Huge Lies Writing Gurus are Telling You
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- Опубліковано 20 тра 2024
- Comment with your favorite (or least favorite) writing advice.
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Stephen King has to be on the list. He said: ‘don’t write down your story ideas, if they are good, you will remember them, and if you don’t remember them, they weren’t good in the first place.’ Well, I think this is utter nonsense.
Several other people have mentioned that advice as well! I find that my best ideas often linger and I can't shake them -- so I know what he's saying. But I certainly write ideas down, so maybe it is bad advice.
Most of everything that ever came out Stephen King's mouth is bad advice. He's a total zero as a philosopher. But he's frequently a fun read.
Considering he's admitted to not remembering writing at least one of his books, this is a real... interesting take from him
He forgets some of his own characters names in certain novels and just wings it. Sloppy as heck. I don't listen to him for advice on anything. He's a colossal hack who got incredibly lucky to be at the level he is at.
@@gilraybaker826 Let's also not forget that King is a hypercreative anomaly and therefore a total outlier. His advice is pretty much aimed at himself.
For each piece of advice I receive, I ask “What problem is this advice designed to solve?” If I don’t have that problem, I feel free to ignore the advice. Your video is very liberating in that sense.
Oh, I really like that approach.
I actually realized this applies to life in general when I got lots of marriage advice on my wedding day. I recognized that a lot of the advice was contextual and didn't apply directly to me and my new spouse, but I also recognized there was something true about every piece of advice. so I asked myself: what is the *essence* of this statement, and how can I re-word it so that it *does* apply to us in a helpful way?
This is such a cool observation! You are so right!
Kind of like getting back info from an editor. You don't have to accept exactly what they wrote, but it's probably a good idea that something is wrong in that section.
this idea is so freaking good
The best writing advice I ever heard was, "If you're going to do something, especially if it's mundane, do it in an interesting way." Meaning, if you need your character to stop and get gas, have something quirky or interesting about the place, the experience, or even the guy who runs the gas station. It helps every bit feel necessary and fun for the reader.
What a great piece of advice ! Greetings from Colombia South America!
The worst writing advice I've heard is when people say/imply that there's only one way to write a book (e.g. write every day, do an outline, don't do an outline, finish your first draft in X months, every character must have the following 4 things, etc etc). We are all creative people who make magic happen differently.
I saw that last one, it gave me strong snowflake analysis vibes (steps 2,4, maybe 6?). It was basically prompting the question of dimensionality in your characters. (Think conversely of hollow characters that you don't really believe in. Strawmen are infuriating in any medium.) But a simple stick figure will perfectly compliment another stick figure.
The fascinating thing about writing advice is that it's simultaneously correct, and incorrect. When things aren't working, and you're not sure why, that is when you need to 'Run a diagnostic'.
If you do feel so contrarian to advice videos, perhaps it's a sign you should take that confidence and just go for it. Continue your writing adventure. Make the magic happen.
I love that diagnostic analogy, so helpful
I notice writers on other channels saying "Don't be a trend chaser," but then they tell you which trends to follow.
Something about 'by the time you get your book finished you'll be too late for the current trend and too early for the next wave'.
Don't go chasing other people's rainbows. but also, ask yourself: 'who's gonna read it'.
… masquerading as “craft” lol
One of my favourite pieces of advice is "Write the book you want to read."
When I focus on whether I actually like what I've written rather than whether a reader will like it, that helps shake me out of the fear of man.
Caring about others' hypothetical opinions is a fast way to kill creativity.
I like the advice, "Write what you want to know." It makes you want to do research and study things while you write your story. If you don't know it, find it.
Love that phrasing. A nod to the original, but updated.
This is great, as well!
Now that is great advice
Especially as Twain wrote plenty of things he didn’t know firsthand.
Know What You Write.
A “Darling” is an object, idea, or character that is somehow interesting on its own, but is NOT an integral part of the story. A well-written scene or description isn’t a “Darling,” it IS the story.
"Writing is rewriting" must be my favorite quote about the reality of the writing craft. Rarely a writer can pull off a good paragraph from the first try. A good written book will include a lot of rewriting.
"never finish, you're writing is garbage." Is what it sounds like to me.
@@Legendary_Detective-Wobbuffet It can also be viewed as the opposite: Don't worry if it's good, just finish the thing, because you'll make it good on the rewrite.
@@silasbischoff5141 if it requires perspective changes and explanation, it's terrible advice. Rewriting to me means you already paid the editor and gave it to your mom, and realized they both hated the entire thing.
* a well written book
LOL, this is me! I'm a "meh" writer. I'm a great editor/rewriter. 😅
Fantastic run-down. Here’s my “show don’t tell” modification: Tell anything that’s not intrinsically interesting, in a manner that makes it interesting.
Real bumper-sticker stuff, lol.
I think this is a really abstract concept and that's why people struggle with it. If you can tell something in an interesting way you are showing.
@@futurestoryteller Also a great way to think about it! Everything goes back to John's main point: anytime we hear pithy advice get passed around, we need to unpack it. What do we mean by “tell” or “show”? Then throw your revised definition into the laboratory of your own writing and really test its parameters!
Perfect-o!
==================
Stephen King’s advice to write with no idea how the story ends is terrible advice.
It's not really advice, it's just something he does most of the time. I've literally heard him talk about knowing the end of a story before he started. He also seems keenly aware, as a person who rarely does that, that his endings aren't often received very well
My worst experience was writing a short story that I had no idea how it would or could end. It finally came together after I had created a framework for the story, but, until then, I wasted a lot of time.
In some ways it makes sense because than you wind up obsessing about making sure the characters hit all the right plot beats to get them to were you want them to get to in the end. That not to say you shouldn't have so!e vague notion were you are going with the story but you should give enough room to roll out in your head.
It will work for some people. It works for me. There isn't one piece of advice that will work for everyone 100% of the time, we have to bend the rules to suit us and the particular story we are writing.
It explains most of his work. Along with write stoned, never edit.
