I wanted to talk about writing advice a bit. The good stuff and the bad stuff. I just did
a few months ago, yeah, but this is a little different.
This time, I want to talk with you about taking those words to heart… or not.
Here’s an ugly truth about writing advice.
I’d guess a good 40% of it is just people telling you what worked for them. Here’s how I do characters, here’s how I do dialogue, here’s how I plot, here’s how I write fifty pages a week. There’s
nothing inherently wrong with this advice—it clearly worked for that particular professional. It’s just a presentation problem. It assumes every writer and project is like every other writer and project.
Still, that’s better than the 50% of people who are bellowing advice that hasn’tworked for them. The only thing sketchier than someone with a lot of credits insisting “this is how it’s done” is somebody with no credits insisting “this is how it’s done.” Or somebody who had a credit twenty-five years ago.
What? A twenty-five year old credit should still count? I mean, on one level I agree with you—it’s a credit. But it’s a credit from another era. Seriously. Johannes Guttenberg may be the father of printing, but he’s not going to be much help if my Brother 5-in-1 gets a paper jam.
Let me put it in these terms. Let’s say we were talking about computers. Let’s say I knew someone who’d been a kinda-known name in computers twenty-five years ago. And hadn’t really done anything since. How seriously would you take their advice about computer engineering? Or programming? Or breaking into the industry?
Actually, I take it back. There’s one thing worse than somebody with no credits insisting “this is how it’s done.” It’s when somebody with no credits wants money to tell you “this is how it’s done.”
Anyway, that leaves us with, what… 10%, roughly? Math isn’t my thing. What’s that last ten percent of advice?
You’ve probably seen it. It’s the folks saying “
try this.” Or maybe they’re
a couple of provisos before or after their statements. I’ve mentioned the idea of this here a few times. It’s called the Golden Rule.
No, not that Golden Rule. I made this one up.
The Golden Rule is one of the core things I try to put out with all the writing advice I offer here. It goes something like this.
What works for me probably won’t work for you.
And it definitely won’t work for that guy.
You see, writing is a very personal thing. In the same way I can’t say “urban fantasy is the best genre,” I also can’t say “writing 500 words before lunch every day and another 500 words after is the key to success.” Because it’s not.
Oh, it might be for some people, sure, but it isn’t for everybody. There are people who write in the afternoon. There are people who only write in the morning. Some like
massive outlines, some like very minimal ones. If you ask a dozen different writers how to do something—anything—you’re going to get a dozen different answers. Because we’ve all found what works for us. That’s the golden rule.
There’s a joke I’ve used a couple times to explain this. If the only time you can write is Sunday afternoons, and the only way you can write is standing on your head, wearing that “enhancing” corset you bought at the Ren Faire last summer, using voice-recognition software, but doing this lets you write 15,000 words…
Well, that’s
fantastic. Seriously. I know professional, full-time writers who don’t always get 15,000 words down a week. I can maybe hit those numbers once a month. If that’s what it takes for you to do it, and
you can do it consistently—power to you!
See, at the end of the day,
how I write my book doesn’t matter. Perhaps I write first thing in the morning or maybe late into the night. I could work exclusively on a laptop, on my phone, on a typewriter, or on yellow legal pads with a #2 pencil. Maybe I reward myself after every thousand words with
half an hour of reading, a video game, twenty minutes of exercise, booze, sex, whatever. Do I do one long, constantly reworked draft or two dozen drafts each with a few minute, specific changes?
However I do it,
that part of writing doesn’t matter. As long as I’m working, I’m doing fine. People can insist whatever they want, but at the end of the day it always comes down to the golden rule.
What works for me probably won’t work for you.
And it definitely won’t work for that guy.
I don’t write books the way Victoria Schwab does. She doesn’t write books the way Andy Weir does. Andy doesn’t write like Sarah Kuhn. Sarah doesn’t write like Chuck Wendig. He doesn’t write the same way as Kristi Charish. And she doesn’t write like me.
And none of us write like you. We don’t have your habits, your preferences, your thoughts, your goals. We’re not telling
your story your way.
Which is why you shouldn’t worry about writing like us. Sift through all the hints and tips. Learn which ones do and don’t work for you. Don’t worry if four of the six people above do X, find out if X works for you. Find your way to write.
And if your way happens to involve a corset… hey, who am I to judge?
Next time… I want to talk about babies. I hate those guys.
Until then… go write.
