Writing Advice

I've been asked on multiple occasions if I’ve ever read Stephen King’s On Writing, and have always answered that no, I haven’t, only to be told that it's excellent and that I ought to read it.

But you see, I feel that if one is going to read something on how to write, it should be by a writer one admires and would like to write like—in which category Stephen King does not, for me, fall.  He’s prolific and has things he does very well, but I don’t like his genre and his prose doesn’t speak to me.  Quite simply, he’s not a writer I’d like to emulate, and so taking his advice on writing would be at best unhelpful and at worst harmful.

What about authors whose writing I do admire?  Diana Wynne Jones, Jonathan Stroud, Dan Wells, Alastair MacLean, Garth Nix, Timothy Zahn, and others?  Would it benefit me to read a book one of them wrote on writing?  And would there be any downsides?

Here’s the thing: everyone writes in different ways.  I once heard that Stephen King writes 2000 words a day, every day, no matter what.  Now, I’ve done that several times (excluding Sundays), and it’s brutal.  After six weeks I’m exhausted, my brain is dried out, my creative juices have evaporated, and it takes me months to recover any ability to come up with something new.  And that’s if I'm really, really ready to write for that long—if I already knew exactly where I was going.  If I didn’t already know, then I end up having to toss every word I wrote.

So clearly, the Stephen King permanent marathon isn’t for me.  I don’t write every day; I don’t have to.  I finish novels while not working every day—and sometimes, when exhausted from excessive writing or excessive editing, I don’t write anything but the occasional short story for months.  This gives my brain time to refresh and (importantly) helps me recognize the problems with my novels.  Then, when I’m ready, I’ll slowly pick up speed, writing a couple of thousand words a week and, finally, a day.  If writing were a sport, I’d be a sprinter.

You have to decide for yourself what works best for you.  In the end, there are only a few absolutes that I’d advise for all writers.  They are:

1. Read more than you write.  Preferably, read a variety of books, both fiction and nonfiction; don’t just stick to your favorite genre.

2. Write in such a way that you finish projects within a reasonable time frame.

3. Do your homework.  You’ll look really stupid if you don’t.*

4. Get two critiquers you trust and respect and listen to all their advice, then use your own judgment on what to change or not change.

5. Get a great copy-editor and listen to all his or her advice, then take most but not all of it.

6. Get a great proofreader and take all of his or her advice unless you’re really, really sure there’s a mistake, in which case check a style guide to make absolutely sure.** 

If you really feel you need advice on, say, how to stage and pace an action sequence, don’t go to a book on writing.  Instead, read.  Which authors write the best action sequences?  Go find one of their books and read a sequence, making notes if necessary on how the author achieves such great action.  Synthesize the information for yourself and choose which data you want synthesized—and if something doesn’t work, reject it (something that’s far easier to recognize when reading a novel than when reading writing advice).

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*Over and over again, I encounter the poison curare used incorrectly in books and other media.  I don’t know what it is about that poison that people like using it without researching it.  For the record, curare is completely harmless when ingested; it’s only deadly when administered directly into the bloodstream.  It kills because it paralyzes you, including your diaphragm, causing suffocation.  One of the first things paralyzed is the mouth, which means no talking.

**I have more than once had clients undo my edits to make punctuation or grammar incorrect.  I even had a client who wouldn't believe I was correct when I showed him the Chicago Manual of Style; I had to convince him by sending him a link to the Wikipedia page.  Don't be that person.