Advice! It abounds. It proliferates. It exfoliates.
But advice? Not always helpful. In fact it can be downright unhelpful. Often comically so.
So you tell me on this Wednesday: what’s the worst advice you’ve ever received?
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Oh, and from the agent I walked away from shortly thereafter:
“Just sign the contract. We can work out the fine print later.”
This contract would have cost me more money than I made and kept me in indentured servitude indefinitely. The agent wasn’t representing me in this arrangement – instead, she tried to pressure me into being a ghost writer for a client who was paying her independently.
And she got really snotty when I questioned it.
FYI, though I obviously would never say her name, she wasn’t a new or unknown agent. She’s placed mega names with mega companies, written books about the business, and she seems to have a pretty solid reputation. She knew the rules, but she obviously didn’t feel they applied in this case.
Ouch Lauri S. That sucks.
Worst advice…
You can’t start a Romance with a dead husband…whom the wife loved.
Sheesh, like the heroine had to hate the dead husband in order to love the hero. 😛 Remarriage is the sincerest form of flattery… so I’ve been told. 😉 LOL
It was in a writing contest on my feedback from a pubbed author. To stop writing because I couldn’t construct a sentence or put an emotion on a page. And then they said they sincerely hoped I had a day job. This was on the heals of some tremendous personalized feedback from an agent that almost signed me and thought the book would sell. Um, I trashed that comment sheet.
I was told to send out my query letter before my book was finished and if an agent wanted to see more, I would have months to respond. Thanks for passing on my query Nathan, I’m not ready!
The worst writing advice I received from a script consultant: Purchase and read FROM WHERE YOU DREAM, by Robert Olen Butler. A waste of money; a waste of time; and proof positive that if you manage to get a Pulitzer Prize for a book (“collection”) of short stories you can write anything — even capturing your egghead lectures in book form — and sell it.
the worst advice? “just give up.” actually, maybe that was the BEST advice. I get those two confused sometimes.
The worst advice I’ve gotten (and ignored) came from an agent who said my 1st person 9th grader narrator didn’t sound “like a teenager” and I should change it.
Uh, I teach junior high. 9th grade. have done for 20 frickin’ years. ms. was checked by actual students (numerous) to remove any adultisms. every other agent who has taken time to write a comment had loved the voice.
Yeah, right. Suuuure it needs to be fixed.
“Never begin a novel with the weather.” This was from my rule-loving tutor in a creative writing class. Immediately following this advice, we were asked turn to our reading exercise for the day, the first page of the Booker-Prize winning Vernon God Little. The (damn fine) first sentence? ‘It’s hot as hell in Martirio but the papers on the porch are icy with the news.’ HA!
From a man just this weekend who looked at the title of the book I was selling (Corpse Whisperer) and told me to write a cheerier book.
Gee, she solves the murder and gets the guy. Sounds cheery to me.
cmr
Bobday,
I’m laughing. You’ve definitely proved your point about why you should go to school!
Very amusing. 🙂
Worst advice…
1. When an agent requested a full ms, I was told, “Send it immediately! Send it now!” Luckily, I didn’t do that, doublechecked the ms, caught a big error, then sent it off in a couple of days.
2. “Nobody’s going to want to read a story set in West Virginia.” If the writing is good and the plot is exciting, sure people will.
In college I student-taught 4th grade for a semester. They were excited to find out I was a writer because they had a “new writing program.” Then I found out it consisted of students drawing a circle in the middle of the page with 5 lines radiating out. The main idea was to go in the center, and a detail on each line. Problem was, it was a standard 81/2″ page, which left about 2 inches for some of the “ideas.” Then they were supposed to copy it all into regular paragraph form. I almost died.
Worst advice I received: Retire your keyboard.
I don’t get the whole “write what you know” rule, either. Once you write it, you know it. So it becomes a moot point, right?
Okay, worst advice: Your character should only experience one emotion per scene. WTF?
Oh, and another one. Avoid terminal punctuation. I didn’t know the period was dead, or sick for that matter. Not to mention its cousins the exclamation point and the question mark. Funeral to be held tomorrow.
To get an agent LOL
Get an agent LOL
As a former newspaper writer …
One sentence in the first paragraph of a story, even if the sentence was one or two words.
This pissed me off to no end.
Sometimes two sentences work for a story. But these editors were so into tradition that they didn’t see outside the box.
That’s just one of many.
–GCII
The posts here – priceless.
Worst advice? 1) Don’t write first person; 2) Don’t enter contests; and 3) get rid of ALL your adverbs.
Best advice: listen to your gut. Usually, your instincts on the first draft are the correct ones.
Peace, Linda
I have had all kinds of advice about my writing…none of it useful because everyone has their own chestnut of wisdom to rescue from the fire of indifference. Best advice is to listen to advice and have the good sense to trust your own instincts when it comes to who is the author of your work and who is not. There is so much contradictory advice out there on same subjects it is almost laughable that books get written on the subject of how to and what not to do…authors get roped into the pursuit without gaining an ounce of common sense when it comes to their own self-confidence.
AC had the best comeback to ‘everything in the first sentence.’
You are a saint. As for bad advice?
Skunk and White ties with Eats, Shoots and Leaves. No, I did not spell Skunk incorrectly.
Thanks for the laugh, AC!
Lynne Sears Williams
Write every single day. NO! Write when inspiration hits you. There, MUCH better!
