Huge Lies Writing Gurus are Telling You
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- Comment with your favorite (or least favorite) writing advice.
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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
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.
This is exactly how I started in fan fiction. Couldn't find, or couldn't find enough of, what I wanted to read. Probably also helped that I was mentally writing fanfic , long before I learned there was such a concept.
What i want to read are good storys.
Sadly i'm completly void of talent or own ideas so...
@@Acacius1992: brave of you. Most of us don’t admit that when it’s true.
This is why I wrote a local history book.
That's what early Pixar did for the first Toy Story movie (I know because they said it in the director's commentary) and hey, turned out GREAT for them! Early Pixar is pretty much my story telling role model, even before I got into writing. They knew what they were doing!
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.
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.
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
I feel like the question "why should I care?" or "does it cut through the clutter? works for me
They probably might don't be cliche
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.
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
you've just outlined why I hate the youtube algorithm that can give me ten videos all of which contradict each other but will tell me that I will fail if I don't follow their advice.
"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. 😅
You are bang on the money sir. "Know when to show and when to tell" makes SO much more sense than "Show don't tell."
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!
==================
Brandon Sanderson said, "Show when it's important *how* it happens."
@@DoulosEudoxus Love it! Another great one from Sanderson!
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.
@@SamaraWales I tell ya, figuring out how to introduce a story is hard 😅
I used the write bad and it made me internet famous back when the internet could still read. They're an easily amused bunch 🎉
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!
Especially if you have your character ask the gas station proprietor "what's the most you've ever lost in a coin toss" and then force him to call a toss... Lots of fun...
keep it relevant to the plot, tho!! as a reader, i would hate to be ruminating on what a washed-up fish in a QuikTrip parking lot would mean for the story just because it was explicitly mentioned lmao
I've noticed this too! The phrase I use to think of it is, "No bland details."
@@colorblockpoprocks6973 Could we also add the importance of these details having thematic relevance? In the example above the coin toss represents and foreshadows the randomness of fate.
"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.
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.
I can see some validity in that, but I don't think it should always be done. Having a darling or two can make the world and story more memorable and unique. It's when you're spending too much time on your darlings or adding too many that you might want to consider giving them the axe. It reaches a point where you're getting too off topic and your pacing and narrative suffers.
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.
“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!
I think this advice can be helpful to beginner writers (like me) who need to work and build up those writing muscles. I was unable to start anything for a long time bcoz it always felt too big and paralyzing. So I tried to be easier on myself start with a 3k word piece. Then 10k. Then 17. Then 28. Eventually I'll get up to novel length hopefully
I completely disagree. An aspiring painter shouldn't have his first job be a cathedral ceiling either. You gotta start with small projects so you get an idea of how to write both a start, a middle and an end before you set out to write a 1000 page epic. Otherwise you're just going to noodle around with no idea of how to move from one act to another or how to keep story threads hanging to be resolved without being forgotten. Don't hang in writing short stories forever, but you're also not going to write Wheel of Time on your first try.
I agree that they are different beasts, but I myself at this very moment am writing short stories before wanting to do a novel. The reason I'm doing this isn't to suggest that 'starting small means you learn to go big', because as you say, a novel requires some very careful consideration of what it's about and pacing and a whole host of other things. For me, I write in a shared fantasy universe, and I want to dabble in my creation with (hopefully) well thought out short stories, and this will (hopefully) lead to a grander piece set in the same universe and time.
A novel is a lot more demanding than a short story, though... I think beginners *should* start small :)
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 can proudly say I DO write every single day.... I mean, RUclips 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.
LOL
Yes, they do count.
"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.
This is very reassuring. Thank you 🙂
this is always my response to when people discourage writers from pursuing an "all-a-dream" story. I fucking LOVE stories that are/were dreams all along. People say they hate them because "well, none of this even mattered" as if they have no idea that character growth happens from within the mind and dreams also happen there lol
This is a liberating realization. I've found it reassuring to know that *someone* out there will like what I'm writing. It lets me write what I'd want to read, rather than pandering to everyone at once. After all, a story for everyone is a story for no one.
This. I'm honestly really, really tired of every single character needing to be a morally gray realistic human being with a tragic backstory. I fuckin LOVE one-dimensional archetypes. A huge sucker for the black vs white objective battle between good and evil. I do like complex characters too, but people get so swamped in writing them they tend to just make fiction stop being fun or satisfying. Life has enough moral ambiguity, my escapism doesn't need it too.
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.
I appreciate the perspective presented. I internalize this as: Know the box, know when to write inside the box and when to enjoy the outside of the box and I'll add remember the reader.
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.
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.
And if you can’t find the instruction book on that subject, write it!
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 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 RUclipsrs 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.
Finally, someone agrees with me about Show Don't Tell!! I love this channel, definitely one of my new favs.
"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.
> Do readers really need a 10 paragraph description of someone's brown hair, no matter how well-crafted each sentence is?
Tolstoy: **nervous sweating**
I am the only Darling, there can be no other Darlings 🙄
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.
A teacher I had said, "people buy genre fiction to read. They buy literary fiction to be seen on their bookshelves."
