While planning Do I Need to Use a Dragon?, I considered the different type of deliveries that advice can come in.  Specifically, the ways other people have tried to convince me to follow their writing advice.  I realized that there are kind of three categories that work off personality in a way.  Instead of defining them that way, I thought of a way to describe the attitude.  First up is:

This advice is gold!

I would put this at the top of the confidence and arrogance chart.  Now, an author might not be this for every interaction.  They can jump around depending on their confidence.  Yet, all of us have those handful of tips and tricks that are at the core of our tool belt.  It could be for writing, editing, promoting, or anything.  These are ideas that never steer us wrong.  So, we talk as if there is no possible way they can fail.  After all, we’ve never heard of them going wrong.

Of course, this can be false because it only means the advising author hasn’t experienced this concept failing.  That can be partially due to luck, the book being written/promoted, contacts, and any number of factors.  This actually will fit more in with the Wednesday topic because this category involves an unfortunate addition.  The author is ignorant of the chance of failure.  This can be on purpose or by experience, but there is nothing to shake their confidence in the advice.

You can kind of tell when this is going on too.  As with anything, an author who wants to share this kind of tip won’t wait to be asked.  They’ll see an opportunity and dive in to voice their opinion.  It can be a rough delivery made with the intent to be helpful, but also a little in the realm of wanting recognition.  There’s a ton of pride with any author when it comes to their favorite, highly successful tricks.  To the point where most of us don’t even realize that we push them so much.  Nature of the best since we get wrapped up in our own processes, which become mental fortresses.  You don’t want someone else’s methods to take over your own ideas and be called a copycat, right?

It’s hard not to put a negative spin on this when you’re looking from the outside.  The giver tends to be pushy and openly arrogant, which can be off-putting.  Yet, one can see where they’re coming from if they think about it.  As I said, this is an author swearing by a tip that has never failed them.  It’s more than them putting their word and reputation on the line.  They are trying to share a concept that is pure gold in their life with other people, which has a level of kindness.  Not every time, but it’s there more often than we are able to notice.  Much of it will depend on how things go if the trick fails for the person who takes the advice.  This can lead to the author becoming either defensive or reflective on why it wouldn’t work for someone else.

In Do I Need to Use a Dragon?, I tried really hard to avoid going this strong on my opinions.  I didn’t want to come off as pushy and arrogant.  Not easy to do and I doubt I succeeded 100%.  There are always some things that I get passionate about such as third person present tense writing.  So, I will brace myself for people saying I went a bit too far in some places.  Nobody is perfect, which will be a perfect lead in to Wednesday’s category and where I tend to place myself.