Best Writing Advice Ever

[The Bluestocking]

But seriously, some people do seem to do most of the writing and revising in their heads, then they write it up and have it polished and ready to go after a single draft. Not my way. (I like to obsess over every word, on and off the page.) But it works for them.

This is partially me. I do spend a lot of time sorting out the story in my head and thinking it through - sometimes discussing it with my writing group - before writing it all down. I also work through the dialogue in my head so when I write it down, it's basically just recording what I hear in my mind.

Apart from editing and tightening the technical aspects of my prose, a lot of what I get out in writing usually doesn't have to be rewritten much unless I'm tinkering with a plotline or accidentally written myself into a corner. I'm not one of the "write as fast as you can and then keep fixing the first draft" people - I'm the "think through, write down, tinker with it along the way" person.

And the best piece of writing advice I've ever received is a very simple - but hard to carry out - one from Chuck Wendig:

Finish your s***.

That's basically it because if you don't finish what you've started, you don't have much to work with anyway.

 

[The Big Peat]

It's hard so second guess what people will like. I had a meeting with a movie producer ten years ago. He liked one of my scripts, but wanted to develop something new and asked me to give him 10 loglines (one-sentence story ideas). I had half a dozen solid ideas, but it took me weeks to think of another four, and the last one was agony. Eventually, feeling pressure to get back to him, I came up with an awful throw-away story to round out the list and, of course, that was the one he chose.

We spent a few months developing the idea into a screenplay, but then he lost interest. It was, after all, awful.

Everytime I do mini-pitches to my friends, the consensus will be for the idea I privately rank in the middle - not my marginal ideas, not my favourite ideas. I'm not sure whether that actually means much though.

 

[HareBrain]

It was, after all, awful.

C'mon, you've got to tell us what it was, after that build-up.

 

[Steve Harrison]

C'mon, you've got to tell us what it was, after that build-up.

It was about a teenaged boy who, after being electrocuted, 'speeds up,' like he's on fast forward. He quickly (pun intended) becomes a sports star and enjoys a life of fame and fortune, until he discovers he is now aging by a year every month.

It doesn't sound so awful like that, but the problems we encountered trying to construct a script were the stuff of nightmares!

 

[The Bluestocking]

It was about a teenaged boy who, after being electrocuted, 'speeds up,' like he's on fast forward. He quickly (pun intended) becomes a sports star and enjoys a life of fame and fortune, until he discovers he is now aging by a year every month.

This sounds like the composite of The Flash (Barry Allen was struck by lightning boosted by the special radiation from STAR Labs) and one of the villain who developed superhuman strength (after also being zapped by the same radiated current from STAR Labs) but discovered that the more he used his superpower, the faster he aged.

 

[Steve Harrison]

This sounds like the composite of The Flash (Barry Allen was struck by lightning boosted by the special radiation from STAR Labs) and one of the villain who developed superhuman strength (after also being zapped by the same radiated current from STAR Labs) but discovered that the more he used his superpower, the faster he aged.

I'll sue 'em!

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Point. But, in my experience, some of my best works (i.e. ones that have actually gotten good reviews and made a little change) were ones I personally thought were throwaway pieces. Sometimes the stuff you think is brilliant is actually not so much, and sometimes the material you might think is crap actually clicks with readers.

Yes, that is true on occasion. I'm often surprised what my fans like and don't like.
I still can't believe Beautiful Intelligence did so well... :/