Ego, Egotism, and Authorship

Both “ego” and “egotism” can have a negative connotation, but only the latter always does. That’s because “ego” has to do with self, whereas “egotism” conveys an inflated sense of that.

If you believe you’re the only one in the world who could write this novel about Beethoven, basketball, or Baltimore, you’re an egotist. But if you believe you can—and should—complete and try to publish is novel about whatever, then you have enough ego to get the job done.

After all, according, to William Knowlton Zinsser, “Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it.”  Unless you believe you have something to say, why endure the labor and critique when the vast majority of us must keep our day jobs, anyway. Julian Baggini is right: “There is an inherent vanity in writing; believing you have something special to offer the world is built-in to the very act of putting your work out into the world.” 

Still, egoism and egotism remain distinct:

~ An egotist despises constructive criticism. How could anyone know more than she does?

~ An egoist welcomes constructive criticism. How else can you please yourself with the best

   novel you’re capable of producing?

~ An egotist believes he is among the best writers there ever were—if not the very best.

~ An egoist, more often than not, believes that it’s impossible to meet his own expectations.

~ An egotist relishes praise; it’s always well-deserved.

~ An egoist might fear praise; maybe the result was good this time. What if it never is again?

~ An egotist is, at least publically, eternally free of self-doubt.

~ An egoist, alone or out in the world, is rarely free of self-doubt.

~ An egotist doesn’t believe in hard work. Why bother when you already excel?

~ An egoist generally loves hard work, because both the work and the product contribute to

   identity.

Here’s the question: which do you love more, your novel or yourself? According to Thomas Mallon, “George Orwell in his essay ‘Why I Write’ (1946)…indicates a clear awareness that self-loathing and self-love are locked in a tight, procreative embrace.” But is that “self-love” egotistical or egoistical? And is the source of creativity egotism or egoism?

In The Moonflower Vine, Jetta Carleton writes, “Yet none of these things gave him confidence. All they gave him was egotism, which is less the conviction of one's worth than the desire for that conviction.”

Writing is hard work, and as everyone already knows, you won’t always be rewarded, or not as much you deserve, or perhaps not at all. That means you’ll need lots of faith, hope, and stamina to write, revise, and publish a novel. Many writers are fragile souls, prone to “self-loathing” without even a smattering of egotism. Excessive doubt can be as self-defeating as its antithesis.

Tip: Resist the temptation to think either too much—or too little!—of your book and your talent. 

The Windows into the Story World

In The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, Jonathan Gottschall  reports that “the psychologists Melanie Green and Timothy Brock…argue that entering fictional worlds ‘radically alters the way information is processed.’ Green and Brock’s research shows that the more absorbed readers are in a story, the more the story changes them.” 

What does this suggest? Every story, from Rumpelstiltskin’s failed strategy to Elizabeth Bennet marrying Fitzwilliam Darcy, changes beliefs because readers look through a window into the characters’ lives. Readers look through those windows willingly, and the windows control the view.

Even when the same author created the characters and windows, no two sets of windows are identical. Some windows are so intensely rose-colored that certain readers instantly draw the blinds. Other windows are thickly draped. What’s on the other side seems bathed in gloom or dusk. Readers might not see what’s going on—or might dislike what they’re able to make out.

Stained glass fragments compose some of the least reader-friendly windows. Can you picture the writer inserting one glittering piece after another, progressing ever so slowly, perhaps removing a chip of red that clashes with the burgundy, maybe deciding that a pattern repeats too often or ends too abruptly. It becomes all about the stained glass.

This kind of tinkering with individual pieces often creates a window of breathtaking majesty. But if the window’s beauty obstructs the view of the characters behind the glass, what’s the point?

In “Why I Write” (1946), George Orwell said that “it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.”

This offers significant insight into the complex relationship between the writer, readers, and the writer’s characters: the significant connection is between the reader and the characters—not the reader and the writer.

If you’d rather design stained glass windows than admire them in holy buildings, fiction might be the wrong vehicle for your ideas. Because it’s perhaps fair to argue that the relationship between readers and characters verges on the holy.  

After all, this is why readers entranced by fiction are so susceptible to its ideas. It’s why writers are asked to “show,” not “tell.” It’s why the best novelists willingly sacrifice so much—including ego—for the sake of story. Story is not about the writer or the writer’s exquisite sentences. The story is about—the story.

The windows your readers look through control their experience. Absolutely clear windows might seem closer to film than fiction, while distracting stained glass—however glorious—interferes with what the audience came to receive. But stained glass that colors and adds depth to the scenes behind it? It doesn’t get better than that.

Tip: Story is about characters and our concern for them; all the rest is window-dressing.