Comparison: It Will Be the Death of You

As one might suspect, I love reading. I don’t just mean a passing crush or a fleeting fancy. I’m talking about a passionate marriage that started as a torrid affair. Now, before this blatantly suggestive metaphor runs away with itself, let me get back to the simple statement again: I love reading. It was this love that helped illumine in my mind, as love so often does, that I too wanted to tell stories. The more I read the more I realized I wouldn’t be content to simply be a passive participant; I had to become an active agent if I was to fully enjoy stories.

With this in mind, I undertook the task of creating and writing my own tales. But I soon discovered a problem. While writing those initial stories, I, of course, kept reading and as I read the polished and immaculate work of professional authors, I began to do something at first on a subconscious level and then on a very conscious and even brutal one—I compared my writing, my stories, to those that I was reading. And, as is inevitable with a neophyte writer, unformed and unrefined, I saw that my stories—the prose, the characters, the plot, and basically all the other devices therein—came up horrifyingly, irredeemably short when laid side-by-side with the novels I read.

Unfortunately, especially for young writers—and I still consider myself a part of this group—comparison can become a contagion with the potential of being terminal. The symptoms of comparison manifest in a number of ways, namely, irritability, discouragement, writer’s block, perpetual rewriting, eternal research, start-and-stop syndrome, perfectionism, I’ll-never-be-good-enough disorder, depression, frustration; the list could go on and on and on. The ultimate and inevitable death, if left untreated, comes in the dark, shuddering grips of hopelessness and surrender.

That’s what comparison does to any artist really. It reveals weaknesses, inexperience. It points out flaws and makes them appear immutable, insurmountable. And it does this by saying look at how good those other authors; look at their talent; look at their success. How could you ever measure up? You’re never going to be like them.

Here’s the thing to remember though. You don’t want to be like them.

Sure, there are a lot of things to learn about writing by reading a variety of authors in a plethora of genres, but that doesn’t mean that the ultimate goal is to become exactly like any one of those other authors. In fact, if a person did manage to become just like another writer, what would they have? If you sounded just like another author, told the same stories as another author, you probably wouldn’t ever be published because there is already someone out there in that role.

The truth is no one reads different authors hoping that they’ll all be the same, so why would you ever want to try and become just like another writer? That’s the ultimate danger, beyond giving up on writing altogether, when it comes to comparison, the loss of individuality, the abandonment of one’s unique voice.

Just remember that the next time you’re tempted to compare your writing to that of a published author. You might not have all their skills. You might not know all the tricks of the trade. Your abilities might still be in development. That’s ok. In fact, that’s to be expected. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Keep writing. Keep going. Because the fact of the matter is your voice, your unique voice, the stories that only you can tell in your particular style and flare are needed, are wanted, are sought after. So, write on. The ability will come with time.