"Show, don't tell" ruined my writing. When I go back and read my writing from the 90s, I'm shocked by how good it is. Because I used to both show and tell to give a larger picture. But people kept drilling into me over and over again "Show, don't tell...show, don't tell" that I slowly modified my writing till it became so minimalist that it lost all it's depth and real power. I have been trying to correct this lately, to return to the style I used to write in, but it's hard because those developed habits have become so ingrained and I'm much older now too.
it also makes the book sometimes too long and i have a bad case of Overwriting. pretty much all my first drafts are Lord of the Rings tomes of books, not even all of them fantasy. there is that one 4 part bookseries i'm writing wich is Two times as large as Lord of the Rings One Book Each, so times three, i'm going to get mentaly ready for the last part of the series, its gonna be even more bigger (yes i am overwriter)
The problem with things like "show, don't tell" are that they are heuristics. They tend to be good advice, but just applying heuristics blindly is not a good strategy. I was also advised to be concrete rather than abstract, but there are cases where abstract terms are preferable. Similarly, I was also advised to avoid Latin or French-root words in preference of Anglican-root words.
@@ssssssstssssssssThat's just way too much to follow 100%. Exhausting, when you come right down to it.
"Show, don't tell," is writing advice that started in cinema that somehow made its way into literature where it isn't necessary, because literature isn't dependent of visual storytelling to keep its audience interested like film is.
@@Hard-R-Energy It's funny you say that because my writing style is based on me describing the movie I see in my head. For example, a new paragraph is usually when the "camera" view in my head changes.
"People don't like ___ in writing." I guarantee you someone does. I guarantee you, more than one person does. There will be people who love that thing, regardless of what it is, and there will people who are neutral to that specific thing but like your story anyway. Write what you want to write for you and those people, whether they be a handful of people or thousands.
I find that this applies to other generalized advice such as: avoid cliches, tropes, pairings, archtypes, story structures, writing style, certain themes, certain symbolism, retellings, use of adverbs, using character names repeatedly, using 'said,' etc. hell even 'incorrect punctuation usage,' where it's part of an author's style. Literally anything that I have heard advice about 'don't do this because no one likes it,' is the worst advice I have come across and keep coming across.
Basically telling an artist that there is a 'wrong' way to create their art in order to 'appeal to the masses,' as well as generalizing the hundreds to thousands to millions of readers, as if they all think the same exact ways is not the way to go, in my opinion. One person's 'oh god this book is full of cliches and is unreadable' is another person's 'I couldn't put this book down and I love it.'
"avoid cliches, tropes, pairings, archtypes, story structures, writing style, certain themes, certain symbolism, retellings, use of adverbs, using character names repeatedly, using 'said,' etc." That's just everything that books are made of, lol. At some point those "advices" become "don't write anything" kind of thing. THE worst "advices" ever.
One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever received was "Screw the muse; just write." Basically, if you wait for inspiration to come, you'll never finish. But you can make it come by sitting down and getting to work. It made all the difference in my writing.
The advice that has helped me so much is something I came up with: write something bad/ write garbage. Trying to write something good creates so much pressure and causes me to freeze, but writing something bad makes it fun.
I believe this is Anne Lamott's advice as well. It does relieve the pressure, you're right.
I say write the worst first sentence you can possibly write if you can't stand a blank screen. This can pop a writer right out of self-loathing mode into productivity.
One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever heard was from Val McDermid who said: 'Don't "write what you know" but "write what you're passionate about".'
Interesting.
I can proudly say I DO write every single day.... I mean, UA-cam comments and shopping lists count, right?
The set up and pay off are great in this comment, but the ellipsis is one period too long. otherwise, great first draft
When there is something left off at the end of a sentence, use the ellipsis to show there is omitted material. Then, use a period to indicate the end of a sentence. Thus, four dots are necessary.
Just type 4 dots. Or 8. Or 2. Or 3! Whatever number you see fit. I'm a fan of number 4, so 4 dots is something I used for many years. It's my style at this point. If it's not 4 dots, it starts to feel unnatural for me.
Yes, write what you know. But through research, interviews, and more life-experiences, you can get to know more!
Isaac Asimov had no way of knowing what is like to live on a planet where everyone is only a third of another person and they fuse together with the other two thirds at the end of childhood. He still was able to write The Gods Themselves. Mary Shelley had no way of knowing what being a reanimated corpse demonized by society was like. She was still able to write Frankenstein.
Stephen King's "I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops" is brought out regularly as evidence you should avoid adverbs at all cost, when really adverbs can be useful in writing as long as they are used sparingly and not as a lazy way out of finding a better way to show emotion.
Agreed.
She evoked biggly. :)
Lazy, but affective.
Aw yes! Another of Mr. King's pieces of advice that I take with a grain of salt. He and I agree on much, but that is one opinion we don't share. Sadly, many editors jumped on that bandwagon pretty heavily too. Maybe Ms. Rowling finally broke through that barrier through sheer weight and volume of her adverb usage! 🤣
If you look at Stephen Kings books there are plenty of adverbs.
Least favorite: any writing advice that would make it the critics story not your own. Second is that there is any absolute right way to write. It’s more accurate to say there are plenty of wrong ways.
It's not "write what you know" it's "know what you write". Don't remember where I heard that one but it's the best change of that first quote I've ever heard.
I've had 'Kill your darlings' given to me as a reason to junk things I loved. I wrote a play with a friend who wasn't a writer and then she got overzealous with the red pen and started killing every darling. That phrase was her only rationale. The right phrasing is probably that you've got to be _willing_ to kill your darlings if necessary.
That said, the more categorical phrasing of the actual quote might apply at the start of a piece of writing, or as a way of assessing a piece of writing. In improv, the first thing I learned was 'Don't try to be good.' A lot of writers start with what they think are good ideas and they only do it out of insecurity and they thereby kill the flow that could have led them to something more surprising and better. Also, Samuel Johnson said, roughly, 'Young writers should go through their work and cross out all the good bits.' It's the same principle as that improv advice, but as a retrofit: what's left when you've crossed out the 'good bits'? Maybe some better bits that happened when you weren't trying so hard.
