Gun Runner a finalist for the Dragon Award

A WHOLE HEAP OF SF ACTION coming your way this Tuesday!

That’s the date Gun Runner, my collaboration with Larry Correia, will be released.

In conjunction with that Baen recently interviewed us about the book.

Catch the interview here.

Here’s the idea popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers and Geoff Colvin in Talent is Overrated: put in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice (as opposed to mindless practice) into the area of your choice, and you will succeed. 10,000 hours is more important than anything else.

10,000 hours.

The idea that deliberate practice makes perfect and leads to success seems to make a lot of sense.

Except I don’t think the data holds up.

First, there’s a huge survivorship bias in the 10,000 hour idea.

Both Gladwell and Colvin based their stuff on Anders Ericsson’s research. I contacted Mr. Ericsson and asked him if there were any studies that weren’t correlational. Any that took similar groups of schlubs and showed that deliberate practice is what took them to elite levels of performance.

He said no there weren’t, but graciously sent me some files to help. Here’s the money quote in those files:

“The main focus of deliberate practice was to explain individual differences among those individuals who had had access to all necessary training and practice opportunities. I proposed those factors which could explain the performance differences within groups of expert musicians who had accumulated over ten years of instruction and mentoring by skilled teachers.”

These were not studies designed to look at those who became elite and those that didn’t and figure out what made the difference. All he did was look at performance differences between experts. Which means there are huge issues using his research to make claims about what leads to expertise.

Big issue one: he has no idea what kind of practice any of these folks had before he met with them. It’s all self-reported. There were no controls to verify the amounts of “deliberate” practice the musicians had in the long years up to the time he studied them.

Big issue two (and just as important): he’s looking at experts. It’s all after-the-fact.

He took a bunch of successful people and looked at their current work habits and speculated about their reports of earlier practice. Hum, they’ve put in a lot of hours. And these guys doing better seem to be doing a specific type of practice. But he did NOT look at a cohort of people who all started out at the same time, track their progress, and then identify factors that made the difference between those who became elite, those who became so-so, and those who ended up in the mud pit.

But somehow his stuff got twisted into the idea that if you’re starting out and just put in 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, you’ll be successful just like those big guys!

Big issue three. Ericsson did not study, and Gladwell and Colvin do not address, the factor of early success. Especially in writing and other tournament-style endeavors where rejection plays a huge role.

So many people quit because the effort is not worth the reward. What you have left then are a bunch of people who persevered, but was it the hours they put in that led them to the top? Or did they have a lot of hours because they hung in there?

And did they hang in because they had early success?

And did they have early success because of luck or some natural aptitude or advantage like birthday that seems to factor so heavily in Canadian hockey (I think Gladwell talked about that in the same book–right birth date means you’re older compared to the other kids and therefore seem to have “talent” when it’s just a few months more physical development, which makes a big difference when you’re young) or some parent who had expertise and gave them a leg up against the other kids in their cohort?

You see the effect of success in reading. My wife works as a 7th and 8th grade language arts teacher. The studies have shown that kids, in general, need to have about 94% comprehension rate to stick with reading. Below that they start to feel failure, get frustrated, and quit. In most cases, reading a super hard book will decrease motivation. Which then leads to less practice. And less skill. They’ve found that kids will work down around an 89% comprehension rate, a struggling range, if they have support. Below that the failure rate leads them to self select out of reading.

Where in all these studies was self-selection included? Nowhere. Motivation, early success, quitting: disregarding those is a huge oversight.

And all of these issues are compounded, especially for artists buying into the 10,000 hour idea, by the fact that even if you do get some skillz, that’s a completely separate thing from being noticed.

Duncan Watts did a fascinating study about cumulative advantage reported in the NY Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnidealab.t.html?_r=0

Basically he took a bunch of songs with varying quality and wanted to see how social influence (download counts) affected which songs rose to the top. He put the same set of songs in 8 discrete and separate online environments to see which songs would be most popular. His finding:

“In all the social-influence worlds, the most popular songs were much more popular (and the least popular songs were less popular) than in the independent condition. At the same time, however, the particular songs that became hits were different in different worlds, just as cumulative-advantage theory would predict. Introducing social influence into human decision making, in other words, didn’t just make the hits bigger; it also made them more unpredictable. . .

. . . When we added up downloads across all eight social-influence worlds, “good” songs had higher market share, on average, than “bad” ones. But the impact of a listener’s own reactions is easily overwhelmed by his or her reactions to others.”

So even if your stuff is good, that does not mean it will be popular.

And when you meet failure after failure after failure . . .

You’ve got to practice well to get better, to offer more awesome gifts. But you’re not going to practice without the motivation. Motivation is the KEY to learning. And early success is a key part to motivation.

Another piece of data that seems to belie the 10,000 hour claim is that when you do some simple math and look at surveys of writers breaking in, 10,000 hours starts to look very odd indeed.

