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authenticity, blogging, books, censor, censoring, debate, facebook, goodreaders, google+, social networking, spin, twitter, vs, writers, writing
I was chatting to a girlfriend this morning about authenticity, and we were discussing the challenge of sifting through recommendations on the internet when you’re looking to buy a product. Some are obviously written by genuine customers giving their honest opinion, but some look so effusive you have to wonder if the person or company who’s selling the product has snuck in and posted it themselves, then maybe gone to their opposition’s product and posted a bad review! But wait, it gets worse than that. My girlfriend told me there are people called Reputation Specialists who are paid to go around the internet posting good reviews and comments about their clients.
I mean, really?
For politicians, sure. They need all the spin they can buy. But do businesses and celebrities need to pay someone to blow wind up our (collective) skirts? Whatever happened to earning respect and letting your actions speak for themselves? Colour me naive, but authenticity means something to me. And I have to admit that as a new author I imagined all I needed to do to sell billions of books was write good ones.
Then a little over twelve months ago it became apparent that I also needed to rack up quality time on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Google+ and blogging, because authors are encouraged by their publishers to be ‘visible’ across social networking platforms. And it’s actually beneficial on a couple of levels. Writing is a solitary profession, so social networking helps me feel like part of the online community, plus it keeps my writing muscles toned in short bursts. But after the discussion with my girlfriend this morning, I had to wonder if all my comments and conversations online were also creating ‘spin’?
While I’m blogging and tweeting, am I the authentic ‘Louise’ online that my family and friends know and love, or am I projecting an image – Louise The Author? And if so, is that okay? Is it fine to censor out the occasionally grumpy Louise, the silly Louise, and the overtired-and-might-say-something-she’d-regret Louise? Or should I let those parts of me have just as much social networking time as the rest?
Is self-censorship really just spin-by-omission?
Or are the things we post on our Facebook pages a product in themselves that we tailor to fit the readership, hoping they’ll attract people to our writing? And if so, is that a bad thing? Is it possible to be authentic and offer only part of yourself to the public?
If your answer to that is “Yes,” then I’d like to ask you why we bother to be authentic at all? Why not just create a persona and project that?
I have no answers to these questions. On a good day I try to be just me, like I am today, some insights, some confusion, lots of hope. On other days I don’t think the ‘me’ I’m feeling is good enough to be out in public, so I censor. It’s an imperfect method, but perhaps within that framework I really am being authentic.
Or maybe I’m deluding myself. Would love to hear others comments on this.
Really interesting post – love things that make me think. I’m also trying to ‘build a visible profile’ (I use the ” because the whole circus feels phoney when I’ve spent my life perfecting the art of being wallpaper) although mine’s in the hope of becoming what you already are – ie published.
Seems to me, though, that there’s a difference between self-censorship and spin. We all censor ourselves automatically once we’re adults, whether it’s to be tactful, polite, considerate – whatever. (Think of the times you haven’t shouted at jerks when you wanted to.) Spin, though, is something else. That’s a beat-up – a false image – counterproductive as far as I’m concerned because once I detect it, I distrust everything to do with the polly / business / celebrity concerned.
Maybe the authenticity of self-censoring is matter of degree. We’re all multi-faceted. Is it realistic to only show the good bits? And would good-bits-only become boring? Silly / grumpy Louise makes you human like the rest of us. The danger might be overtired-and-might-say-something-she’d-regret Louise.
I love things that make me think, too, Helen, and your post did! I’m with you 100% that overtired-and-might-say-something-she’d-regret Louise should never see the light of day. And while I do appreciate people’s emotional honesty in their posts, for some reason I find a whole lotta swearing quite confrontational, and if it’s angry swearing I tend to stop reading. My problem, not theirs, but I’d hate to think that there might be some facet of my personality that might reflect badly on my characters, who are SO different to me.
And isn’t that the weirdest thing, that I’m far more interested in people liking my characters than I am about them liking me!
Hadn’t thought about the swearing aspect. My attitude would be the same as yours. But then lots of swearing never strikes me as emotional honesty – just boring and inarticulate. (The odd very-well-placed word in person, though – that’s different.)
As for characters – yep. They’re like your children, to be protected at all costs.
Hi Louise, I like the header image of you in the Vatican garden. Now to your dilemmas: I too have been dismayed at the tricks used to get false reviews and when I see books getting dozens of reviews I wonder how that happens when I’ve had so few. Then again I have avoided shameless self-publicity and have only recently started blogging. The pressure to engage in all social media is huge. I tried Twitter and found it so distasteful I stopped. Facebook seems utterly pointless unless your a young beautiful thing with something to show off. It all seems just so lacking in dignity and integrity. I’ve been engaged with a few other bloggers on this subject and it does seem to be a common dilemma for writers using the modern eBook medium.