I never took any advice literally. There will always be instances that you should ignore it. Writers' rules are not law, you have to bend them to suit you and your writing and a particular story. I don't overuse adverbs, but when I use them I use them on purpose. I show when it's needed and tell when it's needed. Also, Hemingway apparently lied about that advice to write when drunk. I've heard it, but I translated it the same way as you did - just write freely and don't worry, you can fix it later. I don't write every day and never tried it, I can't be bothered to write if I have nothing to say. "Kill your darlings" pertains to overused words. I don't have any, but many writers do, so just cut most of them out.
I don't know as it's my least favorite, but Stephen King's advice to not keep a notebook is one I greatly disagree with. I think it is simply a selfish point of view. He is a full-time writer and has been for decades. His major concentration in life and his job is writing fiction. Most of us do not have that luxury. We have a normal job, wife and kids, doctor's appointments and responsibilities that interrupt our train of thought. Also, not everyone's memory is the same! To say that a good idea will stick around or come back while the bad ideas fade is also more than a bit self-reassuring - how do you know you haven't forgotten a good idea for a story if you don't remember it? 🤣
I so much agree on everything you say! My notebooks are such valuable tools for me, especially in times when it is not possible for me to write. Everyone has their own process. And even though I love his books and also like what I know about him as a person (as far as you can guess as a reader), I always roll my eyes when he says how useless a notebook is for a writer.
@@singingsanja167 He has a lot that I agree with and relate to. I loved On Writing and connected with it a lot. I am very much a character writer like him. I allow my characters to tell me the story rather than plotting and planning to death. Heck, he is even the reason I started writing. His six pages a day philosophy (that he shared with in a discussion George RR Martin) just hit me after years of "some day" and "when I retire" thinking. I thought well maybe I can't write six pages a day like him, but I can do something. Even one page a day is a book at the end of the year! But no notebook? Sorry, Steve - we have to part ways on that one! 🤣
I could not agree more. I believe notes are essential for me. I have a couple different notebooks and also a note app on my phone. I always have a few of the "great ideas that stick around" in my head and I know they will be there tomorrow. But sometimes inspiration comes suddenly and you have to catch it by making a note.
I think a lot of Stephen King's advice comes from a place of him not really comprehending how naturally talented he is as a writer, plus being surrounded by suportive family and having access to great resources that helped him on his writing journey (i.e. a school magazine he could write and edit for, being able to go to college to study English.) He probably takes it completely for granted - as you would if it's all you've ever known, I guess. That alone can greatly reduce problems and crises of confidence that those of us lesser mortals struggle with throughout our lives. 🙂I remember in his book 'On Writing' how he spent a good paragraph or so talking about how Harper Lee took 'so long' to 'only' write one book ('To Kill A Mockingbird.' ) He literally asked "What the hell was she doing with her life up until then...?" as if he couldn't even comprehend the idea of starting to write so 'late' and devoting so much time to one book. The whole thing about not keeping a notebook is another example of this; HE doesn't need to do that because his brain is like Fort Knox, where good ideas NEVER leave once they go through the doors - but the rest of us need a little help!
I agree! I already made a longish comment under this video and then remembered King's advice. I'm glad you mentioned it.
I saw Stephen King on your thumb nail, but no SK bad advice. Since I read his On Writing many, many moons ago, I have one for you. He wrote that a bad writer would never level up to become a good, or even a great writer. He was speaking from a closed mindset, and telling us that "talent" is all there is. Yes, he proponents writing every day, too, but he tells us that no matter how hard we work at it, we will never level up far from where we start. That advice is bull.
I remember reading this as well. It stopped me in my tracks for awhile because I believed it for a minute and felt defeated.
Holy shit, that's some of the worst...DIScouragement, I guess, I've ever heard?? That's not true at all! Hell, I read my stuff from when I was in elementary school and cringe like fuck at how horrible it was, but if I'd stopped then because of it, I never would have gotten to where I am today (doing pretty darn well, at least I think, lol)! All writers, at least IMO, unless you're some sort of savant or genius, start out shitty! It's only through LOTS and LOTS of practice and learning and TIME and EFFORT that you get better! Hell, it took me at least 17 years of writing to get where I really started to think I was doing well, and I'm on year 23 now! lol. Writing is NOT talent-based! It's EFFORT-based! At least IMO!
I'm fairly certain he said that about storytelling, not writing. You can hone the craft of writing. You can improve your prose. You can learn to craft the perfectly written novel. But to tell a good story is different entirely and I'm not sure it can be taught. It's not really a skill at all, its closer to a personality.
While the border between genre fiction and lit fic was never clear, I think it's become even more diffuse in the last decades. I have a feeling that writers with literary ambitions that would earlier have hesitated to channel them through a crime mystery or a horror story (at least until they were already a respected name) feel more free to do so today, while there's more genre writers who are willing to bend the conventions of their genres and include deeper characters and more complex and controversial themes.
I've tried writing drunk, it's about as hit and miss as writing sober. I suppose the only difference is when you're drunk and writing trash, you'll most likely be writing with a smile on your face or giggling. In any case if there was a silver bullet we would all be using it.
I have never been productive when inebriated. At anything.
Neither have I.
I have!… At becoming more inebriated.
I just fall asleep and become my own boring scene. 😂
Any advice becomes bad when would-be writers interpret them as axioms to be followed blindly and to the letter, and not as guidelines for how to think about your writing. All of the advice you listed are examples of - in their best interpretations - ways of thinking about what your writing is: what your goals are and whether your text is achieving those goals. The problem is always that these little proverbs become axioms that not only must not be challenged, but which must be implemented mechanistically - often because of overzealous professors who punish students with lower grades for not adhering to an expected checklist of features.
My favorite universal piece of writing advice - which is admittedly almost useless to novices, but is probably the thing I think they should know the most - is "Do whatever you want, so long as you know exactly why you are doing it and what you mean to accomplish with it."
