Welcome back to my yearly stint on SCG Daily. In case you missed it, Monday was about me, Tuesday was about food and beer, Wednesday was about music, and today is about writing. We’re covering all the important stuff in life this week, while hopefully making you smile and think a little in the process.
In truth, the entire week has been about writing. You see, I was feeling constrained by my “normal” type of article. Usually I have so much information that I need or want to convey in those that it is difficult to have as much fun with the writing as I would like to. You guys are a tough crowd, so I end up spending a lot of time making sure my information is correct and that the arguments I’m presenting are somewhat difficult to refute. Of course, every minute spent doing that is a minute subtracted from the bank of time I can use to make the writing more fun. Some people are capable of creating fun on the fly. They are not mortal. The rest of us spend hours tinkering with verbiage, hoping to create or steal just a couple of phrases that will stick in your head well after you’ve stopped reading our article. Sure, we care about whether or not you absorb and agree with the message, but it’s the search for that masterful turn of phrase that really drives us.
To put it another way, few things are more thrilling than to have a thousand readers swipe something of yours and use it as a new signature.
Of course, you don’t reach this level of obsessive/compulsive disorder overnight – it takes years to work up to it. The first step in this long path of mastery is learning how to write. Any idiot can put his or her thoughts on the screen – Live Journal and BlogSpot are all the proof you will ever need of such truthery. Writing, on the other hand, is a skill that can be learned through reading, paying attention, and hard work. I hated English class in high school, though I have always loved to read. These days I spend far too much time thinking about, discussing, and dissecting writing and writers. It’s not only what I do for a living, but it’s also something I truly love follow, not unlike how a sports fan tracks the progress of his favorite teams on a daily basis or a stalker follows Jennifer Anniston’s dating saga, just waiting for the right moment to step in and… where was I? Oh yes, writing.
I was awful when I entered college. This was acceptable at that time, because I was a microbiology major and they don’t expect scintillating prose in the lab reports you turn in. In fact, I’m pretty sure they frown at it. Sadly, Organic Chemistry and I had a falling out (we couldn’t agree on what the right answers were), and I suddenly found myself a Political Science major. That would be simple, right? I mean – there’s no math in Political Science (this is wrong – there’s actually a ton of statistical analysis used at some schools, but I didn’t know that), how hard could it be? Much harder than expected. I’ll skip past the boring parts and tell you that I finally learned to write reasonably well (while staying on scholarship), but it took a year-and-a-half and one very stingy-yet-fantastic Professor to do it. Of course, that was just the beginning. Everything since then has been practice, practice, practice. At no point until it was actually occurring did I anticipate I would earn a large portion of my income from writing.
Progressing at writing is not unlike progressing at Magic. The more you work at it, the easier it gets to perform at a high base level and the more you can excel at something beyond the rudimentary skills of the game. Having been intimately involved with the recruitment and training of Magic writers for years now, I have come up with a silly tiered system that describes where most writers fall in the community hierarchy.
A few remarks before we start this. First of all (as always), these are the opinions of one idiot. Do not take them as law and probably don’t take them seriously either. If you are so inclined, you can make your own list of where you would rate your favorite writers. Your list will surely differ from mine and that’s a good thing. With regard to the breakdown, this is strictly about writing. None of the placements of actual people have anything to do with their theory, or value to the community, or prowess as a deckbuilder or any of that. It has to do with how they choose their words. I have left countless people off of these lists, because aside from the last level, I just wanted some examples and not an exhaustive categorization of writers in the community. As for those in the last level, I guess you could call me their barn. I prefer to think of it as simply being a fan.
Level 1 – n00bism
You have something to say, so you write an article. This is excellent. Sadly, you either don’t care about or don’t know about the conventions of proper English. This is bad. Your articles get rejected from the major sites with polite letters of thanks and suggestions for improvement, but if you work on it a little more, you might get published by some of the smaller websites. Welcome to the club.
Example: Shawn Fullerton.
Level 2 – I Got Published!
You have managed to produce something interesting and informational while using complete sentences, thus seeing publication. Hooray! It is entirely possible that you have produced the one good article you have in you and that you will never be heard from again. This is okay, because you have still made a valuable contribution to the community. If you keep at things, you can potentially move up in level, or you can simply be content to be an avid reader and participate in the forums
Level 3 – Popular Submissionist
You have been published multiple times and show some potential as a writer. However, you probably have a cranky muse, have too little time to write frequently enough to get promoted to Featured Writer, or you still need to work on your writing game. Keep at it, have fun with your writing, edit your own work before submitting, and good things are bound to happen.
Little known factoid: Self-editing, sometimes multiple times, is one of the biggest improvements you can make as a writer.