Let’s say you’re a poopy-slow writer and can only get 250 words in per hour. In 10,000 hours will you have written 2.5 million words or about twenty-five 100k novels.

25 novels?

Hey, you say, you can’t be typing the whole time.

Okay, let’s be super conservative with these numbers. What if you spend about half that 10,000 hours writing and the other editing and doing pre-draft work? That’s still 12.5 finished novels.

That sounds like Brandon Sanderson. Except it’s not. Remember, he sold number 5 or 6.

Furthermore, the problem is that from all the surveys I’ve seen, writers who break into the old traditional publishing system aren’t averaging 12.5 novels. They aren’t averaging 5 or 6. They’re averaging 3-4, with a lot selling their first or second.

Hello, Stephenie Meyer and JK Rowling. And a lot of indie authors.

Jim Hines reports from a survey of authors he conducted:

“I also asked how many books people had written before they sold one to a major publisher. The average was between three and four. Median was two. I was surprised, however, to see that the mode was zero. 58 authors sold the first novel they wrote.” More at: http://www.jimchines.com/2010/03/novel-survey-results-part-ii/

10,000 hours? A million words?

I don’t think so.

Gladwell scoffs at this 10,000-hours-will-make-you-a-success reading of his original writings on the matter: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/08/psychology-ten-thousand-hour-rule-complexity.html.

But this is precisely the message so many have taken from the studies. Just put in the time and you’ll become great because the practice is more important than any natural aptitude . . . or early success.

I don’t think it is.

John, what in the Sam Hill are you doing? Trying to depress everyone and tell them they can’t succeed?

No.

What I’m saying is that we must practice and improve our craft. That’s a given. But we cannot expect that alone to make us successful. Especially not as artists. We can’t expect that 10,000 alone will make our work super popular.

Working hard WILL increase the probability of success (what’s that saying?–the harder I work, the luckier I get).  But as writers we’ve got to realize that there’s no guarantee of popularity. Or even expertise.

So what are we left with?

Nothing, and maybe everything. Because there is passion. There is sharing. And if you can tap into that and rejoice in the sharing that does occur, it might well be the best reward. Bricks of gold in the basement and your name on everyone’s lips must be awesome. But a memory of walking a number of afternoons with a daughter in the hills and telling (sharing) a fine tale to that audience of one might just be worth more than all the gold bricks in China.

(Yes China, not Fort Knox. You didn’t hear?–we had to ship everything over before we could get another loan.)

The bottom line is this: there’s no guarantee of success. Not even with 10,000 hours.

The best way to change someone’s mind: use the skills you learned writing fiction.

John Scalzi recently wrote a post about White Privilege.  You know: the idea that Straight White Males (SWMs) have all the cards stacked in their favor.  It’s called “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.” I assume he wrote it to help SWMs have more sympathy for those who aren’t SWM.

It’s a noble cause.  Not as noble as true love, but that’s so rare–not one couple in a century has a chance at true love (at least when you live in Guilder).

The problem is that Scalzi’s post is a great 101 on how To NOT Win Friends and Influence People.  Actually, that’s not right.  He will win new friends and increase his influence among those who are like-minded.  But if he was hoping to win over those who didn’t already see things his way, I don’t think he’s going to be very successful.

His posts generated hundreds of comments. When you look at the comments, you’ll see that the vast majority of them are folks arguing Scalzi’s side with smug condescension and other folks arguing points against Scalzi with an equal lack of tact.

In short, it’s a classic online bring-your-guns-to-the-party event.

Alas.

Except I must admit such events can be a lot of fun if you’re on the side with greater numbers.  Furthermore, there is sometimes a tremendous pleasure to be had in being provocative.  Sometimes we simply must publish something with teeth in it.  And maybe that’s what Scalzi was trying to do. 

But if not, here’s where Scalzi’s post went admirably wrong.  And it has everything to do with principles that underlie influence as well as writing fiction.  You see, when you’re writing fiction and you want someone to root for your character, you do not turn to the reader and insult him. Insults don’t bring readers into your world.

Equally as important, telling, or demanding someone feel a certain way towards someone else, will fail every time you try it. You cannot demand (or whine) that a reader must feel sympathy and admiration for the character.  Why?  Because emotions don’t respond to demands.  They just don’t.  It’s like trying to freeze water by seasoning it with pepper. 

The advice “Show, don’t tell” works in real life as well as it works in fiction.

Emotions are automatic.  If someone presents the right stimulus, we WILL feel the desired emotion in response.  We don’t experience a sympathetic change of heart when someone gets in our face and demands we feel sympathy.  We do feel that change when we see the antecedents which prompt the emotional response in us.  Show me.  Make me believe.  And the response is automatic.  

This is what happened with Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the movie Ghandi and the TV series Roots and the more recent movie Believe in Me and the novel Les Miserables and thousands of others.  It’s what happens every day when someone in one group meets someone in another group they feel some distrust for and begins to build a friendship. 

