I've been writing with semi-serious intent since I was 14 (I'm now 31, for the record) and I've heard a lot of writing advice over the years.
Most of it has been helpful; some has been truly insightful. Sadly, some has been worse than useless.
Here are the three worst pieces of writing advice I've ever had:
#1: Use Lots of
Synonyms for "Said"
When I was in school (and this may still be the case for school-kids), we were taught to come up with lots of fancy synonyms for the word "said".
This might be a great vocabulary exercise for 10 year olds ... but it's a really bad idea for writers.
The word "said" – like the words "the", "and", "he", "she", and other super-common words – can be repeated
a lot. Readers won't even notice.
As soon as you start throwing in fancier alternatives – like "exclaimed" or "hissed" or "squeaked" – they stand out too much. They draw the reader's eye away from the dialogue itself.
It particularly bugs me, as a reader, when characters "laugh" a line of dialogue. Can you actually imagine anyone doing that?
Do it
right:
Use "said" where you need to. Use actions alone (or let dialogue stand by itself) where it's easy for the reader to understand who's speaking.
#2: Post on Your Blog Every Day
This, thankfully, doesn't appear to be doing the rounds so much these days ... but when I started out blogging, pretty mucheveryone advised blogging daily.
There are some reasons
for this – like building up a big body of content quickly – but for your sake and your readers', it's much better to post a little less frequently. (After all, are there any blogs that you would want to read posts from daily?)
I suspect that, when "pro" blogging was taking off around 2007, daily posts were popular with readers as there simply weren't so many blogs around to follow.
On Aliventures, I
post once per week – because I enjoy writing long, in-depth posts, and I don't want to overwhelm readers with too much content.
Do it right:
There's no magic "right" frequency for posts on your blog, but unless you have a very news-focused blog with lots of short posts, I'd suggest between one post every two weeks and two posts every week.
#3: Write 1,000 words Per
Day
This piece of advice came from Stephen King's On Writing ... though even before I'd read that, I had a "1,000 word" figure in my head as what I "should" be doing.
For quite a while, I wrote precisely nothing, because I just didn't have the creative energy left at the end of my workday to manage to write. The idea of writing 1,000 words was just too much.
Since then, I've stopped taking
writing gurus' advice so much to heart. There is nothing magic about 1,000 words per day. (Or 750 words per day – Write or Die – or 50,000 words in a month – NaNoWriMo – or any other figure you might come across.)
Do it right:
Set your own damn targets! What matters is that you write consistently (not necessarily daily). If you can manage 1,000 words per week – that's 200 per day
and weekends off – you'd have a novel draft in about a year and a half. That's considerably more than if you wrote 0 words per day.
If a particular piece of writing advice isn't working for you, don't assume that you are the problem.
Some advice is just plain wrong (like "use lots of fancy synonyms for said").
Some advice may have worked once, but no longer applies (like "blog
daily")
Some advice might work for some people but may be completely wrong for you and your circumstances (like "write 1,000 words per day").
If you've had a piece of advice that you're dubious about, feel free to send it on to me for my verdict!