Self censorship? I agree some restraint is needed but it depends on genre. My hard edged Daniel series of espionage thrillers uses more robust language than the literary fiction West Cork trilogy. I guess realism is important to me so I do use more bawdy language than some might like. I think it depends of context and characters. In Prairie Companions I have two pioneering women characters, one of who has a propensity for profanity. This is used to create a tension between the earthy Pat and aristocratic Clara. I feel that my stories would lack depth warmth and realism if I self censored too much. I myself rarely curse but do like a bit of rude humor. Since most of my characters are female the issue of putting me into them rarely arises.
I don’t often visits or read other writers blogs, writers rarely are customers? Self interest yes. I will be following your blog however. I like what I find here.
Regards, davidrory.
http://bit.ly/lLpWSf
Thanks for those insightful comments, David. I must admit I’m perfectly happy for my characters to swear if it’s “in character”, and to read other author’s characters swearing, but when authors do it on their blogs and tweets I don’t like it, and am not sure why. I suspect it’s something to do with my perception of what the author’s role is in representing their work, and presenting themselves. I know I’ve been put off an actor because of a terrible interview they’ve done, much as I try not to be. It influences my appreciation of their work in the future. I feel as if I shouldn’t do that, I should let the work speak for itself, but I can’t seem to stop myself being influenced. I suspect that’s what’s confusing me with the self censoring issue.
I think authors are in a vulnerable position when they write. Vulnerable because we put our thoughts on paper and the words represent our ideas and our stance on what we perceive at that time. Unfortunately the internet is around forever, or so we are told, so we have to be very careful about jotting down criticisms or aiming our PMT at politics or competition or whatever takes our fancy on that day. Authors should be aware of the legal ramifications of sharing their words with the world too. With these warnings, can we be authentic? Like any business anywhere, we should promote our wares but, in doing so, be cautious in editing. Edit for the sake of your future self as an author because once you’re out there on the social network page, judgements will be made about your writing (which may be okay) and your opinions on a particular day of a particular year of your life (not always so good).
So true, Jill. You’ve encapsulated it completely. The Internet is forever, so is there a place to air your political views, especially if you might later change your mind?
Sobering stuff!
Thanks for bringing that up. I just love the fact that I can blog a question and get all sorts of clarification and added questions brought into the mix.
To me, this is social networking at it’s best – collaborative.
I’ll take a stab at your questions, why not?
>Is it possible to be authentic and offer only part of yourself to the public?If your answer to that is “Yes,” then I’d like to ask you why we bother to be authentic at all? Why not just create a persona and project that?<
Have you ever tried to be consistently fake across three social media platforms, every time, for MONTHS? I can't be bothered, because I know for a fact it would be exhausting. I did summer-stock theater as a teenager and I could barely stay in character for the few scenes they'd let me onstage. Maintaining fraud is WORK. Moreover, if you aren't spot-on in your fakery, people will figure it out, and people hate phonies. (Even though, as I argue above, we're all kinda phony at least part of the time.)
My solution is to react naturally ('cause as I mentioned, I just cannot be arsed to run everything through a "what's the most profit-mongering self I could enact at this moment?" filter) but try to pause, the way I do when we go to grandma's house. On the internet, that's really just the moment it takes to ask myself "Does anyone REALLY care?" "Is this going to make the discussion richer… or stupider?" and "This isn't going to ruin anyone's day or come back to haunt me, right?"
Be yourself but, you know, your presentable self. That's why I try to appear online mostly wearing a necktie, even though on most days I'm more likely to be mistaken for a transient.
-G.
…and damned if that irascible ol’ internet didn’t eat the first half of my reply. Ugh. Okay, to paraphrase, my answer to…
>Is it possible to be authentic and offer only part of yourself to the public?<
…was mostly me questioning the underlying assumption that people have single, concrete, individual identities to which we can be 'authentic.' For example, there are dirty jokes I'll tell my wife that I won't tell my sons. Does that mean that I'm being inauthentic and prudish with my boys? Or artificially raunchy with my wife?
I'm more inclined to think we have inclinations, but our personalities are constantly in flux. Our decisions and agency are a factor in our behavior, but so are the company we're in, social pressures (Hi, Stanley Milgram!), weariness, chemical intake and a load of other factors. I think it was Malcolm Gladwell who suggested that we're not as good at maintaining a coherent set of values as we are at surrounding ourselves with people who reinforce the values we desire.
(That closing line about 'being your best self' may sound slightly less schizophrenic now.)
