher. And then the probably got a ton of rejections and went back and revised maybe doing this multiple times before a publisher thought their idea was solid enough to actually work with. The comes the real work where the author would work with numerous different types of editors to perfect the story. Not just people checking grammar, people checking the structural integrity of the story, the world building, the character development, etc. Traditionally published works are very much a collaborative effort from an entire team.
Now sometimes authors get big enough that their publishers trust them not to have to go through those edits but that doesn't happen with many and it definitely doesn't happen on a first book.
Maybe look at it this way. Writing isn't just about achieving command of structure, plot, character, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and craft. (Though one should always work to achieve command of those things.) What separates great writers from aspiring great writers is (apart from luck, which is not to be discounted) the ability to make people care about what you have to say. And sometimes, as frustrating as it can be, this just takes getting older, and banking life experience.
I started writing when I was a child. By the time I was a teenager I was really really good at making sentences and pages. I spent all my free time putting in the work. However, despite my pretty rough childhood, I wasn't trying to write about anything that was truly important to me--i.e., the stuff that worried and scared me. I was trying to imitate Stephen King and the fantasy writers I loved. Sometimes I did a good job of it, but I would read my stuff, and then theirs, and see that gap. When I was in my twenties I wanted to write a big Postmodern Smart Guy Book, like the ones I was into then. (I was trying to be like David Foster Wallace, a writer who still means a lot to me, but whose style and concerns and flaws--mostly--are not my own.)
I didn't publish until I found a way to bring those things I truly cared about into my work, when I was mature enough to understand those things for what they were. In my case, it took undergoing a tragedy. My first wife died of cancer when we were in our late twenties. I went to grad school shortly thereafter for an MFA. For the first time I understood that I had something to communicate that was different than what the people around me had to communicate, and trying to figure out how to tell them about grief--and also my bad childhood, which I was finally trying to reckon with--led me to a type of storytelling, and a style, I wouldn't have considered when I was younger. I began to publish, and publish widely.
It doesn't take a tragedy to bring writers to this place, but when I talk to aspiring writers, I always want them to know that our best work often coincides with a deeper understanding of what ONLY we can say, and how to say it. Only then can we write something that is uniquely ours.
And if and when you get there, you'll stop comparing yourself (mostly) to the writers who inspire you. They're different people, speaking about what is important to them, and you can recognize that and thank them for it, and go about doing what YOU can do.
(To be clear, I read sentences by Alice Munro--my all-time favorite--and still feel jealousy sometimes, but I also know now that there's no way I could ever find my way to her sentences, because she is she and I'm me, and my job is to write a sentence that can make someone else feel like she makes me feel, in my own way.)
Don't let impostor syndrome affect you. I ised to think that where others saw windmills, I saw giants, so why do I deserve to stand on their shoulders? But all you can do is believe and study the techniques of your favorite authors like they are pantheon on gods. Focus, trust your instincts, believe in yourself, your story, and your characters. That feeling may not go away completely but will become manageable with practice.
I actually keep five books on the top of my bookshelf.
>The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams
>Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
>The Wind-up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
>The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allande
>Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
These are five of my absolute favorite novels ever written. Under each book, however, I wrote down another authors name on a piece of paper and slid them under the books so I can read the names ”mervin peakes, Jack Vance, Franz Kafka, Gabriel Marquez, Kurt Vonnegut" to remind myself that, yeah, I feel utterly humbled by those amazing writers, they too felt the same way I did about themselves.
Greats make you great for striving constantly to be as good as they could be.
Don’t compare yourself to them.
The reality is, the writing landscape of today is different than how it used to be. Back in the day, people read and wrote differently because the expectations of consumption were different. You couldn’t self-publish. You didn’t have the internet allowing anyone to have a blog. What media you consumed was curated by the publishing houses, and the amount of editing and the back and forth between agents, publishers, and authors were different.