The worst writing advice I've ever received was, 'Write for yourself.' If you don't think of your audience and only write things you like, it will inevitably show in your work. I like to think of my stories as maps for others to follow to get to an emotional destination, (as hokey as that sounds). I have been to that place before them when I wrote the story and now it's their turn to follow if they so choose. Self-indulgent writing is fine for journaling and blogs, not for popular fiction.
Two of the worst advices I've seen: "introduce your protagonist first" and "three acts structure".
I don't understand why the protagonist should appear first and constantly be here. It's totally OK to introduce other characters first and THEN let the protagonist in. I do that in my stories and that's perfectly alright.
For the three acts structure, I find it overused and fake. You can't always have a stable situation that crumbles mid-story and is solved in the triomphal third act: there can be trouble from the beginning, the second act can simply be somewhat lower without being tragic and there can still be problems to fix at the end. It's more original and more realistic.
Why is Stephen King in thumbnail, when he's not in video? One of his advices I heard in a video was something like, "don't take notes, because you'll write down too many bad ideas". I found it strange, in the beginning I did write down all kinds of pointless things, but over the years I've learned to take notes adequately, seems too specific of an advice. As for the other advices, I've read them all, and felt sometimes quilty breaking them, now I know I can put my mind at ease.
As for the best advice I've read, that completely changed my writing, has to be Hemingways "all amateurs are in love with the epic".
Yeah, I've written down ideas that, in isolation, were terrible. But sometimes, a few of them cone together and coalesce into a beautiful idea. Or a passable one if we're talking about my writing
I appreciate this. I have struggled with the “write what you know” thing for years. Honestly I don’t “know” much, I got married straight out of college, never lived on my own, and everything before moving out of my parents house are experiences I would not WANT to write about and would be inappropriate for my preferred audience (15-18yos) to read, not to mention frankly traumatic to attempt to put into words.
So I have felt for a long time like that pretty much leaves me with writing books about stay at home homesteading mothers, and while I’m sure that would be fine, it just isn’t what I’m interested in writing. For me, part of the point of reading or writing is to experience something other than current life and to stretch my mind and imagination. That being said, I have realized that the most poignant scenes within my preferred genre (I’m calling it realistic fantacism, polar opposite of magical realism: fake world, no magic) are often ones that deal with topics such as interpersonal relationships, miscarriage, pregnancy, child-rearing etc.
So basically yeah, that counter-advice rings true for me- write with the emotions that I know, but I don’t have to stick to the same setting otherwise all my books would be set in small-town America and that’s not my favorite sort of book to read, so it makes sense that I don’t especially enjoy the idea of writing it.
I agree - I have a similar background, and I think "recognise what you don't know" is a better way of thinking about it than "don't write about it in the first place." This is why we research. For example, you don't need to be disabled to have a compelling, accurate and sympathetic disabled character - talk to people, or spend time watching the many UA-camrs who put a lot of effort into conveying what it is like to live as a disabled person.
I've always understood the "write what you know" advice as obviously being about emotional truths, not necessarily literal happenings. You don't necessarily need to have been through the same things as your protagonists, but I truly feel that the central nugget of idea that later becomes a story should ideally come from something true and resonant inside ourselves.
The trouble with a lot of writing advice is the “don’t do this” type. What works for one writer doesn’t mean it will work for another. Almost never in writing is there a “rule” that can’t be broken and still be good writing.
Basically geniuses give advice to other geniuses and didn’t expect idiots to take it literally.
My personal thought is every writer has a process they swear by, that any other writer using it would be a stale imitation.
Ha ha, quite right. You cracked it.
@@BKNeifert lol, yeah... is that arrogance or just a personal conviction and zealous expression? Take people from the U.S., for example. Are they arrogant? Or just really f*ing loud? It's just a cursory impression that may be right or wrong for each individual.
Writing's my favourite subject. I can diatribe a lot about it because I am a GEEK. I talk as if I know everything. And I do know everything... That I have have learnt so far.
No salesperson. Just a geek. Ignore as you wish.
@@vapx0075 What are you even talking about?
@@vapx0075 Like I don't mean to be rude, but what I said should be liberating, not controversial.
That's actually what made Hitler's art so bad was it was formulaic.
On simple language vs. elaborate poetics, I recommend checking out Jack Grapes's writing manuals. He gets you to start with writing that's as much like speech as possible (except he strongly suggest you leave out adverbs), but he sees elaborate poetics as one of several 'voices' available to a writer. One of the good things about starting with the ordinary speech style is that when you get to the poetics, you're still doing it with a grounding in something that feels honest and human.
"Kill your darlings" means "Don't keep something in just because you like it." No matter how good the passage is, if it doesn't accomplish something, it needs to be yanked. Authors sometimes fall in love with cute phrases or wonderfully descriptive scenes that are technical masterpieces but bog down the book. Do readers really need a 10 paragraph description of someone's brown hair, no matter how well-crafted each sentence is? Yes, it hurts to take out all the poetic metaphors for how luxoriously brown that person's hair is after you spent 2 days getting it all just right, but it gives the wrong impression when describing a murder victim.
In general I think if you have something boring but necessary to convey, it is better to tell than to show. For instance a character recapping events to another character. I think Jane Austen does a good job with skipping over boring parts of dialogue by telling us what they discussed and then just showing us the parts of conversation s that are interesting or funny.
A teacher I had said, "people buy genre fiction to read. They buy literary fiction to be seen on their bookshelves."
haha brilliant!
“Write drunk, edit sober”, “kill your darlings” and “if it sounds too much like writing, I rewrite it” are actually all the same pieces of advice. Since these are giants, it behooves us to listen. They know a thing. Maybe even two.
My favorite writing advice is “Get dressed.” I forget who said it, but he was essentially saying the same thing Bradbury was: treat it like a job.
“Don’t start with a novel. Write a bunch of short stories first”.
This makes no sense to me, because the two are vastly different. If you want to write a novel, write a goddamn novel! Writing a short story is a completely different beast.
