Writers do “not write the truth about themselves. They leverage words to obscure things. They write the truth about other people, and leave themselves out of it.” -Lewis Samuels.
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THIS POST really began 3 weeks ago in a piece called 3 writing styles that ruin your stories. It was supposed to be about awareness of styles, but what really came out was an attack on marketing language.
I feel like I’ve been trying to clarify something in my mind ever since.
A couple weeks later, David Page wrote “Do ‘freebies’ undermine honesty in travel writing?” It was a reaction to the New York Times and Newsweek and other publications’ policies prohibiting writers from having any “material connection” (i.e. comps or freebies) to their subject matter, which, as he pointed out, often leads to writers simply pretending they don’t have material connections.
Finally, yesterday, as I was finishing a very quick post on the circulation losses all but one of the top 25 major dailies I wrote “news needs to come from ever more local sources, and, in my opinion, be liberated of the classic ‘objective’ paradigm, moving instead towards a new ethic of material transparency.”
That last little term just kind of appeared. I don’t remember reading it anywhere, but it seems to describe what it is I’ve been thinking about over the past few weeks. And since I feel like I’m claiming it here, I need to elaborate:
Material Transparency:
1. Material Transparency is an underpinning or ethic of a writer’s personal brand.
It’s based on the artistic goal of writing with as much credibility or transparency as possible, (see this piece by Tom Gates for a good example), and the professional goal of having this transparency or style itself be ‘marketable’.
2. The original blueprint for Material Transparency is New Journalism.
“To me, self-aware writing is smart writing. I never forget I’m reading a book. . . I always know it’s words on a page. So I’m not going to try to pretend that the person who reads my book isn’t going to be as smart as I am or is basically going to give themselves up to whatever concept I might be proposing.” -Chuck Klosterman
When Truman Capote, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and others abandoned ‘objective’ reporting, instead writing subjectively and recognizing their own part in / effect on a story, they revealed truths about character, place, and events that could not be accessed otherwise.
3. The key stylistic element of Material Transparency is self-awareness.
When a writer simply says something, but says it in a way that is overtly aware of his / her limitations, problems, dilemmas, biases, stoke, it increases credibility. When a writer uses words or rhetoric to ’suggest’ something, it becomes less transparent.
“It’s a really crowded world out there, and everybody is clamoring for attention and you use what you’ve got,” he says. “And what I’ve got that makes me original is that I’m a rez boy.” -Sherman Alexie
4. The key professional element of Material Transparency is self-promotion and/or promotion of your crew.
The currency of the internet is mentions, pageviews, links. Whether the mentions are positive or negative seems to matter less than how many there are.
How can you use your unique story, style, and material connections to increase the relevance of your own personal brand and thus make you more attractive to other writers, editors, sponsors, publishers?
5. Getting paid or comped or sponsored or hooked up in any way always has to be recognized explicitly.
Ideally this should be part of the story itself, part of the narration. Sponsors, advertisers, people in your crew–the biggest way you can promote them is to include them in your story.
6. Any product or service or artistic work that is reviewed must be done earnestly and transparently.
Remember that even reviewing something negatively still generates publicity for someone and has the overall effect of building interest.
“It’s all about respect, and when there is no respect there is a confrontation, be it verbal or physical.” -Rickson Gracie, surfer, UFC champion
7. Respect for other writers is based on skill and style as opposed to favoritism, or a writer’s putative achievements or recognition.
You should name who your influences are, be open about what you’re reading, listening to.
8. If everyone were materially transparent, we might not like what we read about ourselves or the world, but we’d have a better idea of who our friends and enemies really are.
Journalists should follow the example of Jorge Lanata and explicitly state their political positions.
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thanks for the thought-out reply dtp.
this part seemed really important:
“I worry a lot that this little blip we’re living in right now, this world of digital avatars clamoring for attention (and money), is actually diminishing the transparency of traditional storytelling in some fundamental way–where the too-vain storyteller refuses to disappear before his or her audience, to allow the story to take hold and to live on its own.”
the only thing is that i’m not 100% sure what “traditional storytelling” is. traditional storytelling to me is something that started with small groups of people around a fire and has evolved from there (as well as continues to happen there, although probably in smaller numbers every day) ever since.
if what we’re talking about as a modern version of traditional storytelling–short stories and novels and features–i don’t really judge style. i don’t necessarily care if the storyteller disappears or is right up in your face. i like writers and writing that use both of these styles. raymond carver is invisible. it’s all his characters’ words and actions. jim harrison is right there spilling wine. i don’t care as long as the emotions feel real.
but back to the cave and the people around the fire. people’s need to blog about themselves may be perceived as self-absorbed or vain, a departure from that original time spent in groups. but i think it still stems from that same original need to tell stories. it’s just a reflection of modern environments / isolation / technology.
and yet all of this said, i still ‘hear you’. and i totally agree that writing (used both as a noun and a verb) and promoting are fundamentally different and separate things. that’s why i called promotion a key “professional” element, whereas self-awareness was a “stylistic” element. promotion is about making money.
but i feel too like there’s a whole part of this [this being literally this--me typing right now on my parents sofa in sarasota florida at 7:26 am] which is like ‘damn this is a waste of time, i could just be actually writing (or surfing) instead of commentating about personal brands and promotion.’
i have a bro who would laugh at all of this, segundo. he lives in an off-grid cabin in the front range. he lives how he wants and writes just for himself. he’s probably shoveling snow right now.