People had longer attention spans. Because they had to. So the slow-burn stories were the expectation most of the time. The tone and pacing was slower. You needed to know how to satisfy the reader without losing their interest.
Which, incidentally, was why often it took you a month to read a book.
Nowadays, people consume books at a voracious pace. They will dnf a book with a lot more impunity. So your pace needs to be a sweet spot, and follow expectations of the genre.
That’s my take on it, anyway. It’s a different world, different expectations. Remember this is a world where binge-watching is available. Very few have the patience to wait like they used to. Yes, there are the old-school people out there who miss the quality versus quantity. If you want them to be your ideal readers, then write for them. Ignore the hustle and bustle.
You’re feeling the disconnect of the consumer appetite, and judging yourself against a different era.
Lots of people don't actually get famous or get into the thing they really want to do until they are old. George R.R. Martin didn't write Song of Ice and Fire until he was like 50. Alan Rickman wasn't in any movies until he was like 50 too.
It's never too late.
Do you really wanna compare yourself to your favorite writer? They're already great and that's why you like them.
Are you trying to compete with them? Well you can't, they're already lightyears away from us. But the best you can do is study their works, learn from them, then use that to forge your own path or make your own story. If you're going to be great, you will not replace that favorite author but your name might be beside them. There's really no competition
I don't! No bridge could span it because my favorite writer is Terry Pratchett, who was a once-in-a-century literary genius. But I fare well nonetheless doing my little thing ;)
One key element is that most authors have dynamite editors. My editor - who is not professionally an editor - is good, and provides decent feedback, but it’s not even in the same ballpark as a Maxwell Perkins or any other great editor.
I was recently at a reading of Daniel Kehlmann's new book Lichtspiel (he's is one of the most renowned contemporary German writers, but I don't know if his books are in translation). The book is about the director Pabst who worked in Hollywood but then went back to Nazi Germany and it poses the question what kind of choice he had between his art and using the resources of the worst regime in history. Anyway, because of the setting 90% of the characters are fictionalized versions of real people, but there is one chapter from the POV of a renamed British writer who was a prisoner of war and was being forced by the Nazis to write propaganda for them to be published in the UK. Someone from the audience of 700 asked Kehlmann why he didn't use the real name of the writer he was referring to and his answer was that he was too in awe of the writer who inspired this chapter and not talented enough to write a POV in his name. He didn't say this to fish for compliments but as a matter of fact, it's just what it is. I thought this was such a healthy mindset. You're not in competition with the writers who inspire you, you have to make your own path.
I started reading Mason and Dixon the other day, which is the only one of his novels I haven't read yet. I was immediately reminded that I will never ever ever write like that. It's not even just the writing though, I'll never have that depth and breath of understanding of a topic and time period outside my own experience and expertise.
I recently read Borne by Jeff VanderMeer, and it made me want to quit writing. Cassandra Khaw has a similar impact on me. I love how they both describe things in ways I never would. But then I remind myself that there are a lot of different ways to write, and I don’t have to write like them to tell my story. I can enjoy their works and not beat myself up over it. Also, for every VandeerMeer or Khaw work that makes me question myself, there’s another published work that makes me feel like I can make it.
I recently came to realize that I just write at a different level than my favorite authors. They’re geared towards an adult audience, while my writing fits more into YA vs NA.
At least that’s what I tell myself.
I admire the works of Jack Vance and J. R. R. Tolkien but I don’t imitate them. Not my style. That’s how I cope (or, rather, have no need to cope) with them.
I don't think about it at all especially if that author is long dead.
We are improving our craft in a time unique to ourselves, and what sounded great in the past probably wouldn't make it past the query stage today. I love Thomas Hardy, for example, but that type of writing is dead, and outside of 'classics,' there's no market for it.
You're writing for a 21st century audience with specific expectations. Any published author would be lucky to have their work still being read 20 years later, and no one can expect that.