Show the antecedents, help folks identify, and you’ll move millions.  Get up and rant at someone, and all you’ll get is the bird.  And applause from the true believers.

Scalzi claims that if you feel offended by his post then you’re hypersensitive because all he was doing is pointing out the facts.  Um, no.  Jim Hines is trying to establish potential facts.  You could try to verify those.  You could try to separate out causation from correlation.  But Scalzi is not doing that. He’s telling all SWM that they are playing on the kiddy version of the life video game.  Your life is so easy.  Everything is rigged for you.  You’re playing the baby version.  And because of that everyone else’s life is so much harder.

No, he didn’t say those words exactly. But there is this thing call connotation. There is this thing called tone.  And no matter how hard you try, you’re can’t separate the non-verbal communication from the message. 

Everyone knows that some people have it harder in life and some have it easier. Like, duh.  I think we all learn that when we showed up to the first grade.  So what’s the point of telling all the SWM’s reading his blog that they are playing the dweeb version of life, the one with training wheels?

Furthermore, instead of helping all of us pampered SWMs identify with our brothers and sisters, he tries to erect more boundaries that would push us apart by giving all of us another way to discriminate and another reason to be resentful.

Lowly, pampered SWMs at the bottom.  Gays, people of color, and women farther up. 

So now we’re going to go around with a My Life’s Harder Than Yours number?  The opinions of those with low numbers will have less weight.  How could they have anything as worthwhile to say when their life has been so easy?  Those with higher numbers will have more weight. 

A whole new group calculus will have to be developed and standardized.  And it will have to go beyond which shade of brown your skin is (yes, White people really are just a lighter shade of brown), your gender, and sexual orientation.  Because those who are handicapped, by birth or by accident have it really rough too.  We’d have to figure out if they had it more or less rough that someone who was gay, and would that change if that gay person lived in San Francisco versus Laramie, Wyoming?  A geographical element!  And what about those with idiot parents who teach their kids to take meth and don’t get them to school or beat them in alcoholic rages or who are never around?  I wonder what score that would bring.  And what about the kids who grow up with grandpa molesting them?  And what about the short, the fat, the plain?  What about those with glasses?  Those who are runty bully targets?  Or those with a minority religion.  What about those born with AIDS? 

Are we sure it’s a good idea to start ranking ourselves, using color, gender, and sexual preference to tag our status? 

Wait, haven’t we already tried that?

When someone comes up to you at a party and condescends, when they’re always one-upping you with a “you think you’ve got it hard you haven’t seen squat” line, what is your response?  Even if it is legit.  What about when they get in your face for someone else?  Does that change your default response?

It’s the same at internet parties and gatherings.

So.

Lesson 1: If you want to influence someone, don’t start by insulting them and continue by talking down to them. If you want to have a good time with like-minded friends, then, by all means, skewer.

Lesson 2: Remember “show, don’t tell” to win someone’s affection.  Present the person’s story, and the reader will feel respect, trust, sympathy, sorrow, regret, and admiration automatically (okay, you’re right, some of that depends on the reader).  Tell or demand, and none of that will occur.

Lesson 3: Don’t raise barriers between two groups when you want members of one group to identify with members of another.

Here’s a better way. 

Tell me a story about a real gay black woman.  Make me love her.  Make me care.  Tell me a story about her I can sympathize with.  Just show me the woman.  Make it about her, not her group category.  Or tell me a story about a Mexican man who is just trying to provide for his children in America.  Or tell me about a sympathetic SWM who goes to Asia or Polynesia and finds the cards stacked against him.  Stories like this abound.  

In fact, why don’t you drop the whole “SWM” business.  If you want me to identify, to experience-take (yes, that official jargon), it’s probably best not to slap SWM on me and set me in one corner and slap GBM on someone else and set them in another.  Help me identify.  Focus on how we are alike. When you do discuss the differences, magnify those things that are wonderful and unique, or eccentric and unique, or goofy and unique, or weird and unique, or whatever, but make it positive.  And when you must talk about old or continuing grievances between two groups, do so with respect, with a desire to calm, not enflame.

Lest you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, I grew up working in a family business where employees were White, Black, Hispanic, Tongan, and Japanese.  Male, female, homosexual, heterosexual.  And we were a big family.  My father and mother held out big welcoming arms.  I have Whites and Blacks in my biological family.  I hope my daughters find great men to be their husbands.  And if they happen to also be Indian or Puerto Rican or Black or Asian or Maori or Scottish or Southern or whatever, I would think it was grand.  It’s possible I might experience some of that mild “other group” anxiety that sometimes comes when you meet someone that’s not just like you.  But I know it’s possible to get beyond that by seeing what’s common, building friendships, and celebrating and laughing at and with the differences.

My father, God rest his soul, liked to quote Edwin Markam.  I thought it fitting.

He drew a circle to keep me out,

A thing of scorn, and a thing to flout.

But love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in.

You want to laugh with the like-minded?  Draw the first kind of circle.  You want to win hearts and minds?  Draw the bigger one.