I agree and don't agree with this advice. Short stories can be a great way to learn how to end on a moment of satisfaction/completeness in a short span of time. A fun way to practice satisfying endings and resolved plot threads.
It's only one way to learn how to write though, and your novel could easily end up feeling overly serialised/episodic if you apply your short story knowledge too heavily. Many skills from short story writing won't translate; others will.
Personally, I think just have at it and practise in whichever way best suits you. Good luck and good writing to all!
Thank you for addressing the fact that 'tell' is just another highly important tool for a writer. People will hear such advice and start to think there's an 'objective' way to write. With such easy access to information nowadays people just brush the surface of so many topics then spread their secondhand knowledge as though they're experts. (I guess you could call this the Dunning-Kruger effect? I'm not sure, because I've only brushed the surface of that concept.) People will hear advice such as 'show don't tell' and start saying things like: 'Tolkien is an objectively bad writer by modern standards of writing.' Absolutely insane and truly stifling of creativity.
What a wonderful video and I agree with every point, wholeheartly. Finally someone that understands.
1) Hemingway feels like he's riffing on Rimbaud's "rational derangement of the senses" or the use of automatic writing in order to bypass the rational mind's inhibitions in order to access something that, like any half-decent lion cub, needs to be licked into shape in order for it to shape up.
10) What's that quote by Terence again? "I am human, nothing human is alien to me...", right?
11) It's less about writing every day than carving out regular writing times. And editing & revising is writing.
110) Graphic novels are also great--pacing & cliffhangers? Tintin!
111) Another way to put it is to keep everything that works towards the end goal of the writing, essentially why Poe would say there's no such thing as a long poem. Unity of effect--everything has to serve the purpose of the story or it's safe to jettison.
1000) Leonard's doing two things here--he's reflecting on his personal practice, so there's the unspoken part where it's not really suitable for everyone. The other thing is he has a very Leonard sense of humour, & it's a very leonard thing to say, so if it walks like a duck & it quacks like a duck, it's probably waterproof, so all of that is poking me in my eye right now, that, or my reading glasses.
1001) Telling is also great when characters are in the employ of an Agatha Christie novel--conflicting narratives can reveal conflicts, relationships, aporia, broken alibis, & so forth. I was reminded of this last night when I finished Loretta Smith's A Spanner in the Works: The Extraordinary Story of Alica Anderson and Australia's First all-Girl Garage. There's a point there where the emotional impact of one part was made concrete for me because of those narratives, but I don't want to go into spoiler territory there (I'm dropping the ISBN below for those who are interested).
Smith, Loretta, A Spanner in the Works: The Extraordinary Story of Alica Anderson and Australia's First all-Girl Garage (Sydney : Hachette Australia, 2019); ISBN: 9780733642104
*****
"Least favourite advice" --:
Judging everything solely by its fidelity to reality. This comes from the film, the Mozrt biopic directed by Forman, with Shaffer's script. Yes, it's not accurate to reality, but it's all a narrative spun by Salieri after he's become aged & ravaged by tertiary syphilis. It's not a movie aboput the reality of Mozart's life, but about memory, guilt, even our own inability to see ourselves & our work clearly. Salieri is, through the movie, an unreliable narrator, and so everything he speaks is through the distorting glass of his own grief.
The “In writing, kill your darlings” has the feel of a present day google search where you want to be sure the FBI knows it’s only for writing.
“How to kill your darlings for writing”
“How to effectively hide a body for a novel”
“How to trick the FBI into thinking I’m just writing a novel…. For a novel!”
That advice is rubbish. Am I really supposed to think Dickens didn’t love “It was the best of days, it was the worst of days” or that Shakespeare didn’t love the many really quotable lines he wrote. I don’t like Marx as a person or a philosopher but his “spectre of Communism” line was a really good one and there’s no doubt in my mind that he loved that one.
On the topic of show don't tell. I was watching the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen (all opinions of that I will not share), and I absolutely loved the way that at the end of the season after all the grim events that happened. there's a report of the things that took place and their consequences (text on screen slideshow) it makes the main character feel like a fugitive and by telling, it SHOWS how much things have changed by reminding us of what we witnessed.
The advise on your shirt. It's a good way to develop liver disease. Or an aneurism. Or other health problems.
This was fantastic, loved it!
Completely agree about 'show, don't tell'! THANK YOU! Telling is JUST as important as showing, but you need to be more careful about where you put it! SO true! Thank you! (Also, that soft 'but it's BEAUTIFUL' was so cute and sweet! :D)
I am happy you put this together. Good points that improve the advice rather then discard them.
It's not about not doing it or not, it's about knowing the official rules so you know in what context it's OK to break them.
Official rules for an art?
Loving your channel!
Glad you enjoy it!
Great video. I didn't know from whom most of these advice quotes came and it was interesting.
"Write every day" has a bigger meaning to me than the physical act of sitting down and setting pen to paper. To me it means being attentive to what is going on around me, to how people around me behave and speak. It means reading and noticing what is on that printed page--when and why I forget where I am, or when and why I am banged suddenly back to earth. What went right? Where did it go wrong? It also means being attentive to movies, or shows. The dialogue in them, the pace, the exposition, etc. I learn a lot from movies and by reading. Also, writing to me means asking my characters questions about themselves. What are their agendas? What would they do if...where did they come from? There are so many things that "Write every day" means to me.
I've always scratched my head over "Kill your darlings." Taken literally, this would mean that anything in your writing you liked, you had to cut. But if you're left with a plot, characters, setting and style that you hate, why would you bother writing (unless you are getting paid to write, say, advertising copy)? However, "remove anything that interferes with the story, even if you love it" is great advice. And you don't have to kill that character or scene - you can find it a home in another piece of writing.
I live “Kill your darlings,” but it’s one of the most misunderstood pieces of writing advice out there. Your interpretation is exactly how it was meant. I don’t kill them, though. I remove them from the manuscript and keep them in a separate file. Some find their way into other projects, some can be used as “deleted scenes” for newsletters, and some I haven’t yet found a home, but it still makes me happy to read them in those moments when I’m feeling like a hack.
