Brandon Sanderson vs WIRED – Four Lessons For Indie Authors

The big news in fantasy & science fiction publishing last week was that WIRED magazine ran a hit piece on popular fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. The thesis of the article was “Sanderson’s fans love his books, which are written at a sixth-grade level, and this is bad”, which as a thesis is weak, for reasons which we will explore more below. Additionally, the article included numerous odd personal insults aimed at Sanderson, his family, his employees, the state of Utah, Mormons, and fantasy readers in general.

The tone was like Sanderson decided to run for President of the United States, and the journalist in question considered this a bad thing, and so proceeded to write a hit piece to make him look sinister. (Many formerly popular Governors and Senators who decided to run for President have been surprised to find themselves on the business end of this treatment from previously friendly journalists.) Except Sanderson isn’t running for president, or any elective office, he’s just selling his books and his merch to people who want to read them. And despite the journalist’s best efforts, Sanderson comes across pretty well – a friendly guy with nerdy hobbies who likes his work and doesn’t have any nasty dark secrets like a cocaine problem or a secret dogfighting ring. The fact that the journalist found this “lame” and “boring” is probably more of a reflection on the journalist.

The reaction to the article was almost universally negative, which was interesting (more on that below). The negative reaction broke down in five different ways:

-The majority was fans of Sanderson’s books, who were outraged.

-A substantial minority was lefty-leaning SF/F writers and readers, who often aren’t fans of Sanderson’s books or Mormons in general, but were still annoyed because the article was so bad and stumbled into attacking all fantasy readers.

-A substantial minority who had never heard of Brandon Sanderson’s books, but noticed the article surfacing on their social media feeds and were taken aback by how bad it was.

-A much smaller minority who thought the article was interesting but seriously flawed.

-And, of course, Internet crackpots connecting the article to unrelated topics like the CIA, various former Presidents, the Russia/Ukraine war, etc.

The long-term result, of course, will be nothing whatsoever. The Brandon Sanderson publishing juggernaut will continue unhindered. WIRED will remain a shadow of its glory days in the 90s and a semi-failing subsidiary of Conde Nast, and the Internet outrage machine will move (and has already moved several times) to new outrages of the day.

For indie authors, however I think there are four important points to take away from this.

1.) Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never talk to journalists, but especially American corporate journalists.

Remember, the business model of 21st century American corporate journalism is not to inform their readers and viewers, serve as the watchdog of democracy, hold the powerful to account, or any of the other mottos journalists post on their Twitter bios. The business model is to stir up controversy to generate clicks on Facebook/YouTube ads. We have all seen many such examples of people getting thrown into the meat grinder to generate ad clicks, or sensationalized stories that turned out to be total fabrications.

There are, of course, journalists with integrity, but they’re rarer than one might hope. Still, it’s best to avoid talking to a journalist unless you’re very familiar with their work. All reporters have a gift for seeming like your best friend while mentally planning how to make you look like History’s Greatest Monster in their article or news segment. If a reporter specifically approaches you to write a story about you or claims to “want to get your side of the story”, the odds that the journalist has integrity are about the same of you finding a magic ring the grants wishes without those wishes going horribly wrong in an ironic yet darkly amusing manner.

And, come to think of it, a magic ring that grants wishes that go horribly wrong is a pretty good metaphor for media attention.

However! There are always exceptions. The day I published this, Esquire Magazine released a profile of Sanderson that was far more evenhanded and objective.  Still, you should always remain cautious about speaking with journalists.

2.) Writing clear, unobtrusive prose is unambiguously a good thing. 

All the big-brain experts agree that the US has problems with literacy, with many adults struggling with both reading and writing. Actual teachers I have spoken to agree that the COVID reaction made this problem much worse. The kids who spent two years in the lockdowns with remote learning lost two years of development and are therefore two years behind where they should be, which at this point means it will have a lifelong impact.

