Worst (for you) writing advice you've received?

LindaJeanne · Nov 24, 2011

What is the worst writing advice you ever received?

It doesn't have to be objectively wrong. It may be incredibly helpful for some (or even most) people. Or, maybe it is just flat out bad advice. Either way, it's something that impeded your writing until grew confident enough to discard it.

(I'll answer in a second post, so as not to clutter up the first post of the thread).

LindaJeanne · Nov 24, 2011

For me, it was "plotting is bad, results in stitled writing, and kills creativity". When I was starting out, I saw this repeated several places, but never saw the contrary argument.

For some people, this is probably true. However, for me: the setting, story, characters, beginning, middle, end, and backstory all arise in unison. I have to work on them all at once, switching back-and-forth between them.

Following the plotting-is-bad advice, I'd kill the story. It would get fed up with me trying to force it to emerge in a strict linear progression, stop talking to me, and go away. The finished result of my organic/holistic process will be a clear linear narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. But I can't cause it to come into being in a strict linear format. That advice hobbled me until I learned to discard it.

How about the rest of you? What piece of advice hindered, rather than helped, your writing?

Flicka · Nov 24, 2011

For me it would be to set goals and write a minimum of words per day. Also, getting the words on the page and never edit as you go.

I'm sure it works for some people but it all but killed my writing.

Devil Ledbetter · Nov 24, 2011

Someone told me I could get published easily through Publish America. Fortunately I was already an AW'er then and knew better.

Linda Adams · Nov 24, 2011

LindaJeanne said:
What is the worst writing advice you ever received?

The bad advice (from many craft books and other writers): Don't use omniscient viewpoint. No one uses it any more.

It kept me for years from even considering using a viewpoint that is natural for me.

BTW, "no one uses it any more" is an urban legend. I just read a 2011 released book written in omni. When it's done well, no one notices it.

Flicka said:
For me it would be to set goals and write a minimum of words per day.

I hate daily word count goals like this. It shifts my focus to meeting the word count instead of turning out a good story.

Tromboli · Nov 24, 2011

Write what you know.

I know this advice is usually taken a little too literally and can be very good advice in the right situation. But I have never taken it into account. I write what I want. Not what I think I should write (aka. thing I have experienced myself). And a lot of times I write things that I am curious about. Things I want to explore through my writing. I think you can learn a lot of new things through writing (and the research that comes with it), I'd be bored to tears if I only wrote things I have experienced (not that I haven't experienced very exciting things... I have. Things that might make good stories. I just don't enjoy the idea of recounting them. I like new. Not old)

Ari Meermans · Nov 24, 2011

Tromboli said:
Write what you know.

Beat me to it. I think it's the worst because the statement is incomplete. It should be: Write what you know or what you have a desire to learn.

shaldna · Nov 24, 2011

Tromboli said:
Write what you know.

Oh god this, completely and utterly this.

It's the single worst advice I've ever been given, quite aside from the fact that no one really wants to read about genetic reproductive deformities in thoroughbred stallions, it would limit a writer to such a tiny scope.

There would be very little sci-fi, no fantasy, most romantic novels would be full of mix tapes and crying in public before ending rather anti-climatically with the MC just loosing interest. Thrillers wouldn't be - because the MC wouldn't be taken seriously by anyone, and crime novels would be dull accounts of filling out reports and placing cones.

Look at it this way, do you think everyone who writes about murders have actually committed one?

Personally I think the best bit about writing is that it allows me to live a life I wouldn't normally get to live

Tromboli · Nov 24, 2011

I think it's bad because it implies that your writing has to be contained, kept inside the little box of your own life.

Tromboli · Nov 24, 2011

shaldna said:
Personally I think the best bit about writing is that it allows me to live a life I wouldn't normally get to live

Amen!

Al Stevens · Nov 24, 2011

Don't write anything in present tense.

One small press says on their website that they will not consider any manuscript that includes narrative written in present tense.

Don't know if that's the worst advice I've been given, but it's the worst I can recall for fiction.

Mara · Nov 24, 2011

I think the advice about not writing Mary Sues has been harmful to me, because I overcompensate in the other direction and tend to write characters who sometimes come across as incompetent and useless.

(Personal favorites are the mecha pilot who literally loses every fight she's in during the first draft, the badass alien general who admits she's a poser and is letting her subordinates do the hard stuff, and in a very brief first draft of another story, the alien slave who is exceptionally sneaky but doesn't get to sneak around much, and who would be very talkative if only she were allowed to.)

Also, a lot of the stuff about streamlining novels really screwed me up because my writing got overly abbreviated and sterile.