You went straight to the good ones and it's funny how hard they are to shake even with some writing behind you. There are as many writing philosophies as there are writers, given enough time and experience.
I do try to cut down on adverbs, as much as I hated first learning this it does make things feel more immediate, but at the same time, trying to remove them as much as possible can make a simple solution needless complicated, and sometimes cold and imprecise.
I also stay away from flowery versions of "said", even leaving it out if the speakers are clear, but maybe that's pretty basic
Best Dissection of "writing advice" I have ever seen. You could do a part 2 as there is so much out there; these were the biggest ones though. Gonna have a look around the channel later see what else you've got! Good luck with it, writing channels on UA-cam vary in quality and sometimes the worst seem to get the most views. No idea how that works to be honest with you. I am subbed to a mystery writing channel which is amazing in the advice but only has a low subscriber count.
I’ve read a few books about fantasy novels and listened to Brandon Sanderson’s courses on fantasy writing, and in all of them there is a huge emphasis on pre-writing-scripting out chapters ahead of time, writing character backstories and profiles, making whole dossiers of worldbuilding.
I worldbuilt a story for years and I’m now locked in my writing about it. I love the environment, but I have no idea what to say about the characters in that environment. Meanwhile, I wrote a short story with no idea of what it would be about and did no prewriting at all and it came together beautifully. The purpose of pre-writing is nonsensical to me, because it kills and dissects the magic of my discovery writing.
Will I ever do it again? Probably-it makes me feel like I’m making progress when I haven’t drafted a single passage. But I’m not trying to write the Silmarillion here, I’m just trying to tell a good story.
Different people have different strategies. If you're more of a seat-of-the-pants writer, it's best not to pre-write then.
Aristotle, at least, acknowledges that there are no real hard and fast rules only general patterns with some exceptions. (Even though people in the Renaissance treated his ideas as if it were hard and fast rules.)
Great to finally hear someone challenge the commandment "Show don`t tell", and personally I love super stylised dialogue, written for characters who do have high IQ`s, and are often speaking at you, not to you. Fiction is meant to be life with the boring bits left out, the curse of "naturalism" is often a straight jacket to anything remotely stylised. I will support a dose of self indulgence for a portion of originality any time. There is room for the showman in every artistic medium..
I was just thinking about how sometimes telling works better than showing
Now this is helpful! I hate when advisors use clickbait like : 'this is why your writing sucks!' It's not even advice, but it's the way it's presented, so I thought I'd point that out
I had to pause the video when I read your shirt because I was laughing so hard in a 'that's so true' kind of way and then I heard your first point. I was worried at first but then realized I had instantly seen the deeper meaning in it as I have never been drunk and so compared it to something I have been. Extremely sleepy, it's when most of my best brainstorming happens but I can't function enough in that state to even spell a lot of the words correctly (and I don't mean the usual amount of misspelled words you get when you write something down for the first time) so editing is even more difficult at that time.
oh, and my favourite writing advice is a meme, How to write good by Frank L. Visco
Famous quote: When a literary critic told Theodore Sturgeon his opinion of science fiction, "90% of this is crap," he replied, "90% of everything is crap."
I like this. You touch on most things I have wondered about regarding writing advice that I have heard but not taken as good advice for me. I see the same in other arts as well. For example; If a morning person advises you to get up early to write, you might have to adjust it to "your early".
Take the advice, but check to see what they really meant. Do not stick to the one-liner.
Obviously, this goes for my advice too :D
It's "write what you know" not only write what you know. It's a way to make characters feel real, and believable
I think it's an oversimplification of the idea that you shouldn't be writing about naval officers engaged in ship to ship combat if you don't know anything about the Navy, ships and/or combat. It's also not a good idea to write about an old man losing his wife to cancer if you don't have knowledge or experience with that.
Some of my least favorite writing advice has been about word usage. There's that Mark Twain quote "Use the right word...not its second cousin." that people usually take to mean, "Spice things up a notch." and lead to such egregious errors as "Don't use the word 'very' ever."
I mean.
If "very cold" is correct, use "very cold".
Or how about 'frigid'? That's very, very cold.
"Tell them what is going to happen at the end of the book" (7:22) When I hear this advice I always think of the first sentence (and paragraph) of Erich Segal's Love Story: "What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?". I hesitate to cite this quote in this context because I don't intend to hold this novella out as a pinnacle of literature, but this opening is a clear example of literary sign-posting.
Yes, good example. Also, "A Chronicle of a Death Foretold" foreshadows the death in the very title!
I am now a big fan of book narrators. They can make or break a book. My fave book is Dracula and Simon Vince is the perfect narrator for it. I have listened to it over and over.
My favorite writing advice often comes from people still struggling to sell their first book who say that people who have sold millions of books don't know what the eff they're talking about when giving advice on writing books. ;) Ha ha. (all in good fun, write however/whatever/in whichever way you want - if your goal is to sell millions, good luck, if your goal is to just write a story that maybe no one besides you will ever read, also good luck. My favorite writing advice: If you really want to write a story, then write the damn story. Plenty of people will tell you it's great and plenty will tell you it sucks - but no one will say anything if it's never written down.
Mark Twain said writing is a game of 'crossing out all the wrong words'. As writers, we need to build confidence that we will think of something smart again. Sentences never stay the same so long as the context that we need them keeps shifting. As the whole of the story solidifies, the motives, the arcs, thats when the lava starts cooling.
Are you leaving a paragraph 'unsolved' in an edit? Is it an authorial stop note saying 'wot dis, dunno, get bettah'? Mark Twain said to write what you know and did you just discover something that you don't know? Right in the middle of your plot? Well then, time to 'expand your horizons'. Walk away irl, start binging on new source material, whatever. Learn so you know. Simple as.
Re 'kill your darlings' don't forget you can recycle unused incidents and concepts. 'Spin-offs'; need I say more?
Your alternative take on "kill your darlings" earned a like and subscription. Now I know I can trust you.