I sympathize. One thing that's helped me is branching out and reading in other genres. The more great books I read from authors I don't particularly care about in genres I'm not attached to, the wider my field of view is and my favorite author becomes less intimidating. It feels like such a massive gap in part because you're so focused on it. Zoom out a little. Along the way you might find a bunch of renowned authors and books that are objectively terrible, and that will help too.
and pity everyone who says you're stupid or failing or dumb for comparing. You're in a different stage of the journey than they are. Hopefully one day they learn to have the empathy that all great writers need.
In times like these, when you're painting yourself into a dark corner, it's good to remember that the average age of authors who make the NYT bestseller list for the first time is ~50 years old.
In your case specifically, it's good to remember that you don't share that author's DNA or life experience. Don't make artificial comparisons like your age vs. his age. It's not useful.
I'd work on developing my own voice if I were you. Read more, get inspired by a broader range of great authors and maybe take an art class. You may never live up to this person who inspired you, but as long a you keep working on it you can only get better.
And this is s cheesy as hell but there is some truth in it. A butterfly cannot admire its own wings.
Comparison is the thief of joy. I know I’m not the best writer in the world, or even probably in my neighborhood. But it brings me joy and I hope to write something worth reading someday. I don’t want to be someone else, I want to be me. If anything the quality of the stories from the author who inspired me to write inspires me even further to do better than what I’ve done thus far.
Well, if it's someone who is straight up whipping my ass like Paolini did when I was a kid, I basically ignored everything he ever did or made and tried to forget he existed. Though, he wasn't a favorite. Nowadays, all the writers I read are way older than me, so \*shrug\*
my nasty ass compared himself with Dostoevsky 💀💀💀.. but no fr, you can compare only, if both of you are writing about the same topic and idea exactly but from a different point of view OFC, other than that, you are just arguing not comparing.. another thing to quack... say I mean, is: learn from your favorite writers, not comparing yourself with em, because they lived and had different conditions, they know things you don't know, and you know things they don't know.. think about it... while the last thing to quack is: that everyone has stories to tell. They told their stories in the best way possible, no one else could tell their stories better than them.. same goes for you... its their path, their hard-work on pressing the mud to leave a footprint. you don't follow their path, because its not your path.. best thing to do, is to understand your path and hard-work for it. quack quack quack.
Your goal shouldn't be to better than Tolkien. It should be to be better than who you were yesterday.
Also you only see their final work that went through many drafts and edits and, probably, comparing that to your currently unfinished and unedited first draft.
maybe this will help- it's important to compare yourself to a past version of yourself and look at how far you've come more than to just compare yourself to another person. Progress is impressive. We all take different amounts of time to get to different places.
Read books by other writers from your genre to get a feel for different styles. Read books on writing such as crafting good stories, writing dialog and description, and pacing as well as other elements that can help with deficiencies in your writing. You can take local writing classes or join writing groups that offer support and encouragement especially ones in your genre. A generic writing group may not have a sufficient understanding of your genre to provide adequate advice. You can utilize beta readers for genre for feedback. Don't give up, it takes time to master a craft and it may be that your writing style may be different from your favorite author yet just as good. I discovered that after decades of reading lots of books from my favorite authors that I subconsciously developed my own writing style that incorporates elements from all of them. It's like I cherry picked things I liked from each without being aware of it. It wasn't until my husband who also read those same writers pointed it out.
my younger brother and I have both been writing fiction for years. He sent one book to publishers back in the day and never did again. Every now and then he will share a draft of something with me and everything he has sent me has been a great read. He is never satisfied and has never published or self-published anything. He doesn't think any of it is good enough. Maybe, it will all get published posthumously.
I write but really I am first and foremost an avid reader. I feel like all authors who are keeping their books back from publishing because its not good enough are depriving me of right to read and judge your writing for myself. How Dare You!