Level 4 – Featured Writer
You are capable of editing your own work, so your editor doesn’t completely hate you. You have produced enough good stuff as a submissionist – either via new decklists or via good writing – that you have been elevated to a position where you are guaranteed to get paid for your work. You have shown yourself capable of writing with frequency, which is also appreciated. You may or may not care about little word choices within your article, but you certainly care about what you are saying and consider what the readers will take away from your articles after you read them. You even enjoy interacting with your readers and other writers in the community. Congratulations.
Little known factoid: More people read articles with pictures of heads next to the title.
Example: Martin Dingler, Josh Silvestri
Level 5 – Respected Featured Writer
You definitely edit your work (at least a little) before you send it to your editor. You are someone’s favorite writer and this someone is not related to you, sleeping with you, or living with you. Your writing is regarded as logical and/or funny and people rather enjoy reading what you have to say. Should you be interested in peddling your wares away from your home website, other folks might actually be interested in employing you because you are considered to be good at the job and what you have to say has real value. Few writers ever have the desire or the longevity to get past this level.
At this point as a writer, you have started to pay attention to how your work reads in terms of style and flow, and the placement of specific words or phrases matters to you. That or you’ve just been doing it for a while now, people know what you look like, and you’ve stumbled onto a style of your own that many readers find enjoyable. You have some natural gifts, but probably need to work harder to progress to the next level.
Examples: Richard Feldman, Frank Karsten
Level 6 – Masters of the Form
These are the men who drink bourbon and smoke cigars in back rooms while discussing topics like The Philosophy of Fire, or the best way to write a tournament report/Limited pick order. They have been at it for years and their contributions to the community are often monumental.
They are obviously excellent writers who have their own distinctive style. They clearly care about style and flow, and are choosy about their words when time allows. Frequently they are funny, even if their humor is sometimes too subtle for less astute readers to pick up on. They are favorite writers to the masses. They are well-loved for their contributions to Magic as a whole and an article from them is always welcome, even if they may have lost their fastball along the way.
Examples: Jamie Wakefield, Mike Flores, Zvi Mowshowitz, Mark Rosewater, Ben Bleiweiss
Level 7 – The Quan
As good as the masters of the form are, there is something that sets these gentlemen above them in terms of writing. These are the ingenues of the community and their work is f***ing awesome. Their writing is fully capable of blowing your face off with how good it is. Certain turns of phrase take your breath away and their words often mark a graveyard where pop culture references go to die. These authors experiment with different forms or styles of presentation and everything seems to work. They are positively ill with the crossover simile and unguardable on the open floor. Perhaps most essential, their writing is riddled with bullet holes of whimsy, making them an utter joy to read even when they are transcribing their pain and sorrow to a page soaked with blood and tears.
They are so good that they leave you physically craving more. You are the heroin addict and they are your smack dealer. You are the fat kid and their words are cake. They are Pavlov and you are his dog. Ring the bell, Daddy. Ring the bell!
When writing, these gentlemen slave over practically every sentence in a quest to produce art. They could be writing about practically anything with similar results – we simply have to be thankful they haven taken the time to write about our little game. They don’t have to be great thinkers about the game. Frequently their theory contributions are small or nil. But they are a f***ing force of nature when they decide to actually put pen to page and that is what makes them special. (Of course, they are also likely to write far too infrequently, but they are artistes who are impossible to motivate. They might even be nihilists.).
Examples: Tim Aten, Jeff Cunningham, Geordie Tait, Tomi Walamies, Dr. Mox, Mark Gottlieb, Josh Bennett
Flores could be The Quan (I still think he’s the top Magic writer), but daddy doesn’t have that sort of time to choose his words, so a lot of what he types comes from a very good, very experienced autopilot. Jon Becker could be The Quan, but he’s like a professor from some developing nation who stops by once a year, says a bunch of brilliant things while picking apart people’s shoddy theories, and then goes back to his home to do further work on increasing overall beet yields. Rosholm probably is The Quan, but I need more proof before I can be sure. From the list above, you can probably tell that I value funny more than almost anything else. Self-loathing probably also looks like a common trait, but I think that’s more of an offshoot of brilliance.
Placement in the categories is malleable. Anyone can move up if they want to improve, and the guys at the top don’t always produce incredible work, but it happens (or happened) a lot more often than not. Take this framework and have fun with it. These are the sorts of things that make for good conversation in between rounds or on road trips.
Disagree with me? Great! Tell me about it in the forums. What does your Level 7 look like and why? Who do you love, baby and who do you wish you could see more of?
Tomorrow: Ask the Editor
Cheers,
Teddy Card Game
Mail us at https://sales.starcitygames.com/contactus/contactform.php?emailid=2
P.S. Please don’t complain about omissions in the list above – once again, it’s just a few examples and a celebration of the writers I love.
Little Known Factoid: My favorite column every week is actually written by BDM on magicthegathering.com. I hold a special place in my heart for celebrity gossip, and Brian is consistently able to take what could be a very dull and boring column and turn it into something fun.