With all that in mind, how is writing books that are easily accessible a bad thing? I’ve gotten a few emails from readers who said that they used to hate reading, but my books drew them in and got them into the habit, which is always nice to hear. If Sanderson is doing that on a larger scale, isn’t that a good thing? All the big-brain experts say that literacy is vital for every aspect of modern civilization, so shouldn’t we encourage anything that gets people reading more? I mean, there are lots of popular books I don’t like, but I don’t bash people for reading them. Heaven knows I have tastes that don’t agree with everyone – I spent a lot of 2022 playing ELDER SCROLLS BLADES, which is not exactly considered a masterpiece, but I enjoyed it.

There is a time and place for beautiful, complex prose, but it’s far less often than its advocates think. Clear communication is often more important than beautiful communication.

In my opinion, writing books that are easily accessible is not a bad thing and is in fact helping to address a serious problem.

3.) Writing clear, unobtrusive prose that doesn’t get in the way of the reader is much harder than you think.

Sometimes people assume that writers who use simple prose due to because they can’t write complex prose, but communicating clearly through the written word is much more difficult than many people believe.

Regrettably, there are many people who couldn’t write a coherent sentence if the fate of the world depended on it. Think how many times you have gotten an email from your boss or employer, and you don’t have any idea what they’re saying. Or how many coworkers you’ve had who couldn’t write a lucid email. Or a complaint from a customer, only it’s so incoherently written you can’t figure out what they’re trying to complain about. Or you get a text message from someone and can’t figure out what they meant.

I’ve written before about how one of the reasons Ulysses S Grant was an effective commander during the US Civil War was his ability to write clear instructions for his subordinates that left no room for misinterpretation or ambiguity about what Grant wanted done. Given that the Civil War was long before modern telecommunications, this was a vital skill.

Hopefully, none of us will have to command one side of a major industrial power’s civil war! But even without such fraught stakes, in the 21st century is just as useful of a skill.

So people sometimes like to bash on clear, simple prose, but writing clear prose that effectively conveys the writer’s intended meaning is both more difficult than people think. It is a highly valuable skill, even if you’re not a fiction writer.

4.) Consistently taking the high road can pay off in the long run.

Sanderson did post a response to the article on Reddit, and it was basically “please be nice to the guy who wrote the article, he tried his best.”

But the overall response to the article reminded me of one of the most debated parts of the Bible, the Parable of the Shrewd Manager:

Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

6 “‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Jesus was clear about a lot of things, but this wasn’t one of them. What does this parable mean? People have been arguing about the interpretation for two thousand years. We can be pretty sure Jesus Christ was not endorsing accounting fraud, even thought that’s what the shrewd manager is essentially doing. Like, does it mean you should dismiss worldly things to focus on the spiritual? Or that you should store up treasures in heaven? Or that you should use worldly wealthy to perform good deeds? Or that you should use wealth to make friends for yourself in your hour of need? (I even wrote this as a joke into one of the DRAGONSKULL books – Gareth notices that the priests of the church of Andomhaim prefer to avoid preaching on this parable and focus on ones with easier applicability to everyday life, like the Good Samaritan, Lazarus and the Rich Man, or the Sheep and the Goats.)

Over the course of his career, it seems that Sanderson has tried pretty consistently to take the high road – making friends with other authors, releasing a lot of free YouTube/podcast content about writing, and bringing out more books and merch for his constituency. A well-timed hit piece can destroy someone’s reputation, or at least put a serious dent into it. It seems the opposite happened here – Sanderson banked up enough goodwill from his peers and his readership that the WIRED article just sort of bounced off. (In fact, the Esquire piece I linked above mentioned that neutral observers were put off by how hostile the WIRED article was.)

You do sometimes see authors, tradpubbed or indie, engaging in bad behavior – rounding up review mobs, abusing trademarks, sabotaging each other, making false reports against each other on the publishing platforms, and so forth. In fact, the day I finished writing this, some new-ish book service got in trouble for fabricating endorsement quotes from high-profile indie authors.

It seems better to take the high road over the long term. That way, when a crisis like a media hit piece arrives, it is much less likely to do significant damage.

-JM