Post History
Generally you are correct, your piece has to be judged by readers to be clever, in order to be considered clever by the public. Entities with a larger budget can buy advertising that (without attr...
Answer
#5: Post edited
by
Amadeus
·
2020-01-28T18:36:15Z (almost 5 years ago)
Generally you are correct, your piece has to be judged by _readers_ to be clever, in order to be _considered_ clever by the public.Entities with a larger budget can buy advertising that (without attribution) calls a piece "clever", "a wild ride", or say it has a "killer twist", but that will fall somewhat flat if critics don't see it. Modern consumers have a pretty jaded (or realistic) view of hype, and even "clever" is hype. Many would suspect this is self-interested promotion (and be right).If you want to avoid unattributed claims, it is possible to pay people to spout whatever critique you want to hear. They consider this "paid endorsement", just like the movie star or sports star telling you about a great insurance company. That might work on some people, but not most people.Even in private letters, like query letters, you should not hype yourself or your story, it is seen as amateurish, and potentially flagging you as a difficult author with superiority issues. The agents/publishers are also jaded. It is amateurish because if it made a difference **_everybody_** would claim they were clever, whether they were objectively clever or not, thus obviously it is an unreliable claim and a waste of time and space, and only amateurs would include it.If your work is actually clever, it will be realized by most people reading it. That includes editors, agents, publishers, script readers and other gatekeepers in the path of getting it published. You shouldn't have to **tell** them to look for the cleverness, if it isn't obvious to most readers, and especially _professional_ readers like these mentioned, then it isn't worth their time, because average readers won't judge it clever and the cleverness won't sell. They aren't going to include a prompting label, "look carefully for clever writing". In this market, it is obviously clever (like the ending twist in The Sixth Sense) and everybody raves about it, or it just isn't clever.
- Generally you are correct, your piece has to be judged by _readers_ to be clever, in order to be _considered_ clever by the public.
- Entities with a larger budget can buy advertising that (without attribution) calls a piece "clever", "a wild ride", or say it has a "killer twist", but that will fall somewhat flat if critics don't see it. Modern consumers have a pretty jaded (or realistic) view of hype, and even "clever" is hype. Many would suspect this is self-interested promotion (and be right).
- If you want to avoid unattributed claims, it is possible to pay people to spout whatever critique you want to hear. They consider this "paid endorsement", just like the movie star or sports star telling you about a great insurance company. That might work on some people, but not most people.
- Even in private letters, like query letters, you should not hype yourself or your story, it is seen as amateurish, and potentially flagging you as a difficult author with superiority issues. The agents/publishers are also jaded. It is amateurish because if it made a difference **_everybody_** would claim they were clever, whether they were objectively clever or not, thus obviously it is an unreliable claim and a waste of time and space, and only amateurs would include it.
- If your work is actually clever, it will be realized by most people reading it. That includes editors, agents, publishers, script readers and other gatekeepers in the path of getting it published. You shouldn't have to **tell** them to look for the cleverness, if it isn't obvious to most readers, and especially _professional_ readers like these mentioned, then it isn't worth their time, because average readers won't judge it clever and the cleverness won't sell. They aren't going to include a prompting label, "look carefully for clever writing". In this market, it is obviously clever (like the ending twist in The Sixth Sense) and everybody raves about it, or it just isn't clever.
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-19T22:13:57Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48644 License name: CC BY-SA 4.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T13:10:02Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48644 License name: CC BY-SA 4.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision
Generally you are correct, your piece has to be judged by _readers_ to be clever, in order to be _considered_ clever by the public. Entities with a larger budget can buy advertising that (without attribution) calls a piece "clever", "a wild ride", or say it has a "killer twist", but that will fall somewhat flat if critics don't see it. Modern consumers have a pretty jaded (or realistic) view of hype, and even "clever" is hype. Many would suspect this is self-interested promotion (and be right). If you want to avoid unattributed claims, it is possible to pay people to spout whatever critique you want to hear. They consider this "paid endorsement", just like the movie star or sports star telling you about a great insurance company. That might work on some people, but not most people. Even in private letters, like query letters, you should not hype yourself or your story, it is seen as amateurish, and potentially flagging you as a difficult author with superiority issues. The agents/publishers are also jaded. It is amateurish because if it made a difference **_everybody_** would claim they were clever, whether they were objectively clever or not, thus obviously it is an unreliable claim and a waste of time and space, and only amateurs would include it. If your work is actually clever, it will be realized by most people reading it. That includes editors, agents, publishers, script readers and other gatekeepers in the path of getting it published. You shouldn't have to **tell** them to look for the cleverness, if it isn't obvious to most readers, and especially _professional_ readers like these mentioned, then it isn't worth their time, because average readers won't judge it clever and the cleverness won't sell. They aren't going to include a prompting label, "look carefully for clever writing". In this market, it is obviously clever (like the ending twist in The Sixth Sense) and everybody raves about it, or it just isn't clever.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-10-21T15:45:53Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 7