Hey all! Welcome to the first installment of Writer's Corner! This is a bi-weekly segment where writers, new and seasoned, share their opinions on all sorts of topics, from simple to the most controversial.
This week's discussion stems from just one question: what's the worst writing advice you've ever received?
Sarah
When asked what has been the worst writing advice I’ve ever received, my first thought was, “write every day.” Then I thought, wait, no, writing every day is completely sound advice. But I want to talk about why that came to mind. Taking a little bit of time every day to write is a good thing. It keeps up your momentum, it keeps your story going, and it makes you a better writer every single day. However, as with anything, that advice needs to be kept in moderation.
Some writers have writing careers, and they’re writing for money, for their livelihoods. Others write because it’s a hobby they love, and it’s just something they want to do. I’ll speak to the latter group first. If you are writing every day, that is amazing, but some days you just can’t. For whatever reason. You’re too busy, you’re too tired, whatever. If you push yourself to write every day, it can become a chore. We don’t want that. Remember that writing is something you love. Don’t let it turn into something you just have to do, like doing the laundry or taking out the trash. And to any career writers out there, or anyone who wants writing to be their career, I say this. Most people take days off from their job, so don’t feel bad if you do, too.
Okay, onto my actual answer. What is the worst writing advice I have ever received? That there is any word that should never ever be used. Adverbs, profanity, the word “said,” they all have their place. Here I go talking about moderation again. Don’t overuse words, of course, but don’t underuse them either. If a word fits somewhere, if it’s sitting in its little cubby within the sentence and it looks beautiful, don’t get rid of it just because someone told you never to use that kind of word. A writer paints pictures, plays music, sculpts marvelous things with only words. You have a whole host of them, even in just a single language, to choose from. Don’t ignore any of them. They’ll get sad.
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
-Mark Twain
Kan
I could probably go on about advice I don’t like. I’ve found a whole lot more of it over the years than that which I care for, at least—and not because I think I’m above it. It’s just—I hate the rules… when it comes to writing. If so much of telling stories is going to be everything I shouldn’t do, it makes me a lot less enthusiastic about what I should do, or what I want to.
The worst advice I’ve ever gotten was exactly that: “What you’re doing is wrong, and you need to do it all differently.”
Wrong, imagine that? Not regarding grammar or spelling or formatting; all means in which I’ve been quite wrong, many times. Specifically, the comment was referring to my writing process. How dare I call myself a writer when I was editing this way, and drafting like that. I mean, it was simply laughable, I guess? The worst part was that I believed it, even though the person it came from hadn’t even read my work (which was bad, if I do say so myself, but they didn't even know it).
The beauty of being creative is subjectivity, where nothing ever has to be right or wrong (there’s surely good and bad, but this too varies from writer to writer and reader to reader). The implication that you must do anything—that you must outline and write and revise and edit a specific way in order to be, the magical word, successful— is incredibly harmful. With that, you’ll spend so long learning the rules that you won’t have any time left to break them.
For me, as an overthinker and a worrier, doing right used to take precedence over simply doing, and doing at all is perhaps the most important part of writing (I mean, you’ve got to start somewhere, after all). My best counter-advice to this "stop doing it wrong" nonsense would be exactly that: start doing, and don’t stop. Take all the advice you hear with a grain of salt, no matter how prolific or admirable the source might be. Right and wrong are more or less what works and doesn’t work for you. Value all voices, but maintain your own.
With this, I say, go forth and be wrong.
Thanks for checking out the Writer's Corner!
You can find more of Sarah on Instagram, where she runs an account dedicated to her favorite literary quotes, as well as on Twitter, where she talks about all things writing. A big thanks to her for contributing to the discussion this week.
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