On Writing Advice

[merriehaskell]

I may have mentioned that I came to a conclusion a while back, but I want to revisit it even if I did.  And that conclusion is that writing advice is often either given or taken as prescriptive when in fact everyone everywhere should realize it is, at best, descriptive

Comments

[j_cheney]

#7 reminds me of a writer who told me I had too many adverbs. He'd had word search for ly, and come up with 29 words that ended in -ly. He neglected to consider that one of the groups in the story was referred to as The Family, generating most of those ly words. I just said thanks and moved on...

But clearly that was a case of #7.

ETA: Corrected part of speech. I haven't had my coffee yet.

[madwriter]

This is the sort of thing that would've made me want to insert a character named Ly.

[merriehaskell]

The prime example I can think of for #7 is adverbs. The second is "passive voice."

[j_cheney]

Yep, you can also spot the newer writers because they tell you to "Show don't tell" when, seriously, some things don't benefit by being shown...

[cathshaffer]

I need an example for each and every one of the items in the hierarchy. k thx bai!

[merriehaskell]

It would all be highly subjective, but I could.

[cathshaffer]

That was probably an overly flippant comment. What I meant was that I've encountered all of those types of advice, but it would be interesting to compare notes to see which fell into what category for other writers.

[merriehaskell]

Oh, definitely. Maybe at DoTM? We need to have one of those.

[sartorias]

Yes, and yes, and the fluidity of language continues to amaze me. At some point we do draw lines (I will never say "laying" for "lying" though apparently the difference between lie and lay is blurring). Recently I marveled about glottal stops. I'd thought them part of some strands of UK English, until I listened to myself, and comprehended for the first time that we around here say "kitten" with a glottal stop. (Probably would 'mitten', too, if it was ever cold enough for anyone to own any.) But we don't say 'written' with a glottal stop.

[dendrophilous]

Now I'm standing here muttering to myself, and I think I say both kitten and written with glottal stops. Never noticed that before.

[sartorias]

Heh!

[j_cheney]

Hmmmm....and I don't. Very interesting.

[dendrophilous]

When I first started reading internet writing forums, I was puzzled by some of the arguments over writing advice. (I'm sure there's something I took as prescriptive that I shouldn't have, but I can't think of anything. Which is not to say that I didn't run into Nos. 1 and 2.) There were so many different perspectives, and so many people arguing various points of view, that it seemed silly to think that any one thing could apply to every writer all of the time.

[merriehaskell]

You are wise beyond your years. :)

[dendrophilous]

If so, only in that one particular area, unfortunately!

[cathshaffer]

There is one rule and only one rule that applies to all writers all of the time. That rule is that you must actually WRITE.