Fan Mails, or The Art of Articulating Admiration
In Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen draws a scene of social tension in a house visit.
The protagonist Elinor’s screen paintings are passed around an indifferent audience, and they’re met with lukewarm praise and pejorative comparisons with the work of an unknown lady of wealth. Her sister, Marianne, stung by the insincerity of the group, takes the paintings from them and ‘admires them as they should be admired’.
What a difficult thing to do.
Admiring something the way it should be admired. To praise and not flatter. To show someone why the work they’re doing is invaluable without personal bias and with sound reason.
Writing in itself is an act of turning vague feelings, disjointed ideas and fuzzy hunches into one meaningful story. And it becomes much harder when we’re writing to someone we look up to.
How do we even begin to express what we feel?
Whether it’s 15-year old George R.R. Martin’s fan letter to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, or Asimov’s fan letter to a young Carl Sagan, we can’t help admiring greatness when we see it. And we can’t help wanting to do something about it.
So we spend hours before a blank page, utterly baffled, writing and tearing up and rewriting letters to our role models; letters that may never even be read.
Like young George exclaims in his letter to Stan Lee,
‘Even now I sit in awe of it (F.F #17), trying to do the impossible — that is, describe it.’
But it is important because it’s how we begin to strive towards greatness. And like all things that take thought and effort, fan letter writing is an art worthy of study.
So what makes a fan letter any good? How do you express admiration in a way that your heroes might admire themselves?
The perusal of letters — most from the marvellous Letters of Note — revealed some recurring elements:
Candidness
When Isaac Asimov believed that he had encountered a superior intelligence in a much younger Carl Sagan:
“One thing about the book made me nervous. It was entirely too obvious that you are smarter than I am. I hate that.”
As Emerson says, sincerity is the highest compliment you can pay.
Consideration
When Charles Dickens suspected that the hand behind George Elliot’s work was a woman’s:
“You will not suppose that I have any vulgar wish to fathom your secret. I mention the point as one of great interest to me — not of mere curiosity. If it should ever suit your convenience and inclination, to shew me the face of the man or woman who has written so charmingly, it will be a very memorable occasion to me.”
Fishing for information, personal or otherwise, can put people off. But if it must be done, the best thing to do would be to take a leaf out of Dickens’ book and be straight about it.
A revelation of the impact of the work on the fan’s life
A letter from a group of teenagers who joined Purdue University’s ‘Philosophy and Science Fiction’ class for gifted and talented students, to Orson Scott Card:
“We are all in about the same position; we are very intellectually oriented and have found few people at home who share this trait. Hence, most of us are lonely and have been since kindergarten.
…You couldn’t imagine the impact your books had on us; we are the Enders of today. Almost everything written in Ender’s Game and Speaker applied to each one of us on a very, very personal level.”
Card was delighted. The story had helped define an unusual community and the letter was an affirmation of its power to make deeply personal connections.
“The truth of the story was not truth in general, but their truth.”
Gratitude
Stanley Kubrick’s fan letter to the man he considered to be ‘the greatest film-maker at work today’, Ingmar Bergman:
“…For whatever it’s worth, I should like to add my praise and gratitude as a fellow director for the unearthly and brilliant contribution you have made to the world by your films. Your vision of life has moved me deeply, much more deeply than I have ever been moved by any films. I believe you are the greatest film-maker at work today.”
Nothing under the sun is truly new, goes Ecclesiastial wisdom.
Everything we read or see influences what we do and the way we perceive the world. And so when someone creates something that advances our own labour by years, thankfulness is a natural reaction.
Wit
James Agee was the pioneer of serious film criticism in journalism. W.H. Auden, after profusely praising the ‘astonishing excellence’ of Agee’s reviews in a letter to the publication’s editor, ends his letter on a droll note:
“One foresees the sad day, indeed, when Agee on Films will be the subject of a Ph.D. thesis.”
Wit is not as easy as it seems. It shows how much cogitation lies behind the letter, and it has the advantage of being universally enjoyable. A well-turned phrase done with humour is the easiest way to disarm, compliment and make observations that induce a smile or a chuckle.
Who wouldn’t want that in a letter addressed to themselves?
But when you get to the sticking point of actually writing your own, you can’t copy any of these examples. Like always in creativity, it’s a knockoff if you imitate content or style, but it’s original and interesting if you imitate thinking and find your own tangents.
For Creators
What if you’re at a stage in your life when other people are starting to look up to you and your work? I think it’s just as cool when people who inspire other people to do good work respond honestly to beautiful missives.
Validation and sincere admiration are hard to come by, and it’s worth the effort to be grateful for them too.
I end with Walt Whitman’s reply to Bram Stoker’s fan letter:
My dear young man,
Your letters have been most welcome to me — welcome to me as Person, & then as Author — I don’t know which most — You did well to write to me so unconventionally, so fresh, so manly, & so affectionately too. I too hope (though it is not probable) that we shall one day personally meet each other. Meantime I send you my friendship & thanks.
Walt Whitman
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Thanks for sticking around. :)
