Can They Write?

Thoughts on the worst question publishing asks.

Hey. Good to see you.

Can they write?

That’s the question everyone in publishing asks. Editors, agents, producers, development executives. It sounds like the thing a professional says when they’re sizing something up. What it actually is: gut feeling with a corner office. Je ne sais quoi in a blazer. And a writer who hears it has nothing to work with. You can’t improve a feeling. You can’t strengthen an impression.

Most writing advice doesn’t answer it any better than the editor who passed. “Your voice needs work.” “The pacing is off.” “I didn’t connect with the protagonist.” These are verdicts too, just more specific ones. There’s no way to know what to fix specifically, just a vague direction to gesture at.

Enter baseball

Baseball and publishing have a lot in common. Big corporate money. A rotating amount of talent. Dynasties. Uncomfortable seats. Overpriced parking. And one question that gets used to boil a whole complicated human being down to a binary answer.

In baseball, that question is: can they hit?

In publishing, it’s: can they write?

The people who figured out how to answer the first question didn’t work in publishing.

It’s 1977. You’re working the overnight shift as a security guard at a pork and beans factory. You love baseball. You read the box scores, you follow your favorite teams. And one question chews a hole through you — does the batting average actually tell us what we think it does?

You’re Bill James. You’re about to spend a lot of night shifts writing the philosophical foundations of sabermetrics. You’ll mimeograph your thoughts out to fewer than a hundred people. It’ll feel like you’re talking to a wall. In twenty-five years, those thoughts will reshape the way all of baseball considers players, economics, and the question of what a number actually measures.

Sabermetrics said “can he hit” wasn’t one question. It was five. Can he make contact? Can he get on base? Does he hit for power? Can he go the other way? Does he chase bad pitches? Grade each tool separately on a 20–80 scale, 50 being league average. What you get at the end isn’t a verdict. It’s a profile. Something you can actually work with.

Writing works the same way.

“Can they write” isn’t one question. It’s seven. Can they hold voice? Can they structure? Can they characterize? Can they build a world? Can they write dialogue that moves and reveals? Can they control prose rhythm? Can they access emotional range and do something with it? Grade each one and you get something specific. A writer might have:

70 voice — something alive on the page, heat in the sentences
40 structure — the architecture keeps collapsing
65 originality — they see the world in a way that’s distinctly their own
35 craft discipline — the intention is right, the execution keeps going sideways

That’s not a verdict. That’s a writer with a very specific problem that has a very specific fix.

Throw the ball

Here’s how a fastball becomes a slider. The pitcher wants to throw a fastball. The grip is wrong, the arm motion is off — out comes a slider. That’s not a failure of desire. It’s a failure of one specific mechanic. You can find the hitch in the delivery and address it directly.

The writer who wants intimate, immediate prose but writes wide — who keeps zooming out when the scene needs to stay close — is gripping the fastball wrong. That’s a camera distance problem, not a “can they write” problem. The 20–80 tells you which tool is off. “Can they write” just tells you the pitch wasn’t great.

Consider this my 1977 night shift. Consider this newsletter the mimeographed compilation of thoughts I’m handing you while you’re on the metaphorical overnight at your desk with that book.

Our Conversation

The 20–80 won’t tell you whether you’re good. “Good” is a verdict, and verdicts are gut feelings with corner offices.

What it will tell you: what you’re working with. Where the ceiling is right now. Which tool is blocking the expression from getting through. What to strengthen next.

That’s the thing the industry can’t give you, because the industry doesn’t know you. It knows impressions. It knows whether you passed or failed.

I know the manuscript. That’s a different job.

If you’ve been sitting with someone’s impression of your work — “the voice needs work,” “the pacing is off” — and you don’t know what to do with it, that’s not a you problem. That’s a diagnosis problem. You got a verdict when you needed a profile.

That’s the conversation I know how to have. And that’s the conversation you and I should be having.

Love you. Talk soon.