Earlier this week, on one of the gaming forums that I frequent, a fan asked me for writing advice. I gave him my usual multi-paragraph spiel, both about writing and about publishing. But afterward, I got to thinking, and I realized a funny thing. The writing advice I always give, if boiled down to its most basic precepts, summarizes thusly:
1) Practice regularly (if not daily, then close to it).
2) Finish what you start.
3) Seek out the opinions/feedback of others, and take legitimate criticism to heart.
4) When submitting to agents/publishers, look into what they want, and follow their directions even if they don’t necessarily make sense to you.
As I said, there’s more detail to it, but that’s what it boils down to. Now, have you noticed anything about that particular advice?
Here’s a hint: It applies to everything, not just writing.
I didn’t mean to make my advice that general, and I stand by it, but it’s true: The advice I’ve given could be applied–often precisely as written, but at least with only minor modification–to almost every creative endeavor, be it job or hobby, in existence.
But wait a minute. There are shelves and shelves of books on writing. Surely there’s more to say about it than just that!
Well, yes–and no. Obviously, a book can help teach you the mechanics of writing. Grammar, sentence structure, how to build a plot, whatever. (I think classes or reading groups are better for that than books, but books aren’t bad.) But the craft of writing? How you should set up your regimen? How you should plan your novels? Develop your stories? Design your characters? How, ultimately, to write a book?
Every book ever written about that is wrong.
(I shall now sit back and wait for the shouting to die down.)
Okay, that was a bit inflammatory, so let me clarify. Every book ever written about “how to write” is wrong for some portion of its audience.
It may seem obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway. There is no single right way to write. There’s no single technique, or group of techniques, that work for everyone. Period. Full stop.
Books that give advice, books that say “This is what worked for me, you might want to try it” are perfectly acceptable. That’s part of how you learn anything, not just writing; listen to how the experts do it, and see which of their techniques you can adapt.
The problem is, a lot of the experts think their way is the One True Way, and it’s just not. Writing is far too personal an experience for any universal rules to apply.
Almost every time the topic of books on “how to write” comes up, someone inevitably mentions Stephen King’s On Writing. It’s a wonderful book. It’s well written, and it’s interesting–both the parts about writing, and the part’s about King’s life and experiences. And whether you’re a King fan or not, you’ve got to admit, the man knows what he’s talking about. Obviously, he knows how to write to attract an audience, and he’s certainly prolific enough. (I’m guessing that, in the time it’s taking me to write this column, he’s probably written a novel. Maybe two.)
But despite it being an excellent and useful book, I always hesitate briefly before recommending it, and it’s all because of one specific segment. In it, King says that authors shouldn’t outline their books; that the end result is better without outlines, and that an author cannot surprise a reader if the author is not himself/herself surprised by the ending.
If he’d written that as “This is what works for me,” I’d have no problem with it. But he writes it as a hard and fast rule. He writes it as though it’s the “One True Way.” (One of the only times in the book where he does that, in fact.) And it’s just flat-out wrong.
Oh, not for everyone. I know lots of writers who don’t outline. On the other hand, I know lots who do, myself included. And while I’m no Stephen King–either in terms of success, or in terms of the size of my library–I’ve tried both ways, and I’ve written enough novels to know that I cannot write a halfway decent novel without outlining. Trying to do so is much harder work, for me, to produce a much lesser final product. And I know the same is true of plenty of other authors. “To outline or not to outline” is a major authorly topic of discussion. (Yeah, we’re party animals, we are.)
King wasn’t wrong if you take what he was offering as advice. But if you take it as instruction? Yeah, for (roughly, at a guess) half his audience, he was.
(Stephen, if by some miracle you’re reading this, I really did love all the rest of the book, but for that one passage. 
)
Is my point that you shouldn’t read any such books? Listen to the “experts”? No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. I’m merely saying that you should–must–take even the most strident “instruction” as nothing more than advice, something that worked well for one person and is thus worth considering, but may or may not work for you. The problem is that “writing authorities”–be they successful writers or college professors–often mistake solid advice for instruction, and they can actually, without any ill intentions, poison the craft of younger writers. I had a creative writing professor in college who told me that all genre fiction was by definition inferior, and I was wasting my talent. I got lots of other good advice from him, but if I’d listened to that, I wouldn’t have a career. (And you should hear the kind of advice he did try to give me on genre writing, when he realized I wasn’t going to stop. Awful.)
“Write what you know” is another old canard–and it’s also BS. Write what interests you, and learn about it. I think it’d be more accurate to say “Get to know what you write.”
“Show, don’t tell.” It’s a good dictum to follow for the most part, but even this–arguably the single most ubiquitous writing advice in existence–isn’t right all the time. Sometimes–if the events or details in question happen over an otherwise boring/uneventful span of time, or their important but apply to a character who’s not going to be around long–on those rare occasions, you know what? You can tell. It’s okay. It won’t ruin your book, as long as you don’t overdo it.
Innovation? Overrated. (Again, I’ll wait for the shouting to die down.) I didn’t say it was bad; just overrated. I’ve said this elsewhere; innovation, like anything else, is a tool. Use it to help your writing, your characters, your story, whatever. But it should never be a goal. Your goal is to tell a good story. If you can innovate in the process, that’s great. But (using fantasy as an example), I’d much rather read a well-written Tolkien or Howard rip-off than a poorly written example of something new for the sake of being new.
Anyway, I’m getting a little off-track; my examples are threatening to overwhelm my point, which is this: Up-and-coming writers shouldn’t let themselves be discouraged by the thought that, according to the authorities, they’re doing it “wrong.” I’m not saying don’t follow the rules of good storytelling (especially when you start getting feedback from actual editors ). But there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules to the actual craft of writing, other than those that–as I said before–apply to all creative endeavor. Practice. Hone your craft. Follow advice. Take criticism.
Figure out what works for you, no matter what the “experts” say, and hone it until it also works for an audience. Everything else is negotiable.
ARI MARMELL is the author of The Conqueror’s Shadow (Spectra) and Agents of Artifice (Wizards of the Coast). His forthcoming novels include The Warlord’s Legacy (Spectra, January 25, 2011) and The Goblin Corps (Pyr Books, mid- to late 2011). He’s also contributed to about 2,479 different role-playing game books, for two different editions of Dungeons & Dragons and several of White Wolf’s World of Darkness games. The Conqueror’s Shadow will be available in mass-market paperback later this month; you can read a free excerpt by clicking here.
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You can see more of Ari’s credits, and read more of his so-called “thoughts,” at mouseferatu.com, or find him on Twitter at twitter.com/mouseferatu.
Great column, Ari. That bit about not outlining in ON WRITING has always stuck in my craw. Amusingly, one of the most common criticisms of King’s writing (particularly his longer books) is the way he paints himself into corners and resolves complex plots with hokey deus ex machina ploys, mystical hand-waving, etc.
It’s become so rote with him that I pretty much begin his books expecting them to slip into murky supernaturalism. Mr. King, I humbly submit that anything can become predictable when relied upon as a crutch. The true labor of plotting is in arranging events to cascade logically from one another, and ensure they hit the reader with both a sense of surprise and inevitability.
Your last two sentences are really all that needs to be said. There is so much advice out there, but it boils down to: “write in whatever way gets you to produce something that satisfies both you and the audience.”