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What typical writing advice makes you mad when you hear it?
I see with regular frequency the following: “It’s hard do to do. Most writers get it wrong. Don’t even try it.” I usually see it on omniscient viewpoint, but it’s not the only thing I’ve seen it on. The “It’s hard, so don’t try” is what gets me. There’s a lot in writing that’s hard, and there’s a lot of competition. The only way to learn and to become better is to try. Discouraging a writer from one thing because it’s hard leads them to not try something else for the same reason.
The one I hear that annoys me is don’t ever write anything quickly. If you write quickly, you are obviously a hack and a bad writer.
This never, ever addresses the idea of a first draft and how the writer sees the story unfold. Some people write fast and some write slowly. Either way works as long as they are willing to edit and make the story the best it can be in the end.
I’ve been at FM long enough to know that the speed of the first drat makes no difference at all to the final story. I’ve seen people spend years on material and get it no better (and sometimes much worse) than the story someone wrote quickly in the first draft and then edited afterwards.
‘Writing? Anyone can do it.’
This is untrue and devalues the hours, years, decades real writers spend with their butts in the chair, working and reworking our words to hone our craft and polish our product.
I believe in encouraging writing, but I believe in HONEST encouragement. We do ourselves and beginning writers a disservice by not making it clear that writing requires commitment.
Anyone can write words. NOT everyone has the patience and perseverance to tell a story and see it through to the end, much less repeat the process.
Something I forgot that is part of this — the idea that anyone can judge someone’s writing without ever actually reading as single word of it. I think these people ought to be sought out by the publishers and agents — think how much time, effort and money they would save if they never have to read slush pile material.
I hate that writing fast = bad. I’m a big fan of dean wesley smith who teaches the opposite.
Another one: you have to be in the mood to write. I agree it makes the process feel less painful, but sometimes you just need to push through. Stephen King said in on writing that he hated writing Carrie. He didn’t like the main character, didn’t feel it, but he pushed through and people love it. You don’t have to feel the writing to make it good – I have to remind myself of that sometimes when I hit a bad patch.
One that just personally irks me: you can’t be a writer if you can’t spell / speak properly / use grammar correctly. I’m not going to walk around being the perfect model for the english language, but I am going to use spell check and get another person to look over my work before I send it off to be published.
“Write for the Reader/newest trend/what the publisher wants to buy.”
What? You’re not supposed to like what you write? You must write it so that other people like it without taking your own tastes and interests into consideration?
What a load of crap!
You can’t write a good book other people will like unless you write it so you like it first. You have to be interested in everything about it or nobody else will feel the same. True, if you try to write for the reader, or the market, or whatever you think Trad Publishers are looking for, you may sell the book and gain readers, but you won’t love the work. If you’re to love the work enough to make it worthwhile for someone else to invest their time, interest, and attention to, you’d better damn well write to please yourself first. That way, your love for your book will come through and it will attract more readers than that book written to whatever outside criteria has been demanded.
Some writers are lucky enough to find their niche in a popular genre or trend. Not everybody is, though. Why should a writer sell themselves short–sell their integrity–to meet a demand they may not even be interested in or like?
If you hate your book, readers will too. Readers can tell. Better than any writer knows.
Ashe Elton Parker
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
~*~
Member since 1998.
~*~“If you want to be a professional writer, you must outline.”
Phooey.
My worst selling book is the one I outlined, which is really sad because it’s one of the books I most want people to read.
This is one I agree with and tell people all the time — Write what you want to read. If you don’t love what you are writing, you can’t expect anyone else too, either.
I hear this one a lot. I get tired of people treating me like I’m broken or must be a failure because I don’t outline. Where do these things come from anyway?!
I ran across a writer who thought that if she wrote 2 or 3 blog posts in advance, she would be “banging them out,” something she viewed with disgust. Yet, she kept complaining about how much blogging was taking time from her novel writing because she waited until the last minute and used the same writing time. :blink:
I hate always and never, because they’re often not true and smack of carved in stone rules. For example, yes, starting a book with a character waking up often is uninteresting because of how the writer is using it, but it can work if done well. Granted, what I would tell the writer is that even with it being well done, there’s a risk it wouldn’t get past the first reader because of all the people who do it badly.
Linda Adams wrote:I hear this one a lot. I get tired of people treating me like I’m broken or must be a failure because I don’t outline. Where do these things come from anyway?!Well, that would make GRR Martin a failure, too, because he doesn’t outline either. 👿
And at the same time, many of us who do use outlines are treated like morons. You have to think the stuff out first? How can you explore the story? How can be imaginative if you use an outline! Yes, I’ve been told that last one. So have others I’ve talked to. Where do these people think an outline comes from if not the imagination?
An outline is no more than a short first draft, which — for some of us — makes it easier to correct plot problems rather than with a full manuscript. I also have more fun adding in subplots and twists because it’s easy to foreshadow them in an outline rather than reworking stuff later. This whole idea that somehow if you use an outline you aren’t using your imagination or your cheating (one person told me that one!), or you aren’t going to explore if you have this road map to your story — Well, you get the idea.
Sometimes I don’t use an outline. That can be fun too, especially if you know the story is going to be very straightforward.
In the end, use one or don’t. The reader can’t tell the difference, as long as the story is well-written.
When the advice attempts, intentionally or not, to get the author to change the fundamental story they want to tell. It’s fine, to me, to say that you think this or that element isn’t working, but some critiquers try to get the author to tell a story they, the critiquer, would rather read as opposed to the story the author really wants to tell.
That, I think, is the most destructive type of critique.
Though, there is one other kind that might be even worse. Fortunately, this is very rare, but I have witnessed it — the critiquer who actually tries to encourage the author to give up because ‘they will never be good enough’. This is just wrong.
–June
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