I looked up the definition of the two, as I hadn't heard of them before, and I'm like 'literary fiction sounds fucken boring' 🤣 Like, for me and according to the definition I looked up, genre writing means there is a world the characters live in. They react to it. Have to adapt to it. That seems so much more compelling to me.
That's another closed-minded generalization. I read both types of fiction, but usually enjoy literary fiction more. What I consider literary fiction is not based on flowery language, but on depth and purpose. When I did a lot of business travel, however, I'd buy genre fiction (Ken Follett, John Grisham) in airport bookstores to read on the plane and in airports.
Bro, "show, don't tell" haunted me for so long... At the start of my career I took it so much at heart that I tried to show EVERYTHING, down to the smallest detail, for fear of "telling" it. It was a nightmare.
Thankfully, after 10 years of practice I know what to tell and what to show
"Write everyday.", is great advice for beginners.
I"ve had many students who said they wanted to write but "would only do it when they find the time" or "when they have a good idea".
None of them ever wrote anything.
I used to write 30 lines a day. Most of what I wrote ended up discarded, but that gave me the discipline to get things done.
@adrianainespena5654
Yes, and you found out why you considered the texts worth discarding.
@@peka__ Of course. But by them my greatest problem was self discipline. So even if I kept only ten percent of what I wrote, I still had something.
“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.
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.
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.
The worst piece of advice I ever heard was "if an author enjoys writing, they're a bad writer".
Why would anyone write if they didn't benefit from the experience? Success is never assured in writing so it can't be what a writer relies on.
Also, that's not even advice. It feels like a personal attack.
That is indeed, a very odd thing to say. I often find it very hard to connect to people on very deep levels, and writing is my way of subtly telling my psychology via my characters. I enjoy doing that.
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."
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.
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.
Another great video thanks! Would be cool if you make a video about WHEN to tell and WHEN to show, without distrupting the immersive experience. Very curious to get your knowledge around this!
"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.
The content is interesting, thank you. The way the camera jumps from close to far is so hard to watch that I mostly look away from the screen. It seems to be a fashion, but one that I hope fades into obscurity to be forgotten forever & soon.
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.
The writing advice that has helped me the most is, "World build to answer the hows and whys of your plot. Then, add a little flavor." It has really helped me reign my ideas in and make the plot feel more natural in my worlds.
I am happy you put this together. Good points that improve the advice rather then discard them.
This was great. So happy to hear what you're saying about No 1 particularly, as I never could understand that as an 'absolute'. Thank you :-)
One of the best advices out there is to read the dialog out loud. Doing voices if you can :) It's great for revision but also, interestingly enough, for content generation. If you are stuck - talk the scene out, chances are you'll get unstuck.
What a wonderful video and I agree with every point, wholeheartly. Finally someone that understands.
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.
Your friend sounds like she’s just parroting commonly dished-out writing advice without actually knowing how writing works.
@@SleepyOakTreeSleepy-w2p Yeah. She hadn't contributed much to the writing and I assumed this was just her way of trying to seem important.
@@JohnMoseley overcompensating
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)
This was fantastic, loved it!
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.
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.)
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 RUclips 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.
"Cut out these 'weak words'". Telling you to get rid of specific words is like telling an artist not to use certain colors.
Also show, don't tell. Sometimes showing is better, sometimes telling is. Both are necessary. People take it to the extreme and think that you should ALWAYS show and NEVER tell.
Advice like this hurts new writers because they think they HAVE to follow it, because "oh this person wrote a book and has tons of subscribers, so it must be true" and their writing suffers because of it.
Great video. I didn't know from whom most of these advice quotes came and it was interesting.
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.
Great video! I've been watching your channel for a few weeks now and I really like your advice. Do you by any chance have a video where you talk about literary fiction vs genre fiction? I'm having a hard time categorizing the novel I'm writing.
My favourite advice for rules is, "Never use absolutes."
I've heard so many variants of, "show, don't tell." But you're writing. You can't _not_ tell. If you want to show that the moon is shining, you have to tell the readers there's a glint of light on the broken glass. You have to tell to show.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
One thing I love about the comment about the writing that doesn't sound natural is that it becomes natural; it becomes self-fulfilling. Because people quote movies all the time!
A note on 'write drunk, edit sober': I've found that a little bit of alcohol can help; just enough to lower inhibitions, not enough to impact motor functions.
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
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 think there are no hard and fast rules that apply to everyone. I took the write every day advice to heart for about a month. It was agony. It felt like literary constipation of the worst kind, trying and forcing and pushing and straining and getting shit in return. A very small amount of shit. A half page that was terrible. What has helped me infinitely is, read every day. If I reread my current work every day, it helps keep it on the top of my mind. My mind works on ideas when I am not trying to force things. In the shower, while washing dishes, while writing in my journal, etc. I do set aside time every day, but for reading, not writing.
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.
this is good stuff, I was hoping there would be some love for “omit needless words” and maybe “don’t use said when you can use roared or snapped or replied or some other more interesting quote attribution word.” I guess the bottom line is rules of thumb are nice to think about, but if you start sacrificing chickens to them, you’re basically screwed.
