On the Worst Ever Writing Advice
Gathered and shared
In another, darker place or two, I asked friends what was the WORST writing advice they’d ever received.
The answers were appallingly fascinating. Real pain was being shared here. Self-doubt and crises of confidence, all caused by the wrong word at the wrong time.
What was also noticeable was that there was some crossover with the BEST writing advice, which I asked about the following day.
If I were to sum up, then I’d say this was the least liked advice —
Write every day.
This was unpopular because it assumed there was even the slightest possibility of that, given work, caring responsibilities, mental health, everything.
Considerable anger was expressed about this presumption.
Also up there, because they are given out so freely, were —
Kill your darlings.
and
Show, don’t tell.
There was much to say about this last, including from Dr Sarah Lodge (@LearNonsense) —
Blanket rules offend. If you are writing a fairytale, you can ‘tell not show’ all you damn like, you’re allowed to write not ‘what you know’ but what you imagine. You can even use stereotypical characters. Peril is optional. Any advice that puts one off = de facto bad.
Which is all-round wise.
Also broadly disliked was —
Write what you know.
Because, as @Jimzovich said —
God forbid that writers should imagine stuff.
Michael Packman added —
My dear, late friend DM Thomas had a better way of putting it: “Cultivate the field you were given.”
But as soon as we moved from the Creative Writing clichés, we hit weird.
For example, @Lauramhall23 shared —
A paragraph should be five sentences.
Anyone heard that before?
And Lucy Miller gave us —
You can’t write the story if you don’t have a title.
A few snappier pieces of bad advice were Join Twitter, Attend university, Build your own desk, and Plan.
Penultimately, Jude Cook (@judecook_) had —
Rewrite the whole book again from the first sentence to the last.
But that’s what I’m doing right now.
I will give the final word to Jenny Colgan —
I would say the ability to completely ignore all advice, and in fact much common sense, and barrel on regardless is almost a writer’s defining characteristic.
(Photo credit: Oleg Magni/Pexels)
I've very rarely received any advice on writing. The classic one "write what you know" is not bad advice it's only misunderstood. Writing what you know doesn't exclude fantasy. A good writer, say Alan Moore for instance, is able to concoct fantasies which are often filled with tremendous detail and real world references to known things. Classic fairy stories are usually structured around elements familiar to the people who created and passed on those stories. For instance the Grimm Brothers lived in the area now called Germany but in their time the area had for centuries been known as The Holy Roman Empire and was composed of many little kingdoms and principalities, often with castles, village blacksmiths and roving mountebanks. So the Grimms were collecting stories of characters and beliefs and fantastical fears which were known to them from the lives and beliefs of people in the real world. When 21st Century writers turn to fantasy they too often treat it as a "genre" which has to be produced according to a formula which includes recreating the world of the old Holy Roman Empire via Walt Disney and then retro-fitted with the blood and gore that Walt left out. We would get a better story from something more original. Something from the writer's own experience translated into fiction.
Just brilliant!