Summonere · Nov 24, 2011

Al Stevens said:
Don't write anything in present tense.

Good thing Ken Kesey didn't take this advice when he wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Man, I love that novel.

Zelenka · Nov 24, 2011

Worst advice I've had usually starts with 'don't ever'. Anything that starts like that normally turns out to be rubbish. Don't ever use adverbs, don't ever use a dialogue tag other than 'said', don't ever use description, etc. Yes, all those things are things to watch out for but whenever someone says 'don't ever do this' it tends to make me think they're not very experienced in writing, and haven't yet learned that sometimes you can do these things if it's right for the story, but you have to be discerning as with everything else.

Al Stevens · Nov 24, 2011

Summonere said:
Good thing Ken Kesey didn't take this advice when he wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Man, I love that novel.

And David Simon when he wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.

AVS · Nov 24, 2011

Write using a black marker pen on cardboard.
When contacting agents it's best to amuse them by composing your query using cut out letters from newpapers and squirrel blood.
Editors are tough people and only by insulting them will you gain their respect and attention.
Always write in the second person omniscient.
Famous authors will only give you the time of day if you follow them and camp outside their house.

LaneHeymont · Nov 24, 2011

AVS said:
Write using a black marker pen on cardboard.
When contacting agents it's best to amuse them by composing your query using cut out letters from newpapers and squirrel blood.
Editors are tough people and only by insulting them will you gain their respect and attention.
Always write in the second person omniscient.
Famous authors will only give you the time of day if you follow them and camp outside their house.

Um...what? I don't get this Lol

LaneHeymont · Nov 24, 2011

Linda Adams said:
The bad advice (from many craft books and other writers): Don't use omniscient viewpoint. No one uses it any more.

1,000x this! I love omniscient, and I think it works really well. First person drives me nuts. You only get one point of view, you lose the true nature of so many characters it makes me feel kind of cheated.

Al Stevens · Nov 24, 2011

Second worst. Or maybe the worst.

Read the most popular, as in best-selling, contemporary novelists to learn the best guidelines for anything.

I got this advice here when I asked a question about something. Actually, I got ripped for even asking it.

Brukaviador · Nov 24, 2011

I have to echo the "write what you know" statement of course; that's the worst advice for anyone writing anything speculative.

Specific to what I write, which is vampire fiction, I once got: "You're straying too far away from the rules set down by Anne Rice. You should go back and reread her stuff, so you have a better idea of how vampires are supposed to be done."

CheG · Nov 24, 2011

Well it's not exactly advice I've personally received, but it's in a lot of how-to books. In fact I just saw it on a website and threw my hands up. But it's plotting out your novels on spread sheets and making sure that X-event happens at page #4000-6000 and so on.

I cannot function like that. I know a lot of people can, but a lot of people can't and some books and websites tell people that the only way to write a novel is to outline in some way (usually involving spreadsheets) and if I HAD to work like that I would shoot myself.

Also ll the 'nevers'. Adverbs, adjectives, description, etc. Since when did description become the enemy? Characters can't just float around in empty space. Or describing feelings? I hate characters who feel nothing.

And for all you omniscient writers out there- go for it! I just read The Ranger's Apprentice book one and it's in omniscient and super successful. I very much enjoyed it

LaneHeymont · Nov 24, 2011

Viktor Night said:
Specific to what I write, which is vampire fiction, I once got: "You're straying too far away from the rules set down by Anne Rice. You should go back and reread her stuff, so you have a better idea of how vampires are supposed to be done."

WOW, I can't believe someone said that. That's ridiculous! I hope it wasn't someone from here!

Shika Senbei · Nov 24, 2011

"You should stop bothering with characterization. What people want is explosions, action, thrills and, most of all, lots of sex on every page!"

I actually wonder whether that advice was good or bad. In any case, I didn't heed it. Well, aside perhaps from the sex.

Domino Derval · Nov 24, 2011

"What's your story about?" followed by "Who is your target audience for this?"

Not really advice, but the underlying implication is "I didn't like that summation of your story and found it weird, why don't you write something more traditional?"

leahzero · Nov 24, 2011

"Never use adverbs."

Any kind of style advice is garbage. I write poetry as well as fiction. I have my own style. Take your stupid one-size-fits-all style rules and stick 'em you-know-where.

I never took "write what you know" literally, because how would anyone ever write sci-fi or fantasy or all sorts of things? I figured it was meant more in the spirit of "use what you know," kinda like method acting. An actor may not know exactly what it feels like to experience X, but they can draw from Y to give a convincing performance.

ETA: Rachelle Gardner has a good post interpreting "write what you know" in a more positive way.

Worst (for you) writing advice you've received?

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