EDIT: And then you cover "Show Don't Tell" perfectly. Yep. I am glad I found this channel.
I'm glad you found me too! Thanks for watching.
Jack Higgins best advice when I asked him for his best advice was START.
Good talk. Your point is that famous tips should not be taken too literally. Write sober. Sometimes tell a story. Take a break from writing. Write purple sometimes. Sometimes spare. Use adjectives sometimes. Or not.
Know what you are doing and break the "rules" - should any exist.
8:02, I’m not a writer but (as a reader and for that matter viewer of fiction) the piece of common writing advice that most gets on my nerves is that no character should ever be completely all-out evil. It’s frustrating because if that advice were universally followed then a lot of great works of fiction would never have existed.
I've read novels where the villain is so all-out evil they're laughable. One recent work had the main villain ripping out her henchmen's tongues in a fit of anger when they couldn't figure out a magical puzzle. I just shook my head and asked, "Why does anyone follow this idiot after their first week? 10 coworkers go down, only 5 come back and they're all deeply traumatized. There is no way the henchmen aren't comparing notes in private. After a couple of months, how does the villain have any henchmen left?" The villain doesn't need to have some tragic past that forced them down the path of evil yet left a hope of redemption, but they shouldn't go out of their way to kick every puppy they see and burn down every orphange they hear about.
@@SomeUniqueHandle My response to that is The Joker. In most adaptations, he’s a character who routinely kills his henchmen (often for petty reasons) and (with the sole exception of the 1966 series) he makes no efforts to conceal the fact that he does that. In The Dark Knight, he gets around that by recruiting people who are criminally insane and not aware of what’s happening but (as far as I can tell) that’s the exception rather than the rule. The Joker is still a popular and well-loved villain.
I think there's a difference between being evil and being comically evil. I agree that it's okay to create an irredeemably evil villain. Sometimes even necessary. Some of the best villains are dark mirrors of the hero. But if that isn't a theme of your story and the villain is symbolic of a broader theme? Go for it.
@@drewtheunspoken3988 Sir Mulberry Hawk, Bill Sikes, Fagin, , Compeson, Iago, Antonio from the Tempest, Caliban, Voldemort, Sauron, Dr. Richard Devine, Palpatine, , Bellatrix Lestrange, O’Brien from 1984, Napoleon from Animal Farm, Milady de Winter, Thénardier, Bob Ewell et cetera. These are all serious villains none of whom are portrayed as being in the least bit sympathetic and they work quite well as villains not in spite of their unadulterated evil but because of it.
@matityaloran9157 exactly. An alarming trend that's arisen in recent years is the "humanizing" of evil characters leading to what is, charitably, over empathizing with said evil. You know it's gone wrong when people start arguing that Batman is the bad guy and the Joker is just "misunderstood."
Obviously, in real life, there is nuance but that's never been the point of those stories. Pure evil villains are always symbolic rather than characters in and of themselves.
If it feels off to me, it's got to sound off to the reader. I close many books at the third chapter, even in nonfiction. If I can't get into the story, or the information, it's a waste of time. The same information can be found elsewhere, and said better. His t-shirt makes perfect sense.
I agree. That's also why I skip the boring pretentious parts of even a celebrated book like House Of Leaves.
Really? You don't even skip trying to find something interesting?
I used to be a completionist with finishing books I've started but nowadays I quit books (TV series, films etc) I'm not enjoying part way through. Nothing can convince me 1984 in book form is good, as an example
Intéressant 👌 Merci.
I'm a fantasy author of Irish ancestry. I have no filter. Alcohol not required.
'Write what you know' doesn't imply diary-style writing, it means that you know something as a foundation, a foundation from which you can add fictional elements to create an interesting story. It makes far more sense for me to set a story in the country I live in rather than, say, Papua New Guinea. 'Write what you know know' is generally good advice.
Mythcreants is another writing blog and there advice about “kill your darlings” is very similar to yours. They have the phrase, “Center your darlings”. If you’re writing literary fiction and have an interesting murder mystery subplot, maybe trunk your current novel and write a mystery novel. If you are spending too much time on an extraneous pov, then maybe rewrite the book with that pov as the main one.
Rules in art are generally nonsense. Art is appreciated for its uniqueness and rules are killing whatever exceptional idea or process you come up with. One of my least favourite is 'don't edit as you go'. Might work for others, not for me though. By editing everytime I come back to the fragment I want to work on, I have many opportunities to check how the text feels, get certain that a sentence needs rewriting or question a plot choice, which wouldn't take place if I just looked at it once or twice. Plus it takes away that terrifying vision of enormous work to do in the future when the entire book is written. Sometimes I do put editing off when I just want to get an idea on the page before I forget it. We should have our own brains whenever we think of applying a rule to our writing process. It's the final result that matters afterall.
Came for the tee shirt. Stayed for the content.
"Write what you know" has got to be the most misunderstood advice in all of writing.
I just finished having this thought and then saw your comment. Perhaps he should do a video on how to understand misunderstood writing advice.
I love that shirt, btw: write drunk, edit sober. XD
The "show, don't tell" thing is a stylistic choice. I think it all comes down to the framing device used. If the narrator doesn't exist within the narrative, then it is a breach of the 4th wall by itself. And, nowadays, for all sorts of reasons, including problems with literacy markers, attention spams, overstimulation and a load of things we still don't understand all that well, "telling" often is an assumption readers cannot take nuance, or self validation by writers that have technical issues with description and structuring. This is a feedback loop too, the mass market does something more, and consumers expect that because that is what they are used to, so, when they don't get it, they have this expectation challenged, and something sells less, which consolidates the trend that "readers don't like description" and stuff. Usually, "high brow" stuff will be more descriptive, experimental and nuanced, and it usually is indeed more challenging both to make and to read. Add to that that we have an education system that avoids frustration like the plague, and we end up with a status quo that tries to be either extremely niche and high brow, or anti anything considered "high brow" as a form of self validation
Join a writing group. At 61 years of age I struggle to appreciate the 16 year old in my writing group say, "What? I don't get it." Did you read what I wrote? "Well no, but I just don't get it." Okay, I'm out.