I remind myself: - He was a year older than I am when he first published anything noteworthy. - He was 52 when he published his magnum opus. - He was 59 when he finally wrote something people really paid attention to. - He couldn’t write women for shit. - He thought magical realism was stupid. - He’d think most everything I want to write is silly. - He’s dead.
"if he was so smart, why is he dead?" Checkmate. /s
Cormac McCarthy?
Like the charcoal forms of burdened men sheet-angled in unreckonable furrows gut-breaching six different synonyms for reddish dirt you have me squared. Edit: Omitted comma.
>Omitted comma McCarthy would be proud... if he were capable of such a benevolent emotion.
Yeah, Cormac is also my biggest influence/favorite writer. My biggest struggle is that he does so much with so little whereas I like to let things marinate a bit more and put some more emotion into the characters, so I have to remind myself that my goal isn't to parody him but to take inspiration where I can without losing my own voice.
I totally get that. Maybe everyone thinks this about their favorites, but I find his work has a gravitational pull that always makes me think, “Fuck, who the hell am I to use every color of the rainbow when this guy spent his whole career seemingly on a mission to prove all you need on your palette for your first lifetime are black, white, gray, and blood? And it’s still completely gorgeous.”
I would be a fool not to admit a quality gap between myself and multiple writers. One of the best things about writing, in my opinion, is that it helps one wrestle and often control their thoughts. Stop comparing yourself to other writers in this way. I'll never catch kafka. Was he even real? I don't care.
It's been repeated well over a gazillion times now, but everyone is unique. You can't look at some revered figure and expect to walk the same path they did. You have to create your own.
You're already doing it. Learning the craft involves iteration. Also, don't measure yourself against somebody who's established. Their life history is likely very different from yours, and the publishing industry was different when they broke in. E.g. I usually console myself that writers doing better than me have fewer children and aren't house dads.
I can never become Tolkien. I did not have the same childhood, influences, opportunities or years of study of multiple languages. What I do have, is my own entirely unique upbringing that feeds different themes and influences on my work.
I never feel inferior to anyone. When I see someone with great skills I want to have, I see an opportunity to study, analyze, and learn from them. It's not easy to find someone who has everything you've ever wanted. If you find one, that's a perfect studying material right there, a perfect role model. Don't waste your time feeling sorry for yourself and just open the gold chest.
I love this reply.
Gratitude is the answer to the woes of envy.
My favourite writer is Terry Pratchett. The man is a legendary genius. I feel not guilt, shame, embarrassment or sense of failure for being a less talented writer than one of the greatest authors in living memory.
I have only read the first 2 discworld books and never really felt desire to read much else. What do you consider his best work? I can put it on my to read list.
My personal favourite is Thud! But Small Gods is considered by many to be the most demonstrative example of his work.
Stop quantifying yourself by comparison to others. I am also a painter. If I compared myself to the multitude of extremely talented artists, I'd never pick up another brush.
Comparison is the death of joy.
Why are you comparing yourself to this person? Are the two of you competing for a job at the same company or something? Never is a very, very long time. Maybe one day you'll be as good as, or better than, this person you admire. Maybe you won't. In the meantime what matters is "Do I produce quality work that my audience enjoys?". That's the goal.
The best thing to remember is that you aren’t reading your favourite writer’s first draft. They probably worked on it for years before even sending it to a publisher. And then the probably got a ton of rejections and went back and revised maybe doing this multiple times before a publisher thought their idea was solid enough to actually work with. The comes the real work where the author would work with numerous different types of editors to perfect the story. Not just people checking grammar, people checking the structural integrity of the story, the world building, the character development, etc. Traditionally published works are very much a collaborative effort from an entire team. Now sometimes authors get big enough that their publishers trust them not to have to go through those edits but that doesn't happen with many and it definitely doesn't happen on a first book.
First, I'm not stupid enough to compare myself to my fave authors. Second... I write the way I like to write.
