Impostor Syndrome

Chatting with a couple of good friends last night about Impostor Syndrome and how it can paralyse a person just when they most need confidence.

Impostor Syndrome is the fear of people finding out you don’t have the skills people believe you have. Its most pernicious trait is that external evidence of competence does not help.

You can experience the syndrome anywhere. Some people suffer it in their deepest relationships. Others suffer it at work or school. Everyone who’s ever graduated has experienced it. And most writers suffer from it at times during their career.

I’m reasonably realistic and level-headed about my abilities. I’m not the best writer, I’m not the worst. I can remember discussing this in a convention panel and suggesting we’re not as good as we wish, and not as bad as we fear. It’s advice that has stayed with me.

I needed that advice the day my first atlas was published. I went to Whitcoulls in town so I could see it on the shelf, and lurked for a while near the atlas section. Eventually a woman picked my atlas out of the shelf oooh oooh oooh and the salesperson came rushing over. “Oh no, you don’t want that,” she said. ‘You want a proper atlas,” and led the customer to another shelf, leaving me believing the whole thing had been a big mistake.

The major contributing factor to the widespread incidence of impostor syndrome in writers is, in my opinion, the nature of the industry. It feels like it makes adversaries of us all: authors vs agents, agents vs publishers, publishers vs readers and every permutation of each. It’s a sad fact of capitalism that we are encouraged (and sometimes forced) to compete for dwindling resources. Further, it’s in the interest of the industry to promote the idea that getting published is an amazing achievement, so rare as to be akin to being struck by a meteorite. No wonder we feel like impostors! Whose ego, no matter how robust, can bear the burden of such fortune? People must expect a superbeing, we tell ourselves, an impossible combination of talent, glamour, energy, erudition and humour. And once this unrealistic ideal is implanted in our minds (often based on a pastiche of successful authors), it becomes real and we the impostor.

How do we counter this affliction? I believe the most effective way is to be honest with others. Find writer friends to talk to and listen carefully to them as they share about themselves. Let the realisation that they are not superbeings sink in. They are not superbeings, and you do not expect them to be: so extend the same courtesy to yourself.