Writers Are More Prolific When They Cluster

https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/06/british-irish-writers-london-clustering-dickens-woolf/590884/

by overwhelm • 7 years ago

219 41 7 years ago

I'm reminded of the Florentine Camerata[1] here. They were a group of intellectuals that met at Giovanni de' Bardi's house during the second half of the 1500s, and their discussions of music (amongst other things) led to the development of opera.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florentine_Camerata

Nasrudith• 7 years ago

I wonder how much of this correlation is from the publishers as opposed to interaction between writers who would wind up comparable in present day status.

Breaking it down further it brings to mind mapping with more data than we probably have. Like say if they found "muse correlations" with everyone - mapping productivity and interactions. Like say being in the Shelley's social circle was associated with a 5.0 but the one copy writer of no historical note has a 4.5. Of course if someone was prolific enough they might cause anyone who interacts with them to have a high number as a sheer mathematical side effect.

mrec• 7 years ago

I don't think the clustering needs to be geographic; isn't NaNoWriMo based on essentially the same principle? Seeing how far along your peers are can be a useful kick up the fundament when you're lagging behind.

Endy• 7 years ago

Never underestimate the power of the NaNo forums, or subreddits, or general forums that open a NaNo board. It's not just about pacing, it's about communication.

gwern• 7 years ago

Online forums are great, but I wonder if they're missing something nevertheless for lack of physicality.

One of the more interesting papers I read last year was "Knitting Community: Human and Social Capital in the Early Transition into Entrepreneurship", Kim 2018 https://goo.gl/1AfwZG on knitting enthusiasts on the Ravelry knitting forums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravelry - despite being eminently digitizable, participation in offline knitting circles still appeared to be a big predictor of knitting success & innovation.

munificent• 7 years ago

I agree it doesn't need to be, and the Internet has really helped people get some of the benefits of these clusters without the disruption of uprooting their lives.

At the same time, we are physical beings, and there's nothing quite like the experience of sharing a space with people into what you're into.

taneq• 7 years ago

It's the Manhattan Effect, named for the Manhattan Project.

Or if it's not called that, then it should be.

SolaceQuantum• 7 years ago

This is pretty self-evident if one actually attends any collective meeting of serious writers who have actually published(for money paid by people who are not immediate friends/family) or intend to publish. It's similar to why hackathons are so productive. Being within your peer group and talking shop with people who meet one's own passion is incredibly rewarding regardless of experience level or background- people who are knowledgeable are listened to with fascination, and people who are less experienced more than welcome the lecturing!

sleazy_b2• 7 years ago

I moderate a small writing subresdit and discord. I can't speak to how useful it is for other participants but for me it's been tremendously helpful in keeping my writing front of mind, not to mention the writing sprints that take place there represent a significant amount of my output. Interacting with other writers has been the best way to improve my own writing as well as develop new ideas and inspiration.

bobthecowboy• 7 years ago

What's the subreddit?

zhdc1• 7 years ago

Interested as well.

sleazy_b2• 7 years ago

r/litfiction The subreddit is pretty inactive but the Discord is a great place, if a little quiet: https://discord.gg/JuGRMYP

jetgirl• 7 years ago

It's more than helpful to the other participants. :D

pjmorris• 7 years ago

In 'Working' [0], Robert Caro spends pages on how much being able to join a community of writers meant to him when producing 'The Power Broker.' The New York Public Library set aside a room as a workspace explicitly to house writers working on books.

A passage from 'Working':

And these writers provided more for me than merely the glow of their names. In my memory, no one spoke to me for the first few days I was in the room. Then one day, I looked up and James Flexner was standing over me. The expression on his face was friendly, but after he had asked what I was writing about, the next question was the question I had come to dread: “How long have you been working on it?” This time, however, when I replied, “Five years,” the response was not an incredulous stare. “Oh,” Jim Flexner said, “that’s not so long. I’ve been working on my Washington for nine years.” I could have jumped up and kissed him, whiskers and all—as, the next day, I could have jumped up and kissed Joe Lash, big beard and all, when he asked me the same question, and, after hearing my answer, said in his quiet way, “Eleanor and Franklin took me seven years.” In a couple of sentences, these two men—idols of mine—had wiped away five years of doubt.

[0] Caro, Robert A.. Working (p. 76). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

rb808• 7 years ago

I'm curious how spaces like this are run. Who identifies the need, finds budget or space, then operates. Is it invite only or kind of underground word of mouth?

robocat• 7 years ago

Libraries are a bastion of socialists. And the words librarian and libertarian are almost homophones. However the totalitarian are literally taking over.

theoh• 7 years ago

That particular example is discussed here: https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/02/nyregion/authors-seek-mus...

Apparently one had to have a publishing contract to be admitted. I'm not sure how elitist that actually worked out to be.

There are also membership-funded places like http://www.writersroom.org/

I know more about how this works in the arts, where the relevant term is "residency". Access to exclusive residencies is usually allocated on the basis of previous career success, and they are usually funded by endowments of some kind. It's an example of institutional support for artists, and the top residencies are extremely elitist. There are lots of humble ones too, though.

cableshaft2• 7 years ago

My local group is open to the public and doesn't require previous publications or any fees.

