#sorry to just keep ranting about adhd stuff atm

[thebibliosphere]

I receive many wonderful and kind comments about Phangs in my inbox daily, but the ones that stick with me the most are always from fellow neurodivergent people, usually elated or crying because Phangs is the first book they've been able to read since their teens, sometimes even decades.

"I thought I'd lost the ability to read; I thought there was something wrong with me; I thought I was broken," over and over and over again.

I've talked about it before, but just in case you need to hear it: it's not just you; it's the publishing industry.

If you follow my Twitter, you may have seen the thread where I talked about what that was like, and how I was often handed the "problem" writers who struggled to conform to the industry standards. (The original thread is gone, but for context, it was about the lack of accessibility in publishing for people with ADHD) I didn't know it then because I wasn't yet diagnosed, but I understood the problems these writers were having because our brains functioned on the same wavelength.

I understood why they felt specific changes harmed the text, but I also understood that it was the cost of being published, and it was my job to help them with it. I went above and beyond to make it as painless for them as possible. All the while listening to my colleagues around the wine water cooler deride these writers as "pretentious" and "too thin-skinned for publishing."

I hated them. I still hate them, and I hate that the industry is the way it is because it's really not that difficult to accommodate.

Suppose an ADHD author tells you the changes you've made have made a sentence incomprehensible to them (and I cannot stress enough how distressing it is to have something you wrote be turned into something you cannot read). In that case, it's likely because you've removed certain critical elements for the sake of brevity. It might not look like vital elements to you, but for ND brains, longer sentences with additional qualifiers and descriptors can really help us latch onto the "rhythm" of a text, which can help us feel more immersed and hold our attention better*.

Filler words can help with this; it gives our brain time to process but also figure out which parts are essential and to hold onto. It's sort of like, uh, how people say "like" and "uh" a lot (😋). These act as both social cues that indicate that while we might be pausing in our speech, we are not done talking yet, but also help keep our brains jogging along via the act of vocal stimulation. (If I can find the study I read on this, I'll come back and post the link.)

Regarding "superfluous" adjectives and "weak" adverbs, they often function to provide emphasis and context we might otherwise miss. Sure, you can go overboard with them, and they can lose all meaning if you do, but the general writing advice that "adverbs NEVER be used" is not only lousy in general but also means those of us who struggle with social cues and emotional context can be left feeling out of the loop.

I can't tell you the number of times I've had to go back and verify that a character is experiencing an Emotion because it wasn't emphasized, or the author tried to make it into a gut punch by using "sharp, punchy" language (but all they use is "sharp, punchy" language!), and my brain glossed over it because, well, if it's not part of the greater sentence structure, it's irrelevant.

And this shit is my job! I'm being paid to notice these things! It's just not how my brain works naturally, and forcing it to do so long-term is not only exhausting but distressing. Why would I keep trying to read something that causes me exhaustion and makes me feel stupid because I'm struggling to understand it?

Now, obviously, there will be times when a text needs sprucing up. Everyone has their "comfort" style of writing, and while repetition can be soothing to read, it can also make the text hard to engage with. Same with run-on sentences. Sometimes you need those one-word gut punches. Or everyone's favorite, the italicized "oh."

The trick is finding a happy medium between the two that retains your personal voice and writing style. A good editor will work with you to make this possible. A bad one will hack everything to pieces and tell you, "that's just how it's meant to be."

I was lucky with my editors. Sometimes, I had to tell them that the proposed changes wouldn't work and were causing me distress because I couldn't read them. And I knew. I knew if I couldn't follow the sentence structure, a good chunk of my prospective readers wouldn't be able to either. They weren't doing anything wrong. They were doing their jobs and ensuring my book had as much mainstream readability appeal as possible. However, the problem is that "mainstream readability," as we've already established, isn't accessible to a large chunk of the population. So we found ways to work around it. We made it work.

As is evident in the messages I get in my inbox daily.

Every single day, someone else tells me their friend recommended Phangs to them, and they were skeptical because they haven't been able to read a published book in years. And every single day, someone new tells me they loved Phangs, but the biggest thing they loved about it, was that they were even able to read it at all.

So thank you for the greatest compliment you can give me. A lot of work went into ensuring Phangs would be accessible to as many people as possible.

Also, sorry the industry is like *gestures* this.

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*This is a generality and not true for everyone. People are not monoliths. I am merely speaking from my personal experiences from the things I have observed in the industry as an editor, a writer, and a lifelong reader who also now struggles to read the current style favored by the mainstream industry.

#writing #publishing #adhd #long post #sorry to just keep ranting about adhd stuff atm #but it's all on my mind