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Feb. 1st, 2013 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slaymesoftlyI love this. Many essays or lists on writing advice from well-known authors make me cringe. Yes, there are some things you should/shouldn't do, but in something as creative as writing nothing is cut and dried. There are no "musts", there is what works for you and your style, and for your audience. Anyone reading writing advice should learn to weed through it and pick out the things that make sense for you and ignore the things that seem silly or too dogmatic.
http://www.flavorwire.com/364797/bad-writing-advice-from-famous-authors/view-all
Which, BTW, is not to say that you can or should disregard generally accepted "rules" for writing well. It's good to know what they are and why they exist. Then, when you understand why a particular "rule" is important, you can make an informed decision about when and where to ignore it. An example might be "never use an epithet; always use the name or a pronoun". Okay, yes, a whole story of paragraphs full of "the blond vampire" or even "the vampire" when "Spike" or "he" would have worked can make you want to scream "I know what he is!!!!" However, if you've got a long scene between, say Spike and Xander, and there is a lot of room for pronoun confusion ("he"? "him"? "his"? who he? which him? whose?) and yet repeating their names with each change of character begins to seem ridiculous, then an occasional "the vampire" might be warranted - particularly if his being a vampire is somewhat important to the scene. Moderation in everything might be the lesson to take away from most writing advice. And know what you're doing and have a good reason for it.
Said good reason NOT being because some published author you've read does it like that...
http://www.flavorwire.com/364797/bad-writing-advice-from-famous-authors/view-all
Which, BTW, is not to say that you can or should disregard generally accepted "rules" for writing well. It's good to know what they are and why they exist. Then, when you understand why a particular "rule" is important, you can make an informed decision about when and where to ignore it. An example might be "never use an epithet; always use the name or a pronoun". Okay, yes, a whole story of paragraphs full of "the blond vampire" or even "the vampire" when "Spike" or "he" would have worked can make you want to scream "I know what he is!!!!" However, if you've got a long scene between, say Spike and Xander, and there is a lot of room for pronoun confusion ("he"? "him"? "his"? who he? which him? whose?) and yet repeating their names with each change of character begins to seem ridiculous, then an occasional "the vampire" might be warranted - particularly if his being a vampire is somewhat important to the scene. Moderation in everything might be the lesson to take away from most writing advice. And know what you're doing and have a good reason for it.
Said good reason NOT being because some published author you've read does it like that...
