Writing Advice that Annoys Me

I haven't written much, if anything, actually, in the last couple of years, but that doesn't stop me from looking at writing advice. And if I'd try to follow this advice, I would have given up trying to write years and years ago. In fact, it reminds me of the advice that did make me give up for a decade or so back in the '80s.

First, it compares writing to climbing a mountain. Uh, no. Mountain-climbing is a pretty standard activity. There is standard equipment and there are standard procedures one should follow. It's a clearly defined task. See mountain, climb mountain. But a book? No. Because while some people can see the mountain/end point of their book, vague or clear, not everyone can. Some people write so they can find the mountain/story/conclusion.

Second, it's kinda vague. Suggestions include reading novels to see what works and reading books on writing craft. Which of course can lead to frustration if, like me, you can't analyze books as to what works and if, like me, you find books on writing craft don't apply to you. No actual, practical tips on how to do anything is offered.

The author of the advice touches on pov, character, style. The suggestion to consider what your characters would do if they were to meet a relative they didn't know about might help some writers develop their characters' personalities, but for others, like me, it's just an exercise and I never was good at those. I always discover my characters as I write them doing the things that come up in the actual story set in the actual reality they live in. My characters reveal themselves to me. They can surprise me months down the line as I write about them.

I really shouldn't look at writing advice. It usually just annoys me. But there's always the chance I'll read something that makes sense to me. So I keep reading these articles, and hoping.

Five Step Writing Advice

These tips on turning bad writing into good writing might actually work for some folks. It would help if you're good at editing things down into more succinct passages rather than the sort of person who's better at succinct and can expand as needed.

Useful Advice

I usually have problems with writing advice, especially when the writers present the advice as rules, but this post has some really helpful examples of ways around "said/asked" issues that I'll forgive the comment that using said with an adverb is amateurish because I've read sentence structures with that in quite nicely written novels.

Ranting About Rules

Homestretch of the repostings.
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Rant ahead, proceed at own risk.

Here and there on writers' message boards and on writers' blogs, I keep seeing people discussing the same or similar things with different terms or phrases and sound like they disagree. I remember when we had to stop a discussion of pov of at least a few days on one of the AOL writers boards to establish a common set of terms. To the surprise of many of us, it turned out more of us were agreeing than disagreeing about writing third person pov. We were just using different words to describe or label the various permutations.

A few posts caught my attention today.

This on Storytelling about characters needing to change by the end of the story. Sound advice, but which characters? Protagonist? Others? I remember when I read A Confederacy of Dunces and was struck by how the main character was more catalyst than protagonist and hadn't really changed by the end of the story, while others did because they were affected by his actions. Is this an example of a writer breaking a rule? Or simply a different way to write than the norm?

Or here, where Sara comments on a comment one of her earlier posts received. She added this disclaimer:

"Rules of thumb are not graven in stone. They are guidelines. Every one of them has been broken, and broken successfully. I am just one more writer who was a teacher, with one approach. I have had some success with these rules as my point of departure."

And that's when I started to get twitchy. Especially when I see the quote at the top of her blog:

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." (W. Somerset Maugham)

Are all the writers blogging now claiming to have discovered rules that eluded Maugham?

Rules or guidelines? At work, as I've mentioned here previously, we use them very differently. Rules are well, regulations, things you must do to make sure policy is maintained. Guidelines are things you might want to do because they're good ideas. Procedures are how you implement the rules.

The dictionary isn't much help. From Merriam-Webster Online:

"Main Entry: guide·line
b : an indication or outline of policy or conduct

1 a : a prescribed guide for conduct or action b : the laws or regulations prescribed by the founder of a religious order for observance by its members c : an accepted procedure, custom, or habit d (1) : a usually written order or direction made by a court regulating court practice or the action of parties (2) : a legal precept or doctrine e : a regulation or bylaw governing procedure or controlling conduct"

The key in the above is that guideline is a mere indication while rules are prescribed laws or regs. A bit of hair splitting, but bear with me. Please.

And to me, there are no rules (other than those of grammar, punctuation, and spelling and the one about actually writing something at some point). Guidelines aren't there to be broken because they aren't required in the first place. You simply don't have to follow them. You get to choose which you use. They're tools. You don't use a screwdriver when you want to pound a nail into a piece of wood. You use a hammer. Yet both tools are in a carpenter's toolbox. And yeah, I can get very anal about this because it gets to the heart of the issue I've blogged seemingly endlessly about, the problem many of us had/have as newbies when we don't know how to differentiate guidelines from rules and perceive them all as things we should/must/need to do in order to produce publishable writing.

As for using words or terms the same way, it's not just about what we mean when we say tight third; it's about what we mean when we say rule or guideline. The worst that happens, I believe, with the former is possible confusion over pov. With the latter, it can cause a writer to get tripped up trying to do something that doesn't work for them. It can lead to frustration. And all the disclaimers in the world won't change that for many folks who are looking for that magic formula that doesn't exist and won't see anything but the rule or guideline they'll take to heart. Especially when the disclaimer uses the terms interchangeably.

End of rant.

Writing Advice

What follows are some of my favorite posts from my LiveJournal version of this blog. Consider this the first in a series of repostings, tag by tag. This is from the Advice tag. And yes, I guess this means I'm officially using this blog now. Guess I should turn on the feed. heh. Mostly, I'll be crossposting here and on my LJ. However, my LJ will be going Friends Only most likely and will contain posts that won't show up here.

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P.J. Parrish, in response to a question answered on Ms. Snark, posted 10 Things You Should NEVER Worry About, including this intro wisdom:

"Stop worrying about the dumb stuff. It drains your energy. It diverts your attention. It gives you a really good reason to NOT do what you really need to do -- write the best damn book you can write. See, if you're busy obsessing over what font to use you don't have to wrestle the hairy POV beast to the mat, do you."

The rest is funny and fun to read.

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From Neil Gaiman's Journal, in answer to a question (I love that he does questions and answers):

"It's not a science. It's an art and a sometimes it's a craft. The most important thing (and I know I say this a lot but it's true, or at least it's true for me) is finishing things, because that's when you find out if they worked or not. The rest of the time it's just hoping. And if you stop writing when a promising beginning runs out of steam, maybe you need something more in the planning stages. Or maybe you just need to soldier madly onward and see what Chance and Necessity (the mother, it must be remembered, of invention) provide."

I like this because it doesn't assume one way. He has what works for him, mostly, but he allows that there are other ways of working and having things work.
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This one generated a nice discussion:

The topic of discussion in the posts below got me to wondering, which is usually a dangerous thing. So, two questions:

1. What was the best advice re: writing you ever got?

2. What was the worst advice re: writing you ever got?

I think folks can figure out my answer to 1.) was to ignore what didn't work for me and try to find what does. For 2.), I'd have to say, it's a tie between outlining and write everyday. Writing everyday was a particular frustration and in an odd way, helpful, because I discovered I'm a burst writer.
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Ray Rhamey, like me, doesn't do the following, for similar yet different reasons than I don't do them. From Flogging the Quill.

* Outline your story.
* Write every day.
* Have a page or word-count goal.
* Have a specific place to write.
* Write character biographies.

I really liked:

"I'm addressing these issues because writers ask about them, and many writers who are working hard to learn how to do this take the advice of "experts" seriously. But writing is so idiosyncratic that one author's aid can be another's handcuffs."

Amen. It's always nice when someone gets it, as in gets the point I keep trying to make about newbies not knowing any better and experts wielding more power as authorities than they realize. Rhamey is a writer and editor and his blog is well worth the read.
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