I, personally, will NEVER be in the 'write every day' crowd. I just can't. Some days, I feel like absolute shit, and I KNOW intimately that whatever comes out will be shit, and I'll hate it. I don't want to wake up the next day and feel like I wasted so many hours writing crap. lol. When I need a break, I need a break, man. I'm not gonna force it. I'll read to broaden my horizons instead. THAT would be my counter to that advice, and I stand by it! :D
I don't think Ray Bradbury meant a writer should work on their next novel or short story everyday but to write in some capacity everyday, be it a critique, a reading response, a letter, an essay, or just journal writing. If this is what he meant, than I absolutely agree with this.
And yes, Cormac McCarthy... pure genius. Faulkner had this too, _As I Lay Dying_ has some of the most beautiful American prose ever written.
I wanted to point out that Fairy Tales, which a lot of authors - and not just fantasy authors - aspire to emulating to one extent or another, all depend heavily on "telling" with only a few carefully crafted bits of "showing" built into them. I think that model is probably best for a writer to keep in mind - it gets tedious and tiresome to show *everything*, especially if you have a story that is itself grounded in mundane reality, as it were - we do not want to know how your character's commute to work on Tuesday went, unless something untoward happened. We certainly don't want to follow them into the bathroom (again, unless you have some specific reason to do so). Tell us the dull parts. Show us the good parts.
I do agree that a bunch of really popular books aren't that great. But I don't think any genre is inherently worse than any other. The problem is the "fast fashion" books. There are also incredible works of genre fiction that you can tell the writer has put their soul and tons of effort into.
Currently reading "Beyond the Pale", a historical romance, and it is one of the best books I have read.
But something like Twilight and Harry Potter? Mediocre at best tbh. Feel like they were written to get rich more than to write a good novel, and like there wasn't that much effort put into them (or the authors just aren't good writers)
There are great popular genre writers too, of course. I love Neil Gaiman, Donna Tartt, Rick Riordan, Cassandra Clare, Eoin Colfer, whoever wrote Song of Achilles.
Stephen King on not keeping a note book, because that is where ideas go to die. I personally have dozens of note books. They are were my characters live and when I need one or two for a story I visit them there.
As for 'writing what you know', I always took this to mean we should go research topics we're excited to write about. I mean, if you want to write about people on a submarine and you don't know anything about submarines, you should go learn about submarines, right? It's good advice to play to your strengths, but I sometimes hear people interpret 'write what you know' as 'stay in your lane'. Sound advice, but if you've got time for research, you can broaden your knowledge base.
Hemingway wrote in the morning and rewarded himself for the mornings work with a drink when work was done. He didn’t write drunk.
Let's see. I had a high school English teacher who told me to always use "said bookisms" in my writing I learned decades later that editors HATE said bookisms and will reject your work once they finish laughing at you.
Then I had a guy tell me that the only way I could get published was to go to science fiction conventions and buy editors drinks. (That's probably a reason why I self-publish.)
Basically, the problem is that when writers give advice, they tell you how to be published in 1956, 1977, 2004, etc. Well, the world has changed.
I have come to the conclusion that my writing itself is not the problem. I can write as well as anyone else. Better than most, and I say so because modesty in this situation is pointless. I just cannot, will not, and don't really care to 'sell'. If I wanted to sell, I would choose used cars, recreational pharmaceuticals, or if I truly wanted to damn my soul to hell for eternity, insurance. I find that I am more terrified of writing the cover letter than the entire book. And in the self-publishing world, cover selection is like going clothes shopping with your wife. You stand there in the aisle, wondering if you really can die of boredom. I wonder how much standing in the same spot leaning on a shopping cart for four hours contributes to deep vein thromboses. I find that I hate that little scrapping sound the hangers make as they slide back and forth on the display rack. So, now my promotion strategy consists of "Read the damned book! Or not. I sure as hell am not going to try to trick or entice you into it."
Some of my favorite writing advice (that is ALSO bad writing advice) is:
"When you're writing a story and you get distracted by some shiny new story or idea you want to write instead... Don't treat it as a new story. Treat it as a part of your EXISTING story "
Now I don't know if I've even followed it through, but I appreciate that it got me thinking in different ways about ny distractions.
If I can integrate the shiny new idea into my current story - I can leverage the excitement the novelty gives me. It can help me hit some sort of manic writing pace for another week.
Maybe the element doesn't STAY. But I've given my brain permission to go off the rails in a productive way and I've made my current story more rich for it.
I wish George R. R. Martin had ignored that advice.
Don’t edit as you go. I do it less now, but when I was a beginning writer, it would take me a while to pin down longer stories. If I found out a third of the way in that hey, this part back here needs to be changed because it completely recontextualizes the rest of the story, I’d fix that first because I have to do it anyways, it’s fresh in my mind, and when I write the next two thirds, they will be less off course and closer to the final product
My least favorite writing advice is a tie between 'never use adverbs' and 'remove all filter words' Too many adverbs points to a problem with weak verbs, absolutely. But some adverbs are just *exactly* the word you were looking for. Better advice would be to use adverbs intentionally. And remove filter words (think, feel, hear, etc) is advice given to new weiters who don't understand the goal of that. My problem is there are plenty of exceptions (I would argue many), but it is applied as a blanket statement.
"Write drunk edit sober" is pretty much the same as the NaNoWriMo practice of creating a 'zeroeth draft' in thirty days, then polishing it afterward.
Written dialogue is unlike real conversations. The Watergate transcripts are amazingly faithful, showing all the incomplete sentences, backtracking, people talking over each other, etc. No one would want to read a book full of that sort of dialogue.
Oh, now I know Edgar Allan Poe was trying to lowkey admit to bricking a dude up in a morgue and stuff.
Lol
Based on Elmore Leonard's quote we definitely wouldn't have Nabokov's "Lolita."
Good point. There is a place for beautiful language that is unlike regular speech.