-G.
So glad we got your whole post, Greg. I love that quote about “surrounding ourselves with people who reinforce the values we desire”. So much of my own life, and what I see in other people, seems to be enacted unconsciously. You’re right, I have a different Louise when I’m at my mother’s because blaspheming upsets her, let alone swearing. Different again with my kids. Almost unrecognisable when I’m watching cricket and my vegetarian, pacifist persona goes right out the window while I bounce in my seat, thrilled that some young aggressive (Australian) fast bowler is trying to take the head off a pommy batsman. I honestly don’t recognise myself while I’m watching cricket, it’s like I’m possessed, so how the hell could I expect to create a cohesive me to present to the public. It’s a lost cause before I even start.
Really loving this conversation, even though I’m getting no closer to finding the bottom of the rabbithole that is social networking. It’s fun digging around and finding treasure.
This is something important to me. I value authenticity online. I’m opinionated and swear a lot in real life, so I tend to do that online as well. Not because I think it will or won’t be good for my career, but because it’s who I am. I don’t hold back with language or darkness in my books and stories either, so when people interact with me online they get a dose of what I’m really like and by extension some idea of what my writing might be like.
As a previous commenter said – it’s hard to be consistently fake. There’s certainly some stuff I don’t share online, things which I’ve decided are personal and private, but otherwise it’s important for me to be me. In the long run I’ll be surrounding myself with likeminded people who accept who I am and I’ll probably accept and appreciate who they are too. We can’t please all the people all the time, but we can be true to ourselves.
Thanks Alan, these comments are really helping me define in my own mind what authenticity means to me. I’ve always told writers I’ve been teaching that they have to be true to themselves and their stories, and write them the way they’d love to read them instead of pandering to some perceived marketplace. Then your readership will build around that – people who love the stories you write. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that social networking would be the same way, but because my characters are often quite different to me, I suppose I was keen not to have readers make judgement about my characters and plot lines based on my own life which is deliberately boring and normal because all the excitement is happening inside my mind. If I had a drama queen life happening around me I’d never get any writing done.
The main issue of authenticity I hear writers struggling with is not that they want to deliberately lie about themselves, but more that they think their life is so ordinary that they need to ‘create’ some excitement. When you’re marketing your book the publicists want to know what ‘angle’ to use/exploit. So you can talk about your research or your process or your inspiration, but there’s only so often you can do that before you run out of conversation. Social networking is a long haul, so how do you remain authentic and yet still be interesting day after day, week after week, when your characters are living far more thrilling lives than you are?
Sorry to add more questions!
Even boring people can be interesting. You don’t want to be talking about yourself all the time anyway – talk about stuff you find interesting and your readers and followers will probably find it interesting too. Also, you can change your mind – we do it in real life and we can do it online too. If someone says, “Last year you said XYZ!” then you just reply, “Yeah, I’ve changed my mind about that.”
The header of my website says: Not Definitive – Subject To Change – Utterly Biased.
It says that for a reason. 🙂
As for posting and talking about interesting things, I just had a look at the last half a dozen posts on my blog:
The Courier’s New Bicycle by Kim Westwood – review: A review of the book I’ve just finished.
Movember 2011: a post about my growing a moustache for charity
John Joseph Adams Buys Lightspeed and Fantasy: a purely news post that my readers might find interesting.
Midnight Echo 6 interview and excerpt: A post and interview about a forthcoming publication I have.
The story of a story, or how I was flensed: A post about how my writing was improved with the help of critiquing by friends.
NaNoWriMo and why I don’t: my (as it turns out, rather controversial) thoughts on NaNoWriMo.
More than candy: the real history of Halloween: A post detailing the real history behind Halloween.
These posts are all either about me (directly or indirectly) or about things completely unrelated to me, but that I find interesting and have an opinion on. I’d like to think that’s a good spread of variety and interest. All the posts are written with my personality unhindered, so people can learn a bit about me and what interests me as well as, hopefully, get some insight, news and food for thought. None of this really relies on me being an interesting person!
Sorry for the long comment, but I hope it helps.
And despite all his roughness Alan’s a true gent. I think being your true to yourself is best advice. Warts and all.
Aw, thanks. 🙂
Ah, a true gent. That’s high praise!
And I also I think you’re right Sean about being true to yourself. It takes us years to learn to do that in our fiction, to allow the real us to leak out into our characters, so I’m starting to realise social media is like learning a different genre. I feel like I have to learn how I can be authentic in this new form of writing, and that doesn’t always come easily when you’re used to being a fictional character in your stories.
Still, it’s delicious to have the opportunity to learn new things! Am loving that.
