Literature What's the worst writing advice you've gotten?

[Gris]

"Said is dead".

Now I get the annoyance with said being used too much but 'said' is your friend! It's soo distracting using different words such as 'retort, spoke, murmured, etc.' that it can come off as odd and/or distracting to a reader. Don't be afraid to use said a few times, just don't overuse it - same with pronouns. Use them for your characters but remember, they have names! ​

 

[ShadowHounder]

For me, the worse writing advice I ever received was to use every technique that they teach you in high school... found out recently that most of the high school writing lessons actually make your writing worse XD

 

[Idea]

found out recently that most of the high school writing lessons actually make your writing worse XD

How so?

 

[ShadowHounder]

How so?

Mostly the lessons on story development and pacing... though a few items on plot and it's meaning to a story seem to be off from the common meaning for writing (at least, for writers who are making guides online)

 

[Idea]

Mostly the lessons on story development and pacing... though a few items on plot and it's meaning to a story seem to be off from the common meaning for writing (at least, for writers who are making guides online)

Can you give me a few examples? I'm curious as to what kind of lessons you're referring to, mostly cause what I did learn on writing back in school still serves pretty well today. Mostly.

 

[ShadowHounder]

Can you give me a few examples? I'm curious as to what kind of lessons you're referring to, mostly cause what I did learn on writing back in school still serves pretty well today. Mostly.

The main one is that high school (how I was taught during my "education") teaches you to avoid dialogue as much as possible, and only use descriptions to tell the main story. Basically trying to say that dialogue was only for fluff when it actually as just as much importance as the descriptions they forced us to focus on.

 

[Idea]

The main one is that high school (how I was taught during my "education") teaches you to avoid dialogue as much as possible, and only use descriptions to tell the main story. Basically trying to say that dialogue was only for fluff when it actually as just as much importance as the descriptions they forced us to focus on.

I think someone was taking the "show don't tell" rule a little too literally lol

 

[ShadowHounder]

I think someone was taking the "show don't tell" rule a little too literally lol

yeah, I honestly don't remember much from my high school years XD. I stopped taking it seriously when I realized that almost none of what I was required to learn who actually be used in life outside of school.

 

[Bigby]

"Said is dead".

Now I get the annoyance with said being used too much but 'said' is your friend! It's soo distracting using different words such as 'retort, spoke, murmured, etc.' that it can come off as odd and/or distracting to a reader. Don't be afraid to use said a few times, just don't overuse it - same with pronouns. Use them for your characters but remember, they have names! ​

Said bookisms are some of my biggest pet peeves in writing/reading, as well!

That said, I think any writing advice that claims to be absolute/universal tends to be pretty garbage. They're meant to be guidelines, not rules. Follow them a little, break them a little. What matters is you get your point across, and everything reads easy.

 

[ShadowHounder]

Said bookisms are some of my biggest pet peeves in writing/reading, as well!

That said, I think any writing advice that claims to be absolute/universal tends to be pretty garbage. They're meant to be guidelines, not rules. Follow them a little, break them a little. What matters is you get your point across, and everything reads easy.

I think you mean, follow them little, break them at your hearts content Kappa

 

[Bigby]

I think you mean, follow them little, break them at your hearts content Kappa

but rules what necessary society crumbles cookie like i'm write smartbutt

 

[Idea]

That said, I think any writing advice that claims to be absolute/universal tends to be pretty garbage. They're meant to be guidelines, not rules. Follow them a little, break them a little. What matters is you get your point across, and everything reads easy.

I would disagree, on grounds that writing advice does genuinely make the story better, but because it may come at expense of something else, or because the point of application is made out to be wider than than it really is, and similar reasons that advice may end up hurting the story.

For instance the "show don't tell rule" is universal. Anything that is shown rather than directly said is better and more strongly conveyed. That said, the rule isn't meant to be applied to every single thing. Because the text isn't just the some of the parts, which are individually improved, but rather a whole, which requires some things to be said in order to make sense of it.