It also means it attracts a lot of less serious writers. People who are more into the fantasy of writing than the actual doing of it (or at least the putting it out there in the world, which admittedly I'm somewhat guilty of myself, I only have a few short stories out there).

Basically it's headed by one stubbornly persistent guy in the area, who puts a lot of time into it, for free. He works with local libraries and municipalities to secure meeting spaces, sets up meetings, comes up with activities, etc. We tend to get an influx of new members every Nanowrimo, which he hosts the local chapter and then invites people to join the year round group (how he got me).

It has decent attendance, and can get up to 40 people at a meeting at times. The Nanowrimo-specific group is pretty strong and usually has 100+ people participating each year.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure without him at the helm, everything would have drifted off a long time ago and the group wouldn't still be there. If he ever decided to move on, I don't think the group would last more than 6 months to a year.

westoncb• 7 years ago

Hey, that makes me feel a bit better about some of my software projects too! ;)

b_tterc_p• 7 years ago

Writing sounds existentially terrifying.

searine• 7 years ago

It's not just writing.

Being around a group of highly-skilled peers sets the bar. It exposed your shortcomings and gives you a resource to remedy them.

Steve44• 7 years ago

When I was programming I loved working in an office with other teams. The buzz with the other creatives, coders, artists, musicians, really helped me to develop what I was working on. If I was ‘in the zone’ I could be totally focussed for hours but when I needed a mental break, or to chat over ideas there were always others around to do that with.

I’ve sometimes worked at home which can be great for a few days of pure coding but for the longer term development I really relish having other peers around.

I once did a project, about six months work, purely from home and although I was disciplined enough to work I feel I was nowhere near my best because of the isolation.

This is why I find it strange the drive a lot of people have to work at home, for me it’s nice occasionally but it just doesn’t work for my creativity.

nprz• 7 years ago

Interesting, seems to prove Paul Graham's essay on how cities influence behavior as correct[0].

[0] http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html

mocha_nate• 7 years ago

I loved that essay. Thanks for sharing

jamesjyu3• 7 years ago

The major thing I struggled with transitioning to being a writer from the tech world is the challenge of creating feedback cycles. Writing can be a lonely affair, since outside of writing rooms, it's not naturally collaborative, unlike the business world, where you get constant feedback from peers, bosses, customers, the market, etc.

The advice from published authors I know is that the highest correlation with eventually getting published is to have a weekly (or regular) cadence with an intimate critique group of small size. The critiques themselves are useful, but even more important is the social pressure to produce.

I've always wondered how famous authors seemed to all hang out with each other, like C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. I realized the question was poorly formed: famous authors tend to cluster because they got to know each other before they were famous. They improved their craft together, and each person's success levels up the group.

nemild• 7 years ago

I wrote a tweet thread on building a writing habit:

https://twitter.com/nemild/status/1113441095323492352

Consistency and having social pressure were critical for me.

Also, check out Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (book)

jamesjyu3• 7 years ago

Good stuff! I agree with everything in that thread.

I think a lot about the comparisons to coding, because both writing and coding are acts of thinking. When we started Parse, for example, we hired folks who were naturally inclined to write. This gave us a huge advantage when it came time to communicate how the platform worked to a wide audience.

wintercarver2• 7 years ago

Great thread, thanks for sharing. I've found a lot of what you said to ring absolutely true in my own experience (only recently started publicly sharing content). I also love writing on a typewriter, it's such a great tool for focusing on moving forward as opposed to obsessive, premature editing.

Do you have any thoughts on finding/developing your writing community?

mruts• 7 years ago

It's much more likely that serious writers cluster and that serious writers are more prolific.

rolltiide4• 7 years ago

This is the same with other creative works.

Visual artists work that gains value is highly correlated with their network to begin with.

Right school, right galleries, never ever being seen in a lesser gallery. It makes me sad when an artist who wants to monetize is celebrating the mere fact of being on display as validation, when that very act is undermining the value of their work forever. Is the alternative of being in a prestigious gallery achievable for them? Probably not, and they should consider resigning to that reality if their time is valuable.

I think this is not known because when I listen to many talented and aspiring artists the things they value are so at odds with the things that would make them valuable. Things like "I never had formal education" being a bragging point to an aspiring artist not being aware thats not a bragging point to the people that the artist wants to assign value to their work.

Firadeoclus• 7 years ago

It makes me sad when an artist who wants to monetize is celebrating the mere fact of being on display as validation, when that very act is undermining the value of their work forever. Is the alternative of being in a prestigious gallery achievable for them? Probably not, and they should consider resigning to that reality if their time is valuable.

If they accept that the alternative is not achievable then being on display in a "lesser gallery" is as good as it gets. So why shouldn't they celebrate? There's room for successful-but-no-superstar artists.

rolltiide4• 7 years ago

If they accept that the alternative is not achievable then being on display in a "lesser gallery" is as good as it gets. So why shouldn't they celebrate? There's room for successful-but-no-superstar artists.