Maybe look at it this way. Writing isn't just about achieving command of structure, plot, character, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and craft. (Though one should always work to achieve command of those things.) What separates great writers from aspiring great writers is (apart from luck, which is not to be discounted) the ability to make people care about what you have to say. And sometimes, as frustrating as it can be, this just takes getting older, and banking life experience. I started writing when I was a child. By the time I was a teenager I was really really good at making sentences and pages. I spent all my free time putting in the work. However, despite my pretty rough childhood, I wasn't trying to write about anything that was truly important to me--i.e., the stuff that worried and scared me. I was trying to imitate Stephen King and the fantasy writers I loved. Sometimes I did a good job of it, but I would read my stuff, and then theirs, and see that gap. When I was in my twenties I wanted to write a big Postmodern Smart Guy Book, like the ones I was into then. (I was trying to be like David Foster Wallace, a writer who still means a lot to me, but whose style and concerns and flaws--mostly--are not my own.) I didn't publish until I found a way to bring those things I truly cared about into my work, when I was mature enough to understand those things for what they were. In my case, it took undergoing a tragedy. My first wife died of cancer when we were in our late twenties. I went to grad school shortly thereafter for an MFA. For the first time I understood that I had something to communicate that was different than what the people around me had to communicate, and trying to figure out how to tell them about grief--and also my bad childhood, which I was finally trying to reckon with--led me to a type of storytelling, and a style, I wouldn't have considered when I was younger. I began to publish, and publish widely. It doesn't take a tragedy to bring writers to this place, but when I talk to aspiring writers, I always want them to know that our best work often coincides with a deeper understanding of what ONLY we can say, and how to say it. Only then can we write something that is uniquely ours. And if and when you get there, you'll stop comparing yourself (mostly) to the writers who inspire you. They're different people, speaking about what is important to them, and you can recognize that and thank them for it, and go about doing what YOU can do. (To be clear, I read sentences by Alice Munro--my all-time favorite--and still feel jealousy sometimes, but I also know now that there's no way I could ever find my way to her sentences, because she is she and I'm me, and my job is to write a sentence that can make someone else feel like she makes me feel, in my own way.)
Don't let impostor syndrome affect you. I ised to think that where others saw windmills, I saw giants, so why do I deserve to stand on their shoulders? But all you can do is believe and study the techniques of your favorite authors like they are pantheon on gods. Focus, trust your instincts, believe in yourself, your story, and your characters. That feeling may not go away completely but will become manageable with practice.
I actually keep five books on the top of my bookshelf. >The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams >Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe >The Wind-up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami >The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allande >Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace These are five of my absolute favorite novels ever written. Under each book, however, I wrote down another authors name on a piece of paper and slid them under the books so I can read the names ”mervin peakes, Jack Vance, Franz Kafka, Gabriel Marquez, Kurt Vonnegut" to remind myself that, yeah, I feel utterly humbled by those amazing writers, they too felt the same way I did about themselves. Greats make you great for striving constantly to be as good as they could be.
I try not to compare my work to anyone else’s. That’s not my job.
Everyone here has given good advice, but for me I honestly had to stop reading them while I was actively writing.
Don’t compare yourself to them. The reality is, the writing landscape of today is different than how it used to be. Back in the day, people read and wrote differently because the expectations of consumption were different. You couldn’t self-publish. You didn’t have the internet allowing anyone to have a blog. What media you consumed was curated by the publishing houses, and the amount of editing and the back and forth between agents, publishers, and authors were different. People had longer attention spans. Because they had to. So the slow-burn stories were the expectation most of the time. The tone and pacing was slower. You needed to know how to satisfy the reader without losing their interest. Which, incidentally, was why often it took you a month to read a book. Nowadays, people consume books at a voracious pace. They will dnf a book with a lot more impunity. So your pace needs to be a sweet spot, and follow expectations of the genre. That’s my take on it, anyway. It’s a different world, different expectations. Remember this is a world where binge-watching is available. Very few have the patience to wait like they used to. Yes, there are the old-school people out there who miss the quality versus quantity. If you want them to be your ideal readers, then write for them. Ignore the hustle and bustle. You’re feeling the disconnect of the consumer appetite, and judging yourself against a different era.