So rules are rules. It's just that there are way more rules which sometimes means you have to break some of them to get the better result.

I also disagree on the "what matters" part, but I'll leave that one at that.

 

[ShadowHounder]

but rules what necessary society crumbles cookie like i'm write smartbutt

I know, it's just hard not to break them when apart of learning these rules is learning how and when you can abusively break them XD (Otherwise known as 90% of all the rules for a English language as a whole)

 

[Bigby]

I would disagree, on grounds that writing advice does genuinely make the story better, but because it may come at expense of something else, or because the point of application is made out to be wider than than it really is, and similar reasons that advice may end up hurting the story.

For instance the "show don't tell rule" is universal. Anything that is shown rather than directly said is better and more strongly conveyed. That said, the rule isn't meant to be applied to every single thing. Because the text isn't just the some of the parts, which are individually improved, but rather a whole, which requires some things to be said in order to make sense of it.

... so it isn't universal, yes? Sorry, I'm being pedantic, I know.

I completely agree with everything you said, though, and I'm not sure I see how it conflicts with what I said before. See, the thing is writing advice is advice, not the law. Context is always the biggest game changer. It decides which rules to break, and which rules to follow for a given situation. I was just saying, any advice that claims to be above that should be taken with a grain of salt. But you should take any and all advice with a grain of salt, anyway.

I also disagree on the "what matters" part, but I'll leave that one at that.

I'm actually intrigued to hear this! What is the point of writing but to communicate/express yourself?

 

[Idea]

... so it isn't universal, yes? Sorry, I'm being pedantic, I know.

I completely agree with everything you said, though, and I'm not sure I see how it conflicts with what I said before. See, the thing is writing advice is advice, not the law. Context is always the biggest game changer. It decides which rules to break, and which rules to follow for a given situation. I was just saying, any advice that claims to be above that should be taken with a grain of salt. But you should take any and all advice with a grain of salt, anyway.

The difference is subtle admitedly, but one which I find actually quite relevant. See, you stated they are "guidelines" as opposed to rules. This would imply that they wouldn't be effective in particular contexts. To use my previous example, it would imply that, because sometimes you have to break the "show don't tell rule", that in that context the show don't tell rule isn't effective anymore, that it doesn't improve what's being said. However, this is incorrect, because it does still improve what's being said, just not enough to make up for what's lost in return.

The importance of this isn't as important in that scenario, but rather in other similar scenarios where that cost isn't present, or inversely, where the cost still exists even without having to apply the rule. Sure, in some contexts the difference between being understood or not is applying the "show don't tell rule". But if you atribute the problem to use the of the rule- rather than the context in which the rule brought about a cost- then you may find yourself thinking that just being you told something instead of showing your text was made clear enough, when in fact you mistook the root of the problem.

I'm actually intrigued to hear this! What is the point of writing but to communicate/express yourself?

Well, I disagree less on the angle of "the point of writing", but moreso in the context of using these rules. Because applying rules and such can help you communicate and express yourself, but you can make good work and take pride in that, even without this necessarily being conveyed to other people.

Now, the reason why I didn't want to persue this further is mostly because it kinda spirals into a rabbit hole. My stance on this matter is mostly rooted on the idea that art quality being subjective is a fundamentally absurd statement, one which projects feelings and experiences barely related to the art and atributes them to the art itself (if I stub my toe or had an argument that morning, I may end up grumpy and thus not enjoy a movie that I otherwise would enjoy, all without the actual contents of the movie changing. If the quality of something were to change based on factors not present in it (since the ones that were present didn't change) this means we are measuring the quality of it by factors entirely unrelated to it, an absurd idea).

While I don't think I have the answers, I believe that art does have the point of self-expression ultimately, you're right about that. But I don't think "what matters" is that the art manages to be clear or self-expressive, but rather that it has the potential to be, in other words that the content and tools in the art allow the fullest expression of oneself or one's message, regardless of whether others are actually able to pick up on it.

