Tag Archives: bad advice

Feb 11 2014

Idiots and Pseudointellectuals

 

I have to say that the moment I’ve been waiting for has arrived. There’s one particular brainiac (and I use that term loosely) on one of the writing forums who fancies himself/herself to be the end-all be-all of writing knowledge.

It’s funny to watch this person operate and how they have diarrhea of the fingers and never get to a point. This time it’s telling someone how their idea is contrived and sounds like it came from a supermarket tabloid. Well, armed with that person’s statement, let me shoot it down.

Any idea for a fiction story could be considered contrived since every story that can be told has been already. Second, it’s not the idea that matters but the person writing it. Third, does anyone really give a shit about what he/she really thinks? If he/she had time to write, then he/she wouldn’t be playing blind leading the blind.



Honestly, I’m starting to find the posts of so many people to be so humorous that I’m taking time out from writing to wait for them to be made. Hell, it’s worth one big ass laugh and a good dose of stress relief!

With that said, what’s the *worst* advice you’ve ever gotten in writing? I’m kind of curious as to what’s been said.


 

Feb 7 2014

Bad Advice Leading to the Blind Leading the Blind

 

It gets more and more difficult for me to sit back and watch people get bad advice from pseudo-intellectuals with diarrhea of the fingers. They sit there, pretend they know it all, and then give people who are trying to learn how to be an author terrible advice.

One thing that the sexual intellectuals (polite way of calling someone a fucking moron-so it’s the term I’ll use from now on) do is to get the newbies hung up on the rules. Yes, rules are important and you need to know them for writing, but they’re not fixed in stone. These guys tell everyone they are and they couldn’t be more wrong.

Another false premise that gets thrown out is the three-act structure in fiction writing. That is something used in scriptwriting to not only control how long the actual script is, but the help with the filming of it by giving the director some structure. It does not have a place in writing a novel, which is a different beast.

The other big one pushed is the ‘show don’t tell’ mantra. I’m sorry but novels are not 100% showing or telling. They are a mix of the two, and it’s how the writer puts it together that matters.

Fourth, they keep trying to tell others that the artistic nature is far more important than trying to write something that will be commercially viable. While that might work if you don’t mind the manuscript never leaving your computer-or being self-published-but it won’t in the mainstream.

And last but not least, the need to show writing to others, to get multiple people’s opinions on things. This is a case of ‘too many cooks ruin the pudding.’ Writing in a solo endeavor. It’s just you and the computer/typewriter/piece of paper. The more people get involved, the more likely your idea will be stolen or you’ll get lead down a rabbit hole and end up having to back track to move forwards.

Best thing to do is to read successful novel-preferably to top 100 of the 20th century, and see how the authors put their story together. What were their word choices? How did they construct sentences and use descriptions. That will help you be a successful writer.

With this said, I wish you all good luck in your travels.

Feb 5 2014

Blind Leading the Blind

 

 

Once again I have to say I find the forums to be comedy relief when I’m trying to work out a difficult section on my writing. Today, it’s reviews of someone’s writing and the one’s making the reviews. When I see someone whose writing sucks ass and is boring as hell trying to tell another writer that the other writer’s work is boring, I nearly bust a gut laughing so hard.

You got to love the self-righteous people who think they’re God’s gift to writing! And the same ones can’t write for shit themselves but they’re trying to tell others how to do it. See the combination of stupidity and comedy? It truly is the blind leading the blind.

Things like this continue to hammer home why aspiring writers need to spend more time writing and less time on forums. They’re liable to get advice that sends them down a rabbit hole that they may never recover from.