Stop Trying to Sound Like Faulkner!
📅 April 15, 2026
If you ask me how many books I’ve written, I’d tell you one. It has an unpronounceable name and sold like nine copies. I didn’t promote it because I was too mad to. It turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me because, one, I realized that in most cases, your conviction is usually more reliable than the accumulated experience of others. And two, it strengthened my confidence to be far more assertive with anything creative that carries my name.
Several years ago, when I was still silly enough to think traditional publishers were the gods they claimed to be, I submitted manuscripts for publishing. None of them ever replied. The more I wrote, the more it became clear to me that, perhaps, I was overreaching. With time – and this was hard (and still is) – but with time, I learnt to write without the need to sound impressive.
If, for example, the first word that came to mind was temerity, I no longer felt the need to write audacity out of fear that my readers wouldn’t understand. In the same vein, if the first word that came to my mind was fear, I didn’t need to write trepidation just to sound sophisticated. I think I came to understand, over time, that whatever came to your head first was, more often than not, the right fit.
I do not have a Ph.D in Creative Writing nor have I ever been to any MFA program. Like I mentioned, I haven’t gotten a blockbuster published yet neither have I even been to any creative writing workshop or won any awards, local or international. My take on this might seem irrelevant owing to an absence of these, but I can tell you for free that like you, I can tell good writing from bad writing, and great writing from good writing. I can also tell you that what separates one from the other is the ability to become so one with the process and oneself that whatever words are put down, simple or complex, just fits.
Neither simplicity of diction nor the complexity of it are the problem in themselves. This is why we can appreciate a simple book with simple diction like The Fisherman or The Alchemist and appreciate books with more complex language like any of Dean Koontz’s.
The real issue, I believe, are the pretensions.
When I see BS like She smelt like a bowl of sunshine, I know at once that this is a person trying too hard to be Faulkner. There is absolutely no connection with the olfactory senses and warmth from on high trapped in some bowl. Bros, no way you wan twist this thing when e wan make sense. No way!
It is just about the same problem I have with most poems these days. They sound good (to you anyway) but possess an apparent bent to impress, to hide meaning under stacks upon stacks of bloated words and lofty imagery rather than just be.
This is not to discourage the absolute need to edit and revise, to make better. No. In fact, I believe that revision brings one closer to self.
I would’ve asked you your thoughts about this but it hit me: as far as this is concerned, I don’t care.
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