 

[Bigby]

Well, I disagree less on the angle of "the point of writing", but moreso in the context of using these rules. Because applying rules and such can help you communicate and express yourself, but you can make good work and take pride in that, even without this necessarily being conveyed to other people.

Now, the reason why I didn't want to persue this further is mostly because it kinda spirals into a rabbit hole. My stance on this matter is mostly rooted on the idea that art quality being subjective is a fundamentally absurd statement, one which projects feelings and experiences barely related to the art and atributes them to the art itself (if I stub my toe or had an argument that morning, I may end up grumpy and thus not enjoy a movie that I otherwise would enjoy, all without the actual contents of the movie changing. If the quality of something were to change based on factors not present in it (since the ones that were present didn't change) this means we are measuring the quality of it by factors entirely unrelated to it, an absurd idea).

While I don't think I have the answers, I believe that art does have the point of self-expression ultimately, you're right about that. But I don't think "what matters" is that the art manages to be clear or self-expressive, but rather that it has the potential to be, in other words that the content and tools in the art allow the fullest expression of oneself or one's message, regardless of whether others are actually able to pick up on it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying there is no point in judging which art is good and which art is bad because of the infinite factors that play into it, making any attempts at judgment unreliable and ultimately invalid? I would tend to agree, but also disagree -- or, at least, I'd say it's an incomplete assessment. Because wouldn't the truly absurd thing to do be to attempt to judge it anyway? That is, acknowledge that there are factors we cannot resolve, and then embrace our own perception anyway, defying the ifs or the could haves or the in another times.

Either way, I think it's also important to remember that some factors hold more weight than others. The audience is, after all, only half the equation. The artwork itself is the rest of it. I'll always dislike Name any Nicholas Sparks movie no matter what mood I'm in or how many times my sister insists I give it another try. It's not that it's bad. It's bad for me, and it'll always be bad for me. But I can certainly see its appeal, and I can identify which elements in the movie make it so appealing (e.g. the pretty people, the pretty sunsets, the pretty deaths at the end). So when someone talks about what makes an artwork good or bad, they usually refer to things like that. The elements.

Not a perfect system, and you have a perfectly valid point, but again, when faced with the absurd, you have the choice to defy it.

I'm sure there are exceptions (I can think of Emily Dickinson as one!), but we write so we can be read, yes? Talking to myself holds its own merits (besides being thought of as mental, of course), but it can never compare to a good conversation. Never hurts to sometimes look at your own writing from the perspective of your audience, and see what you can change or do to convey your idea more smoothly.

Anyway, before this reply gets too long-winded, and too philosophical, and too unrelated to the original topic, I just wanted to say I'm enjoying this discussion very much!

 

[Kai-Bird]

The worst piece of advice was from my English teacher in high school. She told me to never, ever, use my own opinions in creative writing because no one cares, no one will read fiction/fantasy books that have a heavy dose of government-issued topics, controversial topics, etc.

And then we read the hunger games and I just?????

 

[ShadowHounder]

The worst piece of advice was from my English teacher in high school. She told me to never, ever, use my own opinions in creative writing because no one cares, no one will read fiction/fantasy books that have a heavy dose of government-issued topics, controversial topics, etc.

And then we read the hunger games and I just?????

Tells you that opinions don't matter in writing, and then is dumb enough to show you Dystonian literature... the most opinion based form of fiction story telling in existence. (Can I slap her?)

 

[Idea]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying there is no point in judging which art is good and which art is bad because of the infinite factors that play into it, making any attempts at judgment unreliable and ultimately invalid?

quite the opposite really. What I said is exctly the opposite: I am saying that art's own properties are what make it good or bad, and that audience reception is, while influenced by it, ultimately inconsequential to whether something is good or bad. You can judge it, but if you judge it based on your appreciation of it then you're using absurd criteria. What you seemed to be confusing with me saying "infinite factors that play into it", was in fact me pointing out the plenthora of factors that prove without a doubt that personal experience of a work can be influenced by factors entirely unrelated to that work, therefore making personal experience of something an invalid criteria for the judgement of anything.