As a writer hugely involved online (Twitter, blogging, tumblr… no Facebook for me), this is a very interesting topic. I think that “spin” and self-censorship are two very different things though. Spin, for me, means cultivating a specific persona, usually with the express intent to (in this case) sell books. Self-censorship is a bit different and, I think, more of a personal decision than a marketing/business decision. I think we “censor” ourselves in different ways depending on our environment and who we’re with — online is no different. Though I don’t change my personality at all in my online interactions, I do have certain things that I don’t want to discuss online so I keep them out of my “public life.” I don’t think that is a way of making spin, but just a way to keep private things private.
Good point, Jordyn. I keep some things private but I see other authors talking about them, which is fine if they’re happy with that. I guess everyone’s level of comfort with sharing their private life will be different, but you’re right, cultivating a specific persona, or even an exciting backstory would be difficult to maintain. I remember hearing that someone had made up a whole backstory about being raised in Antarctica or something equally unbelievable, and I wondered why you’d do that to yourself, particularly nowadays when it’s so easy to check stuff online. Scarily easy in fact.
Hi Louise
Your question about creating a persona has rung some bells with me. I know some writers who have purposely created a part that they’re playing (Gail Carriger comes to mind) and what interests me in that is the privacy authors like Gail can then receive in their private life. If you research, you can find out who Gail really is and some of her background, but in general her real life is pretty much a mystery but she had decided on what her public face will be and that is that.
So what does this mean about authenticity? I think Gail’s being authentic in what she’s doing – she’s made a decision about how to portray herself to the internet and her readership and she’s open about doing that while maintaining closure on the rest of her life. Sure, I can see that some people might be upset when they first realise the woman they’re meeting is a character, but I don’t think that makes it in-authentic.
In this day and age, making the decision to hide behind a character might be a smart thing to do. There’s so many people out there, particularly on the internet, ready to reach in and even try to own parts of your life or work that maybe having that step removed is the only way to fully protect yourself.
John Scalzi did an interesting post in how people tend to think that because they read his books, or read his blog, that they know him. He says that while he is quite open, there’s a lot that he keeps to just he and his family and friends. You can’t make assumptions based on what is publicly available because it isn’t all him.
I myself try to avoid being negative or downcast, simply because I think there’s enough negativity out there in the world and I don’t want to add to it. As I’m by nature a generally happy and positive person, I think hiding the times that I’m not is still be authentic.
Hey Nicole, I hear that about hiding negativity. I’m a real believer in the Law of Attraction, and though I can backslide at times, I try to remember to “think about what I want, not what I don’t want.” So yes, if I get into a rant about something, then that’s only going to attract more things to rant about because my mind will be focused on what I don’t like, instead of what I do like! So that sort of self-censorship where I restrict myself to positive things is a normal part of my everyday life in conversations and correspondence. It’s an authentic representation of who I am and what I believe (just as the odd slip is) – thanks for clarifying that. My natural curiosity seems to over-ride self-censorship more often than I’d like, but I have to say I’m loving all the feedback you guys have given about this topic that’s such an important one for us as writers and also just as people. No one wants to feel like they’re talking to a pretend person, because how do you connect with them, but if they’re hiding behind a persona to protect their privacy that should be a different matter, and it shouldn’t preclude them from being genuinely interested in other people and their lives.
Applaud things in public, rant privately among friends. That’s my usual MO. But if I think something deserves a public serve, I’ll definitely go there. But I always stop and think for a day first, so I don’t rant while I’m angry or emotional. I want to be rational at all times, as much as is possible.
For some reason there isn’t a ‘reply’ button after your last post Alan (WordPress might be baulking at our long comments!), so I’ll reply here. Just wanted to thank you for posting that list of your blogs. It’s really instructive to see how you’ve just followed your interests and built a readership on that. It makes sense. People who’ve subscribed to your blog would never be bored, because they’d never be getting ‘more of the same’. Your blogs are about you and what interests you, and I see that working for quite a few authors. Then there are those who blog only as pertains to their stories. I guess their level of comfort with revealing who they are to the public is lower, and that’s fine too. For those of us who are in this business for the long haul, we need to find a way to not burn out or feel overly vulnerable.
All the comments are really helpful, and I can see myself talking about this when I’m mentoring or teaching. Really appreciate the feedback, guys!
WordPress has decided I’ve said enough. 🙂
I wrote a post all about Twitter once and in that included a basic rule about tweeting:
Will this tweet interest or entertain my followers?
If not, don’t post it. I try to apply that to my blogging as well.
Interest or entertain. Good filters. I’ll remember that. Certainly the comments on this blog have interested me!
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