What If the Writers Don’t Listen?

I recently was asked what I do if writers don’t listen to me. I was somewhat taken aback because I have no expectation that writers will listen to everything I say nor do I want them to. Writers are their own people, and they have a creative vision for their work that I may not fully understand despite my best attempts to read and critique closely. My job is to ask questions that encourage them to think and to be able to stand their ground when they are questioned about a choice they’ve made.

Some writers tell me when they choose to listen; others don’t, and I don’t know that fact until I see the book in its published form. Should that upset me? I don’t think so even if I feel a momentary twinge of anger. That’s my pride talking, though, and it’s not to be heeded. The work is theirs, not mine. They must choose what to listen to and what to ignore. The fact that my name might be associated with it may cause a moment of worry if the writer has ignored almost everything I said, but that’s pride talking again. I have to trust that the recommendations of writers who work with me speak louder than my name printed on a page in the back or front of a book.

I know, too, that if I were to have my own work edited, I wouldn’t listen to all the advice I received. I know this for a fact as someone who has had poems critiqued in workshops or had writing edited at the places I volunteer. Some of the advice would be sound; some of it would be so far outside the realm of the work that I wouldn’t know what to do with it; and some of it would be something I just wasn’t ready to address. I would need more time to absorb those thoughts and to figure out how they fit into the piece under consideration and how they might affect future work.

What if writers don’t listen to me? It might hurt, but I know that they have a reason for it, and it’s one they may or may not explain. I also know they will listen to some of the things I say, but I would never expect them to listen to all of it. They have to make their own way with their writing and writing lives. They have to form their own critical sensibilities. While I may be able to help with those things, it’s not my responsibility to grow them. The writers have to do that. My responsibility is to care for the writers and their writing as best I can and not worry about whether they listen.

Image: Jenny Kaczorowski (CC BY NC SA 2.0)