Because of this, I have to ignore the majority of your post, since you were attempting to answer a point I didn't make. Sorry.

I'm sure there are exceptions (I can think of Emily Dickinson as one!), but we write so we can be read, yes? Talking to myself holds its own merits (besides being thought of as mental, of course), but it can never compare to a good conversation. Never hurts to sometimes look at your own writing from the perspective of your audience, and see what you can change or do to convey your idea more smoothly.

Yeah, I guess in a broad sense we want to be read. However, you don't JUST right to be read. In fact, when someone genuinely feels they did something shamefully bad they tend to avoid people seeing it. So, rather than being read, I would say we want to show. Or, at times, an artist of any kind can work just for their own personal pride for it, or their own appreciation for their craft, or because they just want to put form to the images and thoughts in their mind.

So now, allow me to pull a John Rawls and employ his concept of a "veil of ignorance" of sorts. Basically a state where any random person may read your book in this case. You know nothing of their circumstances or experiences, though lets concede that they have the appropriate maturity to actually be able to read the book (but it is unknown whether they will have the maturity or knowledge to understand any of it).
With that, let's take your idea of "looking at your own writing from the perspective of your audience". What do you see? What should you do to assure this absolutely neutral yet chaotic entity, the hypothetical reader, gets the best experience?

Writing rules are the answer. Patterns, ideas that are relatively universal, if not completely universal, so long as they are appropriately applied.

I understand if that wasn't totally clear, I did employ a few philosophical thought experiments there, but to simplify, the point is this: You can't know what your audience will experience. You can't control it. And nothing you do will make sure that the reader will not wake up, stub their toe and have an argument with their grandmother about it, then goes on to hate your book by proxy.


And if I may further elaborate, what about the work people don't see? What about the work of the people behind the scenes doing the editing for the movies? Of the hundreds of employees managing the little pieces of invisible code in the game? The symbolism and technical craft of the author? Stuff the general audience CANNOT appreciate, because they lack an awareness of it? Is this work not just as valuable as the one the audience actually gets to witness and cast judgement on?

For these reasons, because it is absurd both to ignore that a message is meant to be conveyed, and to ignore that ultimately the content is regardless of personal experience, that I say that potential is what really determines quality.

Anyway, before this reply gets too long-winded, and too philosophical, and too unrelated to the original topic, I just wanted to say I'm enjoying this discussion very much!

Glad you are. I for one would also like to thank you for remaining so civil despite our disagreement

 

[ShadowHounder]

quite the opposite really. What I said is exctly the opposite: I am saying that art's own properties are what make it good or bad, and that audience reception is, while influenced by it, ultimately inconsequential to whether something is good or bad. You can judge it, but if you judge it based on your appreciation of it then you're using absurd criteria. What you seemed to be confusing with me saying "infinite factors that play into it", was in fact me pointing out the plenthora of factors that prove without a doubt that personal experience of a work can be influenced by factors entirely unrelated to that work, therefore making personal experience of something an invalid criteria for the judgement of anything.

Because of this, I have to ignore the majority of your post, since you were attempting to answer a point I didn't make. Sorry.


Yeah, I guess in a broad sense we want to be read. However, you don't JUST right to be read. In fact, when someone genuinely feels they did something shamefully bad they tend to avoid people seeing it. So, rather than being read, I would say we want to show. Or, at times, an artist of any kind can work just for their own personal pride for it, or their own appreciation for their craft, or because they just want to put form to the images and thoughts in their mind.

So now, allow me to pull a John Rawls and employ his concept of a "veil of ignorance" of sorts. Basically a state where any random person may read your book in this case. You know nothing of their circumstances or experiences, though lets concede that they have the appropriate maturity to actually be able to read the book (but it is unknown whether they will have the maturity or knowledge to understand any of it).
With that, let's take your idea of "looking at your own writing from the perspective of your audience". What do you see? What should you do to assure this absolutely neutral yet chaotic entity, the hypothetical reader, gets the best experience?

