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Advice for Aspiring Writers
Dec. 23rd, 2005 01:02 amFIrst, everything I'm about to say should be taken with a grain of salt, because I don't know what I'm talking about at all.
I have always heard the following piece of advice most often handed down to aspiring writers: just sit down and write. Write every day. Even when you think it's awful, keep writing.
I would like to take this time to point out that this advice is full of crap. I'm not sure I can think of worse advice to give someone trying to write a novel. If there's anything aspiring writers can do quite well without any encouragement at all, it's writing a lot of crap. Hundreds of thousands of words of crap. This "write all the time" advice gives the impression that somehow all this terrible, pointless writing is useful in some way. As if it will magically turn into something workable eventually, if you just keep at it. Well, that's a lie.
This is what I have learned: don't just write because you have promised yourself at least 1000 words a day. Don't dump crap into your manuscript. I know some people prefer the editing to first draft writing, but really, if you're not sure where your story is going, that crap you're dumping into the manuscript is going to change your direction if you're not careful. Why turn toward the crap?
So my new advice (at least to myself) is: plot every day. Build characters every day. Work on the backstories and the motivations, the little details that are coming up in your next chapter. Work on the story structure every day. Write some fanfiction for your own story, if you want. Write deleted scenes. But only write the thing for real when you know what the hell you're doing. Be precise about what's going into the manuscript, and keep the imprecise in other contexts. Because while all your characters need backstories, they don't all need to be detailed in the manuscript itself. They should come through the manuscript, but if your modus operandi is to write write write every day, your backstory building will end up in the story rather than merely peeking through it.
I've come to the conclusion that stories need metastories. Background material, random musing, attempted and deleted scenes, extaneous dialogue. As long as you have all that stuff, you can keep the front end, the part of the production that's on stage, tight and on point. Possibly everyone else figured this out long before I did and will now sit back and have a good laugh. Yes! Finally I have discovered this fundamental truth! Not everything you write deserves to be in the manuscript! Hallelujah!
So go ahead and write every day, but keep yourself in the practice arena for a good portion of the time. You should probably get more exercise there than in front of the camera. And for those experienced writers out there: please stop telling us to write every day. At least, be clearer: tell us to write something every day, but remind us not to expect what we write to be our stories. Most of that writing has to go into background work. You could save us so much grief by clueing us into this little fact. Unless you like to see us suffer.
This message brought to you by a person who is really only 5 chapters into the story she is attempting to tell, and is clearly not a person from whom anyone should take any advice from to start with, let alone advice about writing. Meh!
I have always heard the following piece of advice most often handed down to aspiring writers: just sit down and write. Write every day. Even when you think it's awful, keep writing.
I would like to take this time to point out that this advice is full of crap. I'm not sure I can think of worse advice to give someone trying to write a novel. If there's anything aspiring writers can do quite well without any encouragement at all, it's writing a lot of crap. Hundreds of thousands of words of crap. This "write all the time" advice gives the impression that somehow all this terrible, pointless writing is useful in some way. As if it will magically turn into something workable eventually, if you just keep at it. Well, that's a lie.
This is what I have learned: don't just write because you have promised yourself at least 1000 words a day. Don't dump crap into your manuscript. I know some people prefer the editing to first draft writing, but really, if you're not sure where your story is going, that crap you're dumping into the manuscript is going to change your direction if you're not careful. Why turn toward the crap?
So my new advice (at least to myself) is: plot every day. Build characters every day. Work on the backstories and the motivations, the little details that are coming up in your next chapter. Work on the story structure every day. Write some fanfiction for your own story, if you want. Write deleted scenes. But only write the thing for real when you know what the hell you're doing. Be precise about what's going into the manuscript, and keep the imprecise in other contexts. Because while all your characters need backstories, they don't all need to be detailed in the manuscript itself. They should come through the manuscript, but if your modus operandi is to write write write every day, your backstory building will end up in the story rather than merely peeking through it.
I've come to the conclusion that stories need metastories. Background material, random musing, attempted and deleted scenes, extaneous dialogue. As long as you have all that stuff, you can keep the front end, the part of the production that's on stage, tight and on point. Possibly everyone else figured this out long before I did and will now sit back and have a good laugh. Yes! Finally I have discovered this fundamental truth! Not everything you write deserves to be in the manuscript! Hallelujah!
So go ahead and write every day, but keep yourself in the practice arena for a good portion of the time. You should probably get more exercise there than in front of the camera. And for those experienced writers out there: please stop telling us to write every day. At least, be clearer: tell us to write something every day, but remind us not to expect what we write to be our stories. Most of that writing has to go into background work. You could save us so much grief by clueing us into this little fact. Unless you like to see us suffer.
This message brought to you by a person who is really only 5 chapters into the story she is attempting to tell, and is clearly not a person from whom anyone should take any advice from to start with, let alone advice about writing. Meh!