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David,
This is a piece that I’ll probably revisit several times. There’s so much food for thought here. Thanks for this awesome post! It’s been extremely enlightening. I don’t remember where I first read this but someone told me once, “Authors reveal more about themselves in their writing than about the subject”. Through this journey of life, it’s been interesting to learn how my own perspectives have shaped my identity and the evolution of my writing has reflected that. Thanks for this. It’s great food for thought!↵ -
You boys are striking out at some very important issues here.
I too wonder what the new realm of digital media is contributing to the greater legacy of the written tradition. How is it changing us? What are the new ethics?
I want to fight it being about ME but I want people to read MY words, watch MY videos. It is a big stinky dog-pile of blips, RT’s, avatars, comments, quasi-journalism and self promotion…I have a hard time keeping up with the new media jones’s and still distinguishing what the craft should be to me.I will be chewing on this as I edit videos and compose blogs tonight…
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Thanks for the reminder…”Respect for other writers is based on skill and style as opposed to favoritism, or a writer’s putative achievements or recognition.” If you like and respect a writer so be it. Don’t be afraid that the “masses” will not agree with you. If you keep looking over your shoulder and going along with others, you’ll lose yourself along way. Step out, be bold, and name the writers you admire and like. There’s no shame in it.
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no doubt.
i hate the part of the writing ‘industry’ that is all clique-y and ‘who-you-know’.
i feel like the more writers emulate other writing styles by those recognized as the ‘industry leaders’, and/or they try to ‘get ahead’ or ‘gain-recognition’ via anything else besides their own original writing, ideas / stories / voice–their material transparency, [and, conversely, the more that editors, publishers, teachers, conference organizers foist something which may not be true to their own creative vision but is simply done as a way for themselves to make connections and 'get ahead'] then the more the ‘best’ of the form gets homogenized and less interesting, more a business and less an artistic expression. more disposable and less sustainable.
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I’ve always felt that we’re seeing a shift in the need for a “personal” touch in writing due to a increasing objectivity in every other part of our daily lives; “Drive-thru” windows, businesses increasingly emphasizing stock price over a tangible “product”, and probably a thousand other examples (I’ll avoid the Facebook/Twitter cliche’s). Everything these days seems more objective, efficient, unemotional; thus I think people are seeking “material transparency” in the places that have the capacity for it, even if those fields fields didn’t traditionally operate that way. Journalism is certainly one of a few flashpoints in this cultural shift.
That being said, I think it still takes a TRUE professional–a person thoroughly dedicated to the craft of writing (such as Gates in the link you provided)–to avoid having that “material transparency” become pedantic, self-involved and, overall, a bad read. There is a lot of writing out there that would be best converted to a an objective narrative.
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ob–
thanks for the comment.
i pretty much agree with everything you said.
i was feeling this especially: ‘Everything these days seems more objective, efficient, unemotional; thus I think people are seeking “material transparency” in the places that have the capacity for it, even if those fields fields didn’t traditionally operate that way. Journalism is certainly one of a few flashpoints in this cultural shift.’
i also hear you about the risk of becoming self-asbsorbed. the writer has to maintain a clear sense of what he/she is doing–writing is still a craft and ideally an art form.
material transparency is not ‘confessionalism’. similar to a writer trying to render a character in a story as honestly and clearly as he / she can, material transparency is about doing the same with the way you ‘present yourself’ in your work.
thanks for giving me the opportunity to elaborate / clarify.
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Nice one David. I really enjoyed this article and the comments that have sprung from it.
The same paradigm exists within academic writing. In the old days there was this unachievable aim to make all research objective and neutral as if the researcher was just an outsider looking in to the world of others. But these days many fields require writers not only to consider themselves part of the research but also to write up a bit about their own background in the report as as it helps the reader to consider what limitations may be inherent. Sort of a ‘bear in mind I’m a ___ who grew up in ___ conditions so it would be difficult for me not to see things through my own affective filter’ type of statement.
I think it’s an interesting comment on the current views of society that things are shifting this way in both genres.
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Marie,
thanks for sharing that perspective.
this made me really happy to read:
“many fields require writers not only to consider themselves part of the research but also to write up a bit about their own background in the report as as it helps the reader to consider what limitations may be inherent.”
i’m glad to know there’s increasing flexibility for writers in academia.
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