My professor used the phrase "kill your darlings" to mean that sometimes, you will need to remove a part of your book that you're attached to, and you have to be willing to let that part go. It wasn't an absolute, it was a disclaimer.
Loving your channel!
Glad you enjoy it!
What I've got from this video is that it's not just programmers who like to take quotes wildly out of context, other people are not so different
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.
Well, the most useful advice I've ever been given. Was that taking advice like don't wake your main character wake up to an alarm. Is right and wrong. It is not the act that makes it bad. It is about whether or not it is important to your story. Read your story if your character plays in the tub for an hour. If it is important, keep it. If it is pointless, remove it.
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?
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.
They shouldn't be looked at as rules, but as guidelines you should think about while writing. And then decide whether or not to apply them.
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.
One of my favorite pieces of writing advice came from a high school Creative Writing teacher.
"If you can remove the passage without changing the story, it shouldn't have been there in the first place."
Great video! When should you show and when should you tell?
No write every day is definitely good advice. Even if you just write 10 words that day you should write. Also I think right what you know is incomplete. The second part should be learn what you don't know
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
My advice to others:
(Since writing on computers is so common nowadays) When writing, have a storage file for all the scenes that don't work. That way, if you find that a scene will work in a different context or with a bit of re-jigging, it's there to be used.
Before you say "Of course night is dark", remember: The moon has phases. (I grew up out in the country, I know the difference between a summer night with a new moon, and a night with a full moon and snow "deep and crisp and even")
i'm not much of a writer, but in discourse about various works of writing, i frequently see the accusation that a "this doesn't show, it tells," as if that's a slam dunk way to dismiss it. ive noticed a couple patterns when this happens:
1. the person typically thinks the message being conveyed by the work is shallow and uses the phrase as a way to absolve themselves of digging in further
2. the person disagrees with what constitutes showing vs telling is. for example, in film if a character dies in a gruesome way on screen, some people consider that telling on the basis that by shocking the audience the director is "telling" the audience to feel a specific way
3. the person didn't pick up on the idea that telling can be part of showing, such as what pieces of information a character includes or excludes in expositional dialogue
"show, don't tell" is packed so much more nuance than people seem to give with how casually the phrase is repeated as both advice and criticism. it's fascinating how broadly those three words can be interpreted, and how it's both fantastic and horrible advice depending on how it's delivered.
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
I love it! Thank you ❤
I've heard it asked "Is this the most interesting point in your character's life? And, if not, why aren't you showing us that?"
What I find funny right now is, that I knew a lot of those advices in the form they were actually meant as you described them and not in the form they are misunderstood nowadays.
I actually like number one. But you’re right you have to keep the pace rolling.
I never liked ‘write what you know’ but I like the ‘remember you know dragons’ part. Writing my own life is boring as guano. I mean, shit, I read adventure and action because I like that, so that’s what I end up writing.
I wonder about the write every day. Tried it for a whole year and it worked well but I think some of the quality went begging. The other side of that was, if you don’t write soon will your talent fade? Will your style change for the worse?
What about planning? Do you have a video about that? I have a mud map of where the story has to go but then I pants it. Bernard Cornwall advocates pantsing it and he’s the best, so I’ll go with that.
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. 😂
"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!
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.
"Show don't Tell" is about as helpful of writing advise as "Only use Active Voice in writing". A good writer uses both showing and telling, both active and passive voice. It's not a matter of using only one and never using the other, it's a matter of knowing when to use one Or the other. Showing will slow down the pace of your story, while telling will speed it up. Active voice will make things sound more direct and clear, while passive voice will make things sound more obscure and vague. As a writer, you need to choose which to use for your story and why.
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.
I just watched a great video about showing a character's internal conflict vs telling a character's internal conflict. The authorress pointed out some great ways to sow internal conflict and I agree with them, but I have to say, sometimes you can't show an internal conflict. Sometimes it's best to up front about what the character's inner conflict is. My rule of thumb is both to tell and show. And I agree that you should go beyond what you know to become a writer. Writing is all about what you learn along the way.
Buttttttt. I have to kind of disagree with the idea of not writing every day. I love it and it's a hobby as well as a profession for me. I love, love, love to write. Even when I hate it, I love it. To me, it's like marriage. There are days when you feel that you hate hate each other, but the more you commit, the more you overcome the differences and shine.
Paraphrased quote from someone I know:
"I've spent a lot of time trying to pin a definition on 'growing up'. I think growing up means learning not to dwell on what's lost, particularly with difficult decisions that result in sacrifices. An adult needs to make choices without dwelling forever on the thing that they didn't choose. Now, a lot of people subconsciously realize this, so they take it upon themselves to inflict needless pain on fellow humans, in the name of helping one another learn to let go, often hoping to see someone else become an example they themselves can learn from."
The whole thing with killing your darlings reminds me of this. The way it's used just sounds like "Learn to suffer or you won't make rational decisions"
Better to write what you love, and you'll attract others who love it.
When i stopped drinking I didn't write for 12 years because I was afraid of it.
Now I'm way off into my work. It feels so nice. Write and edit sober for me
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.