“You need to know the rules well enough to break them.”
I was talking with some writing friends recently about the same things we hear in every course or workshop that we’ve done. There are a variety of “laws” to writing that every professor, every instructor and every person who writes will tell you. Some of them are obvious and some are decent pieces of advice. But a lot of times, we shorten them to one sentence and the free advice becomes exactly what you pay for. So, as someone who has been writing for a bit and knows several other writers, I wanted to kind of give you my take on some rather useless free advice.
Said Is Dead
(Even I’m guilty of this one, I’ll admit) This advice comes from the advice for varying your word choice. While I think that varying your words and sentence structure is important, you don’t have to become a human thesaurus. “Said” is one of the words that I’ve heard some people say to just delete from your vocabulary. But in my mind, that’s ridiculous. You can, and should, use “said” when writing dialogue. If you feel that you’re overusing it in an exchange, feel free to leave them out, just having a line of dialogue standing on its own. There are alternatives, but you don’t want your dialogue to become a collection of sighing, calling, yelling, wheezing, whispering, gasping, groaning and exclaiming. Use alternatives sparingly. It makes the times you do use it more exciting.
Show Don’t Tell
This advice starts with good intentions. 95 times out of 100, I totally agree with it. But there are instances when you can just state something. There are easy ways to show information. Shaking hands, watery eyes, and a cracking voice all lead us to think sad. But when you need to quickly convey information (Julia had a rough childhood in Scoot, Wisconsin) you are allowed to tell if it’s not very crucial to the current plot. You don’t have to go back and go through all of Julia’s childhood. You’re welcome to allude to a few examples to back up the statement, but I would recommend one or two instances of showing and telling the rest.
Write What You Know
This one makes me scoff. I once heard a joke that “If every writer wrote only what they knew, we’d have too many books about English professors having affairs with young coeds.” And there is some truth to that. “Write what you know” has been misinterpreted as “Write only about your experiences.” I believe that it should read “Write what you have thoroughly researched”. I think that an author has a responsibility to research their subject matter and their characters. Obviously, it’s easiest to write from our own perspectives, but don’t be afraid to research your subject matter and explore new material. Contact experts, explore your subject and research your topic!
Write For The Market
This piece always makes my heart drop a bit. One thing I hear a lot of is “You should write a book about blah blah blah. That would sell well!” And yes, it is true. If you want to make a career of writing, you should be thinking about sales. But I wouldn’t really want to write the stories or tales of someone else. I don’t want to write what’s popular or in the market. I want to write what makes me happy and that I want to read and get excited about. So, don’t write for a market. Find your market. That’s the only way you’ll be happy with your work.
Do you agree? Disagree? What’s the best writing advice you’ve gotten? Comment down below!