12 Bad Writing Tips New Writers Give Each Other

[Cathbad]

I like First Person Omniscient.

 

[Cathbad]

I like First Person Omniscient.

Sometimes I worry 'bout that boy...

 

[HareBrain]

All first person is effectively omniscient, if unreliable. That is, it isn't breaking the viewpoint for the character-narrator to state anything they like as fact. It's up to the reader to work out if they're telling the truth.

 

[Tim Murray]

Great advice!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm guilty of the italics usage rule, especially in my second novel. I use it to separate normal verbal conversation from telepathically traded thoughts. Which is a lot more than normal. I'll see if deep point of view works.

 

[Dave]

Yeah, never come across any of these as advice. They seem a bit fake. So this seems to me to be a fake list of fake writing rules.... The last one - about reading other fiction while writing...

Funny you mention reading whilst writing...

Actually, I was listening to the crime writer Val McDermid being interviewed on the radio and the interviewer asked her this directly! She replied that she did and it did no harm.

Also, I think the thing with not using "was" comes from MS Word. I wish there was someway to switch off the "passive sentences" when doing a spelling and grammar check. It wouldn't even be quite so bad if it actually checked spelling and grammar correctly.

Some of the other advice does seem unlikely to be widely disseminated.

 

[Susan Boulton]

Never use lists such as this is guides. Because as sure as eggs are eggs, there is a great book out there that breaks one, or all of these so called rules. Write the story as well as you can in the style you feel suits it. Then edited the hell out of it.

 

[Ashleyne]

I use italics a lot, for sound effects, flashbacks and internal dialogue. It adds more of a pow to the words. My favourate auhors use italics too.

 

[DrMclony]

I like First Person Omniscient.

It only works with Chuck Norris as the protagonist...

 

[Boneman]

Missed this first time round, but it's brilliant. That Nick Offerman film is great!

 

[Luiglin]

Rules are there to be broken. Just make sure though that the breakages are consistent and not a case of 'Hulk smash'.

Try reading Forrest Gump by Winston Groom. The film was good but the book is great. However it is written in a particular style, almost a stream of thought in Southern States drawl. It breaks grammar rules all over the place and yet remains a wonderful read.

If your story warrents it, don't be afraid to break the rules. As long as you're consistent.

 

[The Big Peat]

Ah I thought from the thread title we were going to recount sh*tty writing advice we'd been given and wish to burn at the stake.

My vote is for "write what you know"

See I think that is bad/good depending on the tone/context its given in. For someone foundering for ideas, it can be great. You see quite a few authors credit it when talking about how they got the idea for a book. I also think it can be really useful in terms of giving the characters' realistic emotional reactions.

But when people say it with a silent "Only" at the front of it... yeah.

 

[AlexH]

I only remember coming across 2 of those 12, and that was a long time ago (probably when I was a completely new writer). Those two were don't read other authors while writing, and use a mixture of speech tags. I didn't think much of the article, but as others have said - there were some great links from it (including on the same site).

Hilariously I stomped on a few toes showing how nearly everybody published in the last 120 years broke thier rules or advice as they called it.

You have to know the rules to break them well, is advice many give. I'm not sure how true that is for me.

I use italics a lot, for sound effects, flashbacks and internal dialogue. It adds more of a pow to the words. My favourate auhors use italics too.

I struggle to read italics. I read a story recently with two PoVs, and one was all in italics. I don't mind little bits here and there, but lots makes my eyes go funny.

 

[R.T James]

I use italics personally as an emphasis on certain words. If you listen to somebody talk like John cleese You'll have a vague idea of what I am talking about.

"You see for I am a very, very, very, very important person. And to remind you of my importance I have included a picture of me in this letter!"

Oh...my...gods! He's wearing that coat.

An entire paragraph in Italics would be hard for me to read as my brain would associate it with frantic emphasis on every word.

For example.

You don't understand! I owe money, lot's a money to people I shouldn't! Barbra, Barbra, I'm dead-dead-dead! I should have listened to mother, I should have listened to mother. Oh god father would be beating me with a shovel! He'd kill me before the Albanians do. What do I do!? Tell me Barbra! Oh dear gods! I have a problem its the cards! Oh this is how I die?!"

So even if you had a bloke ordering a cone of ice-cream.

I'd read it as if he were frantically knocking on the glass to get an ice-cream cone like his life depended on it. Like if the godfather himself wanted a chocolate chip ice-cream cone and this poor bugger had to find one in then next ten minutes or else he's taking a nice long nap in the trunk of Cadillac Coupe DeVille.

 

[Amelia Faulkner]

See I think that is bad/good depending on the tone/context its given in. For someone foundering for ideas, it can be great. You see quite a few authors credit it when talking about how they got the idea for a book. I also think it can be really useful in terms of giving the characters' realistic emotional reactions.

But when people say it with a silent "Only" at the front of it... yeah.

To me, "write what you know" means go do the damn research

 

[The Big Peat]

To me, "write what you know" means go do the damn research

I hear it as cheat and use things where you've already done the research

 

[R.T James]

I hear it as cheat and use things where you've already done the research

Does memories from past lives count?

 

[Brian G Turner]

Does memories from past lives count?

I use them all the time.

And my future ones ...

 

[DrMclony]

I use them all the time.

And my future ones ...

I use memories from your future lives as well... Not creepy or anything!