Get an agent LOL
“Awww this is wonderful! You’ve got so much talent!”
Does that count as advice? That’s ALL many my high-school creative writing teacher said when I handed her a decent but unremarkable short story. And the sweetheart actually meant it.
Needless to say, I smiled tightly and walked away, and didn’t take another word about writing she said seriously.
Write what you know?
If I did that, only medical personnel would be able to stomach it. The downside of cardiac ICU: I actually know what it feels like to have sternal wires give way during chest compressions. And that’s just minor ‘eww’ in my field. I’ll stick to fantasy.
Worst advice ever: took an online class from a pubbed author on writing query letters. Worked through the month till she told me it was “perfect”. It got me an email rejection within 2 hrs of me sending it to the agent. Had another pubbed author read it over – she was shocked that anyone would say it was a good letter, never mind “perfect”, and helped mre re-write it. I didn’t care about the class money, but I did care that that agency gave me the old “hope you find success seeking other representation”.
Thanks for the chance to vent! 🙂
Laurie- Were we in the same class? ;^D
My first ‘writng’ class was a query writing online course, where the teacher said start the query with an excerpt from the book, then start the actual pitch with a question.
I’d forgotten about that one, but it certainly ranks up there with worst advice. Peace, Linda
“101 reasons to stop writing”.
I had to think about this but….
If you have to force and idea it is not an idea worth writing about.
“you should make your main character more like me!”
A nice, Christian coworker of mine once said, “You shouldn’t write books that aren’t believable. I can’t read anything where people turn sticks into snakes.”
“Oh,” said I, “you mean, like Moses does in the Bible?”
She never offered me another piece of advice.
“Join a critique group or a group of writers” — if you are lucky, you find a compatible group. If not, you can find yourself in a group of other writers who either confuse you, give vague appraisals with no helpful advice, or suggest alternatives which fit their style, not yours.
On the other hand, best advice – ‘Feed your need.’ (for writing) from C. Hope Clark, in an article, “I’m swamped!”. (on her website) As she says, we can pick and choose what we do – as far as making time for writing. I think that also applies to advice — each of us decides what to listen to and what to discard. It does seem that everyone who is currently published, has a writing book out now. That makes for a lot of advice.
“You should write ____________ (insert genre in which I’ve expressed no interest).”
Telling me what I *should* write is like telling me I need to breathe carbon monoxide instead of oxygen.
“go with the flow.”
yeah – to be individual, you must get out of the flow. don’t be like everyone else.
duh.
Best:
Opinions are like… noses. Everybody has one.
Worst:
All other advice, especially from other ‘writers’!
Remember, if someone can fling monkey-poop against a wall and call it ‘art’…
“Write every day”
“Write what you know.”
I tried to do that, and the result was years of very uninspired attempts at “mainstream” fiction. Once I found my voice as a fantasy writer, the fun began!
“Lie”
Oh, wow. This thread is priceless. I see a book in the future…
I showed my work to an experienced (male) westerns/thriller writer and he insisted my MS was a romance because it had strong romantic elements. So I spent a lot of time trying to sell it to agents who specialized in romance. It wasn’t until a pile of rejections later that I realized what the problem was – it was a mystery with a romance subplot. The writer I showed it to didn’t write for women, and just didn’t know the genre.
It felt wrong the entire time I was going with his advice, but I went with it because he was a published author. I’m back to going with my gut now.
Use colorful verbs…
“Don’t write, it’s a waste of time.”
Yeah, I know…
Nathan, have you done a YTM yet with favorite quotes?
“Sex up the YA and sell it as romance.”
Worst piece of advice:
“Stop talking about your work. No one wants to hear it.” – from a bitter, jealous writer ‘friend.’
Second worst piece of advice:
“Stop using all those different dialogue tags! You should be using ‘said’, and only ‘said’! Everyone’s using only ‘said’ now!”
*cringe*
Maybe it’s not the worst advice I’ve ever received, but when I was in a creative writing class, one student was very upset that I wasn’t titling my scenes. They were scenes–not stories. They were for exercises. Usually, if I don’t know what the title is yet, I just don’t give it a title.
As far as the “rules” go, though, I think it’s good for a beginner’s class to teach them. Some people have bad writing habits that they’re unaware of. Once you learn the rules, then you can experiment with when to break them. I know it sounds crazy, but I do think there’s some logic here.
However, I have to admit that when you’ve been experimenting for a long time, then someone who has had that one writing class says, “Never…” because, well, they’ve had that one class, and therefore, know it all…it can be a little nerve-wracking. After all, another person has mentioned, many people who are offering advice are actually just feeding their own egos.
I’ll play.
I once received a rejection from a major publisher which included advice on how to apply for one of the SCBWI grants.
The only problem with that advice was that the manuscript I submitted had already been honored with a Barbara Karlin grant…
Not advice, but since others are stretching…I gave my MS to an aviator friend to read, since my protagonist was an aviator. He said, and I quote, “It’s good. But I could’a wrote that.”
Use “nondescriptive” verbs. I can only assume this came from a nondescript person.
Use a quill and you’ll write like Shakespeare.
“If you get an offer from an up-and-coming agent, SIGN! You’ll grow together and be loyal to one another for your whole writing career!”
Codswallop.
Up-and-coming-agents don’t have more than two contacts at publishing houses. Go big or stay home.
Never use said. Always use a word like asked, cajoled, interjected, etc.