Again, I don't think many aspiring artists are aware. They focus on mastery of a craft and also want to make money. They feel that these things are correlated. They aren't.

whatshisface• 7 years ago

the things they value are so at odds with the things that would make them valuable

If the market price is the value to everybody, then a $100,000 spare part for some random industrial equipment is worth $100,000 to me. But, somehow, I clearly wouldn't spend that much to buy it. The market price isn't the value that everybody agrees on, it's the equilibrium between buyers who decide not to buy it and sellers who decide not to sell it. Yes, to a certain group of people stuff in that New York gallery is worth a lot, but so is that spare part. Manufacturing it might be a good job but nobody goes in to art looking for a good job.

rolltiide4• 7 years ago

the market price isn't the value to everybody, its the value in the last transaction

in more efficient markets you can weigh it by volume (VWAP), art is not an efficient market

notfromhere• 7 years ago

You've demonstrated pretty well that the value of art is extremely arbitrary.

rolltiide4• 7 years ago

Too broad of a statement, there are buckets.

In the lower value bucket, they typically have a trade or product with no scarcity, and no market. They try to sell based on a multiple of their effort. This is everything under $1,000. Prices adjust based on volume sold and desperation of the artist, by artist. So therefore yes prices are more arbitrary at the beginning of an artist's career, and at an art show there would be no rhyme or reason between artists. Perhaps some competition and a race to the bottom at a bazaar. This is the same as pretty much any other trade or contractor that is always testing their market. These artists aspire to be in higher tiers, but largely don't act like they understand what drives the value in those tiers. If they do understand and realize they aren't eligible either way but still spend their time on trying to monetize art, then that is a good objective lens. People with other marketable skills will just resign their art to a pasttime and forget about the monetization goals.

In the middle value bucket, it is mostly fine art with low worth, and a very different market. The market forces to create the arbitrary prices are different and mostly correlated to the artist's network when they were alive. Typically there is something undermining the scarcity of these works, but that can also be just demand. Galleries arbitrarily raise the prices over time until a private seller undercuts them.

In the high value bucket, it is mostly fine art with high worth. The market forces to create the arbitrary prices are different and mostly correlated to the artist's network when they were alive. Here it is rarely about the aesthetics or the discipline involved in a piece, but the eligibility of a piece even appearing in this market is again based on the artist's network while they were living. Most of the high value bucket is a product of monetary policy and there are whole books about it.

HaloZero• 7 years ago

Doesn't the data seem to reflect the clustering effect for writers in London has waned. As you approach the 21st century that clustering effect goes toward the population line.

aggronn• 7 years ago

This isn't a unique characteristic of writers, or creatives for that matter. This is a well studied phenomena, especially in Urban Economics, called Agglomeration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration

The HN audience should be pretty familiar with this already considering how much we talk about startups and labor markets--proximity breeds productivity. Startups breed more startups, software jobs breed software jobs.

But it extends beyond that even. This is, in part, why similar stores cluster. The "cost" of doing business goes down when you're near other people who are doing the same business, for a variety of reasons. In writing, "cost" is feedback and gathering inspiration. Its hardly different at all.

cableshaft2• 7 years ago

My main two hobbies are writing and board game design right now. I've been in a local writer's group for probably going on a dozen years now, and have been designing games for about half that (although only seriously the past three years).

While I've made several pretty good friends from the writer's group, and gotten a few things published through them, some useful critiques, encouragement, etc, I don't think I've gone anywhere near as far with that I have in less than half the time in the game industry.

I think part of that is the act of writing is completely solitary, whereas game design, while it has solitary parts (working on manuals, sell sheets, thinking long and hard about what direction to take the game, making prototypes, etc), the process tends to be highly collaborative.

I.e. I'll playtest your game, then you'll playtest my game. After (or sometimes during) the game, we'll brainstorm new ideas, go over what works, what doesn't, maybe change the rules mid-playtest, etc.

Whereas in my experience with writing, you might share a passage from time to time and get some feedback on it, or recruit someone to beta read something you've written, but it's a lot slower process and a much bigger commitment (if you're writing novels at least). It could take them several weeks to finish your book (if they ever do at all), and if they suggest anything structural, like "I don't think taking the book in this direction worked here", you might have to rewrite half the book to incorporate that change and see if it makes it better.

Short stories are easier, and I've gotten some good feedback on my short stories before.

But even the heavier board games out there tend to require no more than about 3 hours of a player's time (still a lot, even to me, I prefer about 90 minutes or less), but you could still make an Saturday afternoon of it, including an hour of feedback, and get home in time for dinner.

And not only that, but you'll often get multiple people's feedback with one playtest session.

Much, much harder to get a commitment for as long as it takes to read a book. And unless you set up storytime hour where you read out the book, just about everyone you recruit can only experience it by themselves, so it's a lot more work to get that feedback from people.

Writers Are More Prolific When They Cluster

Related Stories