Writing rules are the answer. Patterns, ideas that are relatively universal, if not completely universal, so long as they are appropriately applied.

I understand if that wasn't totally clear, I did employ a few philosophical thought experiments there, but to simplify, the point is this: You can't know what your audience will experience. You can't control it. And nothing you do will make sure that the reader will not wake up, stub their toe and have an argument with their grandmother about it, then goes on to hate your book by proxy.


And if I may further elaborate, what about the work people don't see? What about the work of the people behind the scenes doing the editing for the movies? Of the hundreds of employees managing the little pieces of invisible code in the game? The symbolism and technical craft of the author? Stuff the general audience CANNOT appreciate, because they lack an awareness of it? Is this work not just as valuable as the one the audience actually gets to witness and cast judgement on?

For these reasons, because it is absurd both to ignore that a message is meant to be conveyed, and to ignore that ultimately the content is regardless of personal experience, that I say that potential is what really determines quality.



Glad you are. I for one would also like to thank you for remaining so civil despite our disagreement

*grabs soda and popcorn.* This has been fun to read and look into... more please

 

[Saccharine Cyanide]

The worst piece of advice was from my English teacher in high school. She told me to never, ever, use my own opinions in creative writing because no one cares, no one will read fiction/fantasy books that have a heavy dose of government-issued topics, controversial topics, etc.

And then we read the hunger games and I just?????

"Now, I know none of you are going to care about this next book, but for some reason completely unknown to me, it's required on the curriculum. We'll just have to ignore those pesky personal opinions and politics the author decided to shoehorn in and try to have fun with it."

Hands out 1984.

 

[Kylesar1]

The worst advice I was ever given was to never write more NSFW stuff, and I mean that in both the most traditional sense and in the gruesome sense. The assumption was that if I write stuff like that, I must believe in it or fantasize about it.

I guess in the strictest sense, I fantasize about it since I'd have to fantasize about it to write about it............but they mean fantasize about it in a "I want to actually do this" type of way. I don't need to explain why that's bullshit. My character popping Percocet like candy doesn't mean I want to pop pills. My character murdering 10 people in extremely detailed ways doesn't mean I want to murder people.


Other shitty advice was to never write the opposite gender. I'll admit that I did struggle to write female characters for a while. I wasn't writing the oversexualized stuff like I heard happens in books written by men (and some RPers on this site who make all their female characters thirsty succubi), but I do think some of my earlier works with female character were awkward. Then I just realized I was just overthinking the entire thing. I honestly don't even know how to explain how I was overthinking.

 

[ShadowHounder]

The worst advice I was ever given was to never write more NSFW stuff, and I mean that in both the most traditional sense and in the gruesome sense. The assumption was that if I write stuff like that, I must believe in it or fantasize about it.

I guess in the strictest sense, I fantasize about it since I'd have to fantasize about it to write about it............but they mean fantasize about it in a "I want to actually do this" type of way. I don't need to explain why that's bullshit. My character popping Percocet like candy doesn't mean I want to pop pills. My character murdering 10 people in extremely detailed ways doesn't mean I want to murder people.


Other shitty advice was to never write the opposite gender. I'll admit that I did struggle to write female characters for a while. I wasn't writing the oversexualized stuff like I heard happens in books written by men (and some RPers on this site who make all their female characters thirsty succubi), but I do think some of my earlier works with female character were awkward. Then I just realized I was just overthinking the entire thing. I honestly don't even know how to explain how I was overthinking.

Whoever told you never to write the opposite gender never took the term "practice makes perfect" to heart

 

[Sylvio]

“You’re bad. Write better.”

ouo

 

[WoefullyGiant]

"Don't write characters who doesn't have some kind of tragic event in their backstory because character growth comes from adversity".

Even if the latter was true, what's preventing me from having said adversity in the actual story?