The Letter of the Law

New writers ask a lot of questions. They ask for help. Which is why they get so much confusing and contradictory information -- as well as some downright bad advice.

 

I thought today maybe we should discuss three of the worst pieces of advice new writers receive -- which, ironically, are also three of the best pieces of advice we receive. The key to knowledge is understanding. Too often writers memorize and parrot the opinions of others and thus believe they have absorbed useful knowledge. You have to understand the reasoning behind the rules in order to actually understand the lesson.

 

Look at this way. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Mathematicians and scientists (and cops) are concerned with the letter of the law. Artists and philosophers (and judges) are those concerned with the spirit of the law. Neither is better than the other. We need both. But the type of writer you become depends on whether you are a Letter of the Law writer or a Spirit of the Law writer.

 

1 - First piece of good/bad advice - Write What You Know.

 

Except you don’t know anything. And what you do know is too boring to read.

 

Why is this good advice? Because beginning writers don’t write anything resembling real life. Their characters are unreal, their plots are preposterous, and their stories take place in a world that bears no resemblance to any planet in any solar system in any uni--well, you get the idea.

 

What the advice really means: regardless of what you write -- fantasy, mystery, historical -- your stories must be grounded in recognizable reality. Your reality. The reality you know. That doesn’t mean the characters are based on your family and friends or (God forbid) you. It means you’ve been living and interacting with people -- or at least observing them -- long enough to have formed a workable construct of how real live people behave in various situations. You take what you know and you apply it to your fiction.

 

It means you do your research and you use your imagination and you apply these things -- these things that you know -- to your fiction.

 

So when you write about life on an ice planet you bring what you know about the cold and the wet and frost bite, and you take your research, and you come up with a fantasy world that for a few hours can seem more vivid and realistic to a reader than her own living room.

 

 

2 - Second piece of good/bad advice - Don’t Worry About the Market, Just Write the Book You Want to Write.

Except you want to sell your book -- and you could potentially enjoy writing all kinds of things.

 

 

Why is this good advice? Because when you try to write something merely because you think it will sell, that paint-by-numbers attitude often shows in the work. You must write what you enjoy reading.

 

That said, of course you want to keep an eye on the market and trends within publishing. You need to know if the market for cozy mystery is glutted. You need to know if gothic is making a comeback. That doesn't mean you won't go ahead and write your cozy gothic, it just means you'll be a lot less frustrated if you know what you're up against.

Most of us have broader reading tastes than plain vanilla. Maybe we like French vanilla. Maybe we like vanilla with chocolate sauce or sprinkles or lavender bits or ground up vanilla bean. Maybe we like vanilla mixed with sherbet or Neapolitan ice cream. Maybe we like vanilla frozen yogurt or ice milk. You get what I’m saying? Romance is a big seller, but maybe romance with chili peppers is a harder sell than romance with lavender sprinkles.

 

The idea that you can’t -- shouldn’t -- be aware of the market and what’s selling and still write the book you long to write is nonsensical. A successful publishing career is built of creative and artistic compromise. Just like all your relationships in life.  

 

 

3 - Third piece of good/bad advice - Don’t Use Adjectives, Adverbs, Any Words Ending in “ly” OR Any Dialog Tag Other Than “said” or “ask.”

 

Yeah, because there is one -- and ONLY ONE -- genuinely “good” writing style -- and it works for ALL fiction, literary and genre.  And coincidentally, it’s also the very same style used for non-fiction. It’s one size fits all. How perfect is that????

 

Why is this good advice? It’s good advice because most new writers tend to overdo all these things. Most new writers get carried away with the “busyness” of their scenes, keeping their characters twitching and jumping with lots of expressions and gestures and glances that mean essentially nothing. Every line of dialog has a tag or a bit of business attached, and these too add nothing. It’s all filler and it is tedious to read.

 

What does this really mean? Adverbs, adjectives and dialog tags are to good writing what salt and pepper are to good cooking. Less is more -- but no seasoning whatsoever is usually pretty bland. Quality rather than quantity of detail is what you’re always aiming for in your writing.