Advice that is useless. A collection.

[Corty]

This thread is subjective. It may have been a result of me getting annoyed. But tell me, what advice have you heard a million times? Those that are just parroted cliché advice that is loved to be used by pretentious know-it-alls. I'll start:

Show, don't tell.

In my opinion, this is the stupidest and most cliché advice that people like to throw around without understanding it. A book is not a movie nor a script for one. The author must tell the reader what is happening.

Most of the time, the people who use this overused phrase don't even know what they mean by it. Instead of explaining their point, like that instead of writing down, "Alice was angry." the writer could have written a scene where she does something out of place, a reaction to the event that made the character angry. But no, they just, at best, throw out the "Git Gud" phrase of writing and then do fuck all to explain what even their issue is. Probably because they don't even know what their issue was besides disliking something.

This leads to the following:

Then, there is the point when the author describes the land where the story takes place. I am seeing a pattern nowadays that people can't handle scenery descriptions and a bit of lore before any dialogue even takes place. I mean, the introduction to a new world, how it gets the "show, don't tell" people to show up like flies to a fresh pile of shit. The same people who then compare the writing to Tolkien's LotR, for what they are expecting, where scenery and lore descriptions took up 15 pages at a time. This further reinforces my belief that people don't know what they are talking about.

It is a catch-22 because I also see that if the "tell" phase is left out of a book, readers tend to fill in the plot with their preconceived ideas and then ruin their own enjoyment, drawing the wrong conclusions. Usually, because they expect the author to show them the rules in chapter one, the same rules you can't show them yet as it wouldn't make any sense plot-wise. For that, the story needs to advance first, but they bail because they weren't shown nor told. Now what?

So, instead of the useless advice of "show, don't tell," it would be much better to advise the author on where to change. Where to use descriptions and descriptions of action. Where to write down that a character is evil, and when should you replace it with writing a scene of the character kicking a puppy.

 

[Rookieqw]

Read more. I am reading every day and still suck. The advice should be not to read more, but to read stories in a genre you want to write and examine how the authors build dialogue, plot, worldbuilding, or simply their writing, not mindlessly consume the plot.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

I disagree, think you're stupid and should die



jk for the especially sensitive
Also "advice" has no plural form

Read more. I am reading every day and still suck. The advice should be not to read more, but to read stories in a genre you want to write and examine how the authors build dialogue, plot, worldbuilding, or simply their writing, not mindlessly consume the plot.

Nah you just read too little

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

In this day and age, where people have shorter attention span thanks to web novel, you have to BOTH Show and Tell, in combination, to get the readership of people with lesser reading skill below the elites of the forums.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

@Corty it's "advice that is useless. A collection"

 

[Keene]

The variation of:

"Cut out unnecessary dialogue. People in novels and movies don't have conversations like normal people."

While true, and excessive casual speech such as "Hey" "Hey" "What's up?" "Nothing much, you?" "Mmm" should be eliminated...

I've found that a certain amount of fluff is very useful for giving scenes colour and giving characters life. One of the most reoccurring compliments I get with Amelia Thornheart is how readers appreciate how the characters interact - and to do that I let them play off each other with banter and playfulness that in the grand scheme of things has little to do with the plot and is simply there for flavour and characterization.

TL;DR Let the characters breath, and don't try and min-max every conversation line and optimise it.

 

[LilRora]

I don't agree with that assessment about show, not tell. Well, maybe I do with the part where many people don't know what it really means, but I don't have much experience in that regard. You don't need to write whole scenes to show something though - usually, just a single sentence is sufficient.

What I do know is that show, not tell refers primarily to using various adjectives and descriptors that only tell us general and/or emotionally primed information. Instead of writing "Alice was angry, but tried not to show it.", you can do "Alice's face contorted for a moment before she relaxed, but her eyebrows were still furrowed.".

On one hand, the first description is better because it's not up to interpretation what she feels - on the other, though, it is far worse because her behavior is completely up to interpretation. That, by extension, provides a very bland image of what is actually happening in the story that leaves a huge amount of information up to the readers imagination. That may be fine for some people, but there's are things that should be specified because they can be important character traits or worldbuilding elements.

Specifically in regards to the latter, I have recently seen a very bad example of telling. The author wrote (paraphrasing cause I don't remember exactly) "The streets were full of people navigating the city with ease." Now an omniscient narrator may know it's true, but how is the reader supposed to imagine this? What's the sign of navigating with ease? Those are things that should be shown, not told offhandedly and left to imagination.

