Specific Advice

Hey, it's been a while since I last posted. I sometimes question the usefulness of blogging. Since I'm blogging to such a small audience it might be more useful to write a journal, or write to a message board. I'm not too worried about it though. I'm not looking to really grow this audience, rather a good place to post my thoughts.

Speaking of thoughts, I'm on a mailing list from a fairly famous author. This author gives plenty of good advice. It is fantasy author Dave Wolverton, or David Farland depending on which of his book you read. He's the author of the Runelord series, which I have not yet read.

What I have read of his has been great though.

As an author giving advice he's got some good stuff. But some of his advice will rub me the wrong way. Not necessarily because it is bad advice, but because it's a specific bit of advice applied too generally.

For example, Dave Wolverton judges a pretty big contest called Writers Of The Future. I can tell that he's been reading a lot of entries recently because his mailing has turned a critical eye on some of his pet peeves.

One of the recent mailings said this,

"For example in this past week I rejected perhaps fifty entries to a major writing contest for using five simple words: “Now, back to the story.” Have you ever done that? It’s a grave mistake."

It's a grave mistake....that sounds like some very specific advice...for those pieces. His general idea is good, but we should be careful when applying something like that too broadly. This is a sign of immaturity. We see something that bothers us in certain pieces and then we say that it's wrong or poorly written.


It's natural, as we learn the craft of writing, to judge what we think is good and bad. But let's be wary of applying our newly learned tricks too broadly. Not every adverb weakens your story. Not every fight scene needs to be written without dialogue. And your characters can look in mirrors and even describe themselves while doing so. Flashbacks are not always a sign of weak plotting.


These are all pieces of advice that I have heard. And they all have their place. But let's not become too finicky. Nearly every rule in writing can be broken in the right situation. And just because a piece of advice works in one situation doesn't mean that it applies to every other situation.


Just be careful. Listen to feedback, but stand up for your story. And maybe, just maybe, you might even write "Now, back tot he story." and you'll be right.

Emotional Intensity

As I grow older I think I'm beginning to lose some of the emotional intensity I had as  a youth. I'm not that old, but I'm also not young. Time was that I scoffed at the idea of young people bringing emotion to the table, invigorating the older generation.

Somehow it's true, and it's catching up to me.

This past week I read a short excerpt from my niece's novel that she's working on. Mechanically the piece was good, but emotionally it drew me right in. That ability to immediately capture a reader in the world is something that I lack. I don't know if I ever had it, but I certainly have less of it now. I'm much more willing to sit through some long deliberations than I was as a youth.

So if you get anything from this post, think about this. Be excited about what you are writing. It doesn't matter what you're writing, just be excited. And don't be afraid to let that energy show.

A Plug for Persistence

I often say that publishing a first book is like getting your master's degree. You've got to build up the skills of storytelling, word crafting, description, grammar, plotting, outlining, and don't forget the actual matter of disciplining yourself to complete a long term project. Revising, editing, submitting, revising again, scrapping a project and moving on to something better.

Writing is hard work. But I found an interesting observation from Betsy Lerner in her book, The Forest for the Trees (Revised and Updated): An Editor's Advice to Writers. She pointed out that the only real difference between writers that succeed and writers that don't was this, writers who don't succeed give up. Writers who succeed keep writing.

To be fair, she was talking about a specific type of writer (She breaks the writers she's worked with into six groups. This group was the ambivalent writer...that's the group I feel most at home with.). But I think it's safe to say that if you want to be a writer then you can develop the skills that will get you published. And if you keep working (remember that w word) then you'll likely get published again.

So keep writing. And check her book out. You might find something useful.