Paper Hearts: Some Writing Advice

Why Writing Advice Books Suck (Including This One)

Writing advice books suck. 

Including this one. 

It's just the nature of the game, I guess. It's impossible to make a writing advice book not suck. Because at it's core, what a writing advice book does-including this one, obviously-is, well, give writing advice. And by the very nature of giving advice, there's an implication that there's a right way and there's a wrong way, and here's the right way. 

And honestly? That's a very damaging attitude to have for any writer. I remember when I first started out, the bit of advice I heard all the time (and still hear today) is the simple mantra to "write every day." This often goes with the pedantic "writers write!" saying, implying that if you don't write every single blasted day, you're not a real writer.

Bullshit.

I learned the hard way that this advice was wrong-for me. I tried writing every day. But my words came out shallow, my characters were boring, and my plot was a tangle of loose strings. I had to delete nearly everything. I work much better in bursts-I don't write for several days, and then I write for an extended period of time. I think this came from habit; I wrote all my early (unpublished) novels while I was a student in college or, after, a teacher in high school, and neither one of those careers lent much "every day" time-but the weekends and breaks were perfect.

I'm going to go ahead and tell you now: none of the advice in this book is right. 

Well, it might be right. It was right for me. At least at the time. It may be right for you-at least for now. But there's just as great a chance that it's wrong for you...at least for now. 

All any writing advice book can do is present a few ideas and hope they're helpful. That's all this is. Do not take it as the only right way. Do not think that you're not good because you do things differently. 

The only right way to write a novel is the way you write it. Everything else is just chaff.