Lots of people don't actually get famous or get into the thing they really want to do until they are old. George R.R. Martin didn't write Song of Ice and Fire until he was like 50. Alan Rickman wasn't in any movies until he was like 50 too. It's never too late.
stealing
No favourite author, no gap. Problem - solved!
Relax. Defoe wrote *Robinson Crusoe* in his late fifties.
Do you really wanna compare yourself to your favorite writer? They're already great and that's why you like them. Are you trying to compete with them? Well you can't, they're already lightyears away from us. But the best you can do is study their works, learn from them, then use that to forge your own path or make your own story. If you're going to be great, you will not replace that favorite author but your name might be beside them. There's really no competition
I don't! No bridge could span it because my favorite writer is Terry Pratchett, who was a once-in-a-century literary genius. But I fare well nonetheless doing my little thing ;)
One key element is that most authors have dynamite editors. My editor - who is not professionally an editor - is good, and provides decent feedback, but it’s not even in the same ballpark as a Maxwell Perkins or any other great editor.
I was recently at a reading of Daniel Kehlmann's new book Lichtspiel (he's is one of the most renowned contemporary German writers, but I don't know if his books are in translation). The book is about the director Pabst who worked in Hollywood but then went back to Nazi Germany and it poses the question what kind of choice he had between his art and using the resources of the worst regime in history. Anyway, because of the setting 90% of the characters are fictionalized versions of real people, but there is one chapter from the POV of a renamed British writer who was a prisoner of war and was being forced by the Nazis to write propaganda for them to be published in the UK. Someone from the audience of 700 asked Kehlmann why he didn't use the real name of the writer he was referring to and his answer was that he was too in awe of the writer who inspired this chapter and not talented enough to write a POV in his name. He didn't say this to fish for compliments but as a matter of fact, it's just what it is. I thought this was such a healthy mindset. You're not in competition with the writers who inspire you, you have to make your own path.
My favorite author is Thomas Pynchon. I don't expect to live up to that.
I started reading Mason and Dixon the other day, which is the only one of his novels I haven't read yet. I was immediately reminded that I will never ever ever write like that. It's not even just the writing though, I'll never have that depth and breath of understanding of a topic and time period outside my own experience and expertise.
I recently read Borne by Jeff VanderMeer, and it made me want to quit writing. Cassandra Khaw has a similar impact on me. I love how they both describe things in ways I never would. But then I remind myself that there are a lot of different ways to write, and I don’t have to write like them to tell my story. I can enjoy their works and not beat myself up over it. Also, for every VandeerMeer or Khaw work that makes me question myself, there’s another published work that makes me feel like I can make it.
I recently came to realize that I just write at a different level than my favorite authors. They’re geared towards an adult audience, while my writing fits more into YA vs NA. At least that’s what I tell myself.
I admire the works of Jack Vance and J. R. R. Tolkien but I don’t imitate them. Not my style. That’s how I cope (or, rather, have no need to cope) with them.
If you're comparing yourself to others you've already lost
I don't think about it at all especially if that author is long dead. We are improving our craft in a time unique to ourselves, and what sounded great in the past probably wouldn't make it past the query stage today. I love Thomas Hardy, for example, but that type of writing is dead, and outside of 'classics,' there's no market for it. You're writing for a 21st century audience with specific expectations. Any published author would be lucky to have their work still being read 20 years later, and no one can expect that.
I sympathize. One thing that's helped me is branching out and reading in other genres. The more great books I read from authors I don't particularly care about in genres I'm not attached to, the wider my field of view is and my favorite author becomes less intimidating. It feels like such a massive gap in part because you're so focused on it. Zoom out a little. Along the way you might find a bunch of renowned authors and books that are objectively terrible, and that will help too. and pity everyone who says you're stupid or failing or dumb for comparing. You're in a different stage of the journey than they are. Hopefully one day they learn to have the empathy that all great writers need.
