Why do expert fiction writers often give conflicting and contradictory advice to novice writers? [closed]
Closed by System on Nov 16, 2018 at 16:13
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Lots of writers give writing advice -- but why do they so often contradict each other?
For example, some say that "good writing is rewriting", while others (like Dean Wesley Smith) say that rewriting is bad.
How can a novice writer learn in the face of contradictory advise?
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2 answers
It's [not] a Conspiracy
There are no simple, black-and-white rules to writing a perfect story; there is no secret. Writing is a complex endeavor, which different people approach in different ways, yielding radically different results.
You have to use your own judgment
If a particular piece of writing advice helps you produce more and/or better writing, then that advice is good for you (but might not be helpful to someone else).
What does better writing look like, though? That's another place you will have to use judgment.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40154. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Different writers give different advice depending on what bit them the hardest when THEY were learning to write.
Every beginner has different strengths and weaknesses, the same goes for beginning writers. So they tend to give advice on what they found difficult when starting out, and tend to have less advice on the tasks they found came easily. If they are a natural at dialogue, they probably don't have much advice on that, because naturals are often going by feel or sound and haven't formulated any good rules for making dialogue sound natural: To them, it just does, or it doesn't and they fix it.
The same thing goes for plotting, poetic description, turns of phrases, and so on. The same thing goes for whether they feel they need to rewrite many times, or if when they re-read it all sounds perfectly fine to them.
I am a discovery writer, so I don't plot, I don't do "character interviews" or even figure out what my characters LOOK like exactly. I have no checklist of character traits to assign up front, I figure it all out as I go along. I throw a lot out, I rewrite a LOT, I probably write at least twice as much as I publish.
But my approach is not for everyone.
Most advice you will get is idiosyncratic to the author. It may or may not apply to you; figure out what problem the advice would solve, and assume the author had that problem and this was the solution she found that worked for her, but presented as a universal truth (which it often is not).
Advice is like a jacket or pants, you have to try it on and see if it fits. And always remember, just because somebody is wildly successful does not mean they know how they got there. Sometimes they were just lucky, and sometimes they are just naturals working by subconscious rules they cannot explain; their only true lesson may be, "When my writing sounds right to me, then it sells." In other words, what they know (or just are) is not always transferable knowledge.
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