Sometimes, Someone Already Said It

I love digging up writing tips.  Not because I like rules (anyone who uses that word is selling horseshit), but because I like breaking them.  Sometimes bloggers just hit the nail on the head with contradictory arguments on popular rules that, damn, just resonate with my own experience.

I'm all about taking the things you're not supposed to do and making a writing exercise out of it.  They will never end up published if I keep them at all, but I do like to challenge those claims and see both why people might overdo things or ruin their work by trying so hard to avoid them.

Now, despite the deceptive heading, I think this blog post:

https://litreactor.com/columns/the-ten-worst-pieces-of-writing-advice-you-will-ever-hear-and-probably-already-have

Is pretty spot-on otherwise. The header is a bit of a deceptive attention grabber but it's also not claiming to have hard rules.  The language in the post only suggests that you may be clinging too hard to popular advice that could prove harmful to your voice, pacing, etc. 

Namely, most of this advice is meant to be applied sparingly.  

Beginning writers do tend to make the same mistakes, but concepts like 'show, don't tell' are assuming the novice understands the subtleties.  No, you don't want  a book that explains everything about the present.  The advice with 'show, don't tell' means that it's okay to set the scene, to tell the monotonous details THEN show the action that pulls you in.  Being all about the tell is why prologues fell out of fashion.  Often, that set up might contain a crucial piece of info where the reader might sigh and say 'I wish I was there.' Writers who have had experience and feedback will get a more personal sense of what should be shown or told according to their unique voice-- too much 'show' often leads new writers down the dark paths of purple prose. 

Purple prose, though.  I'm not a fan but I can't say I haven't used it to exercise my perception. Sometimes I want to notice everything around me, but keep in mind, it's like an acid trip. Not everyone can or wants to see what you're seeing. The reason most seasoned writers avoid purple prose is because it does distract from pacing.  Poetry is made for frothy description, but novel readers are going to be on a long journey with you. If you feed them too much, it can bore them. Sometimes they want to walk your worlds at their own leisure.  They don't want to know every smell in the air.  If the smell of cinnamon is key to the plot, by all means point it out. Otherwise, focus on painting a scene that is relevant to the plot. Is the character focusing on the dark shadows of those alleys because they are paranoid or being followed?  Unless you are intentionally running a distraction, I find it best not to fall so in love with my voice that I'm not leading them like a toddler saying 'what's this?' to everything.

There are plenty of things that I do that some might advise against. I don't mind self-publishing things I am in doubt about. I do, however, believe that I'm not the only one that might enjoy them.  If I derived enjoyment out of it, enough to pound out and edit that much of the story, then it's worth trying. Maybe I'm a bit avant-garde in that, even cringing at flaws, I don't go out of my way to bury something I might be a little embarrassed by. I'm sure there is snobbery about indie authors that market for themselves, family and maybe a couple friends.  I like that PoD lets me put out my books with all their flaws and glories, affordable enough that I can put that print copy on my shelf. I'm sick of reading them for all the times I scanned through them, but ten years from now, I want to pull them out again.  Regardless of what flaws ten more years of experience lends to them, I know I'll still be able to fall in love with the story all over again.

I used to obsessively redraw old drawings because I can 'do them better now.' And sometimes in the right spirit, it is still a fun exercise. With writing, I don't feel the same way.  Some things just have to be left how they are, some ideas worked out later in entirely different stories.  As long as a story is not completely sloppy, I find some flaws to be endearing.  This is why I balk at rules. Creativity is not a finite thing and taste isn't either.  If you hesitate to put your work out there until it's perfect, you will never let it go, never get feedback that will challenge you to grow.  I've said it before, but all forms of art are brutal. You have to take a lot on the chin and still stay true to your visions. Sometimes even when you're doing well, the self-doubt can hit with crippling unpredictability. You might think that fan demand would always be flattering, but if you hit a rough spot and they have to wait a few years, that adoration can evolve into something nasty.

I would say that iliciting strong reactions means you're doing it right, but if the scales are tipping too far into the negative or positive, you may have to investigate. Negativity doesn't necessarily mean you're a bad writer, but if you continue to make the same mistakes without listening to feedback, you might just be one. Good feedback?  It's great to have support, but watch out for cheerleaders.  Abrupt but shining reviews similarly work as ineffectively as refusing to take criticism at all. Those in-depth reviews are rare but golden creatures and, good or bad, deserve some consideration.

All right-- another writing marathon planned today after I sneak in a nap. Before I go, let me add that I don't get a lot of feedback.  I don't ask it of anyone, for one. This shouldn't discourage you. I'll admit it was unnerving at first until I remembered that I always intended my first books to be a vanity project.  It was never intended to be a best seller, just a footnote for posterity. Let me get my feet wet with trad-pub on a book I wrote for a market and then I'll worry if no one is reading it. Like most people, I do want my overtime art career to support my independence someday.  I'm also not going to get discouraged while I learn the ropes. Ffs, I got the balls to put myself out there only a few short months ago. A shot in the dark. One of the first things I read is that it can take 30 months for an author to become 'known.' I still have a lot of work to do before I can even begin to say I've done all I could.