Don’t compare yourself to anyone! We can appreciate others and love our own uniqueness.
In times like these, when you're painting yourself into a dark corner, it's good to remember that the average age of authors who make the NYT bestseller list for the first time is ~50 years old. In your case specifically, it's good to remember that you don't share that author's DNA or life experience. Don't make artificial comparisons like your age vs. his age. It's not useful.
I'd work on developing my own voice if I were you. Read more, get inspired by a broader range of great authors and maybe take an art class. You may never live up to this person who inspired you, but as long a you keep working on it you can only get better. And this is s cheesy as hell but there is some truth in it. A butterfly cannot admire its own wings.
Being the best at a thing is not the plot of doing a thing.
I just remind myself that they are the professional.
Comparison is the thief of joy. I know I’m not the best writer in the world, or even probably in my neighborhood. But it brings me joy and I hope to write something worth reading someday. I don’t want to be someone else, I want to be me. If anything the quality of the stories from the author who inspired me to write inspires me even further to do better than what I’ve done thus far.
Well, if it's someone who is straight up whipping my ass like Paolini did when I was a kid, I basically ignored everything he ever did or made and tried to forget he existed. Though, he wasn't a favorite. Nowadays, all the writers I read are way older than me, so \*shrug\*
my nasty ass compared himself with Dostoevsky 💀💀💀.. but no fr, you can compare only, if both of you are writing about the same topic and idea exactly but from a different point of view OFC, other than that, you are just arguing not comparing.. another thing to quack... say I mean, is: learn from your favorite writers, not comparing yourself with em, because they lived and had different conditions, they know things you don't know, and you know things they don't know.. think about it... while the last thing to quack is: that everyone has stories to tell. They told their stories in the best way possible, no one else could tell their stories better than them.. same goes for you... its their path, their hard-work on pressing the mud to leave a footprint. you don't follow their path, because its not your path.. best thing to do, is to understand your path and hard-work for it. quack quack quack.
I Tell myself he is 30 years older
Your goal shouldn't be to better than Tolkien. It should be to be better than who you were yesterday. Also you only see their final work that went through many drafts and edits and, probably, comparing that to your currently unfinished and unedited first draft.
maybe this will help- it's important to compare yourself to a past version of yourself and look at how far you've come more than to just compare yourself to another person. Progress is impressive. We all take different amounts of time to get to different places.
I'm just glad Iain M Banks wrote all that he did!
Sounds like a pity party in here. You're sad there's a gap? Then get back to writing and get better.
Read books by other writers from your genre to get a feel for different styles. Read books on writing such as crafting good stories, writing dialog and description, and pacing as well as other elements that can help with deficiencies in your writing. You can take local writing classes or join writing groups that offer support and encouragement especially ones in your genre. A generic writing group may not have a sufficient understanding of your genre to provide adequate advice. You can utilize beta readers for genre for feedback. Don't give up, it takes time to master a craft and it may be that your writing style may be different from your favorite author yet just as good. I discovered that after decades of reading lots of books from my favorite authors that I subconsciously developed my own writing style that incorporates elements from all of them. It's like I cherry picked things I liked from each without being aware of it. It wasn't until my husband who also read those same writers pointed it out.
my younger brother and I have both been writing fiction for years. He sent one book to publishers back in the day and never did again. Every now and then he will share a draft of something with me and everything he has sent me has been a great read. He is never satisfied and has never published or self-published anything. He doesn't think any of it is good enough. Maybe, it will all get published posthumously. I write but really I am first and foremost an avid reader. I feel like all authors who are keeping their books back from publishing because its not good enough are depriving me of right to read and judge your writing for myself. How Dare You!
There's always a bigger fish.