Now, I do agree that leaving the tell out completely is not a great idea either, but that part should be done through dialogue and character's words and thoughts. The primary reason for that is books, unless they want to push some specific agenda which generally isn't a good idea, should not contain outside opinions on their content. If a character is evil, they can be called evil - but it should be done by a character in the story through their own, flawed lens, not by the author.

This refers, as I mentioned above, primarily to various emotionally primed words and phrases (mostly related to various values) such as evil, disgusting, repulsive, beautiful, decaying (in the sociological context), but also more general and neutral descriptions, such as time running out, complicated, simple, special, unusual, happy. Those should be opinions, not facts, but most have signs that can be spotted and expressed as facts.

It is obviously virtually impossible to do that all the time, and hyperfocusing on it will only be a problem, but I would defninitely not say this is useless advice, maybe it should just be expanded on.

I may have focused too much on your writing a scene.

 

[Corty]

On one hand, the first description is better because it's not up to interpretation what she feels - on the other, though, it is far worse because her behavior is completely up to interpretation.

There is no room for interpretation in the first version as the author tells it as it is: She is angry. But that was my point, exactly, that when most people say show, don't tell, they are trying to say that they expect a description of the character's reactions, not the author writing, "She is angry." But they can't explain themselves and just throw out show-don't-tell comments. My whole point was that they just parrot it instead of explaining the issues, handwaving it away with this umbrella term.

"The streets were full of people navigating the city with ease." Now an omniscient narrator may know it's true, but how is the reader supposed to imagine this? What's the sign of navigating with ease? Those are things that should be shown, not told offhandedly and left to imagination.

How do you show that? Start describing how people were walking from street to street? Isn't that just more "tell" if the author starts describing it, and we start following random people to show they can go from one place to another?

If a character is evil, they can be called evil - but it should be done by a character in the story through their own, flawed lens, not by the author.

Yes.

It is obviously virtually impossible to do that all the time, and hyperfocusing on it will only be a problem, but I would defninitely not say this is useless advice, maybe it should just be expanded on.

I deemed it useless advice because 9 out of 10 times, the ones who give that advice don't explain what they mean by it. And just know that it is the most used one. What you described is what should have been the criticism for a prose that falls into those quagmires, but instead, people simply say "show, don't tell" and dust their hands.

Ergo, it is useless advice because the author won't even know what they mean by it and can't improve or fix it. When asked for an explanation, the next step for them is usually to point toward some tips and tricks thread or YT video instead of giving the author examples from their own work so they can understand the advice that is being given to them.

Meaning it was useless advice because it didn't have the supposed effect.

 

[CheertheSecond]

Also "advice" has no plural form

The fuck do you mean? - Me looking at my 200 chapters of wrong grammar.

 

[MarekSusicky]

Well said Corty, I agree with that. I got my work back with notes saying I am telling too much. It was true generally, but not in all instances. It's useless to describe a tree if the tree is useless to the story. So better advice would be like...

What is your intent? Build on that. Consider the sentence "Dark and silent hospital hallway, she walked there."

Does the story right now need Drive the plot? You can detail:
"She crept down the dark hospital hallway, her shoes barely touching the cold tiles as she desperately tried to hear any sound in the weird silence."

Does the story right now need character development? You can tell:
"The hospital hallway was dark and silent, making her feel uneasy as she walked."

Does the story right now need world building? You can detail:
"The fluorescent lights flickered weakly, casting long shadows down the empty hospital hallway, where she silently walked."

Does the story right now need fast pace? You can tell:
"As she walked, the dark hospital hallway was silent."


And I have one other that I don't agree 100% with critique.

Weird Dialogue Tags
Write said, it's invisible. Don't do weird ones like, "she squirted," the readers are going to stop reading and are like WUT?
It is true, so it has its merit. But I am personally fond of tags that are not that usual. Of course, not every tag needs to be like that, but not every tag needs to be said.

Like consider this:
"Who's there?" she whispered.
"Who's there?" she said, her voice barely audible.

It adds flavour, prevents repetitiveness of said, and is expressive.

Thoughts?

 

[Corty]

It adds flavour, prevents repetitiveness of said, and is expressive.

Agreed. It is also how I avoid writing she said, he said in my dialogue.

I also agree with your examples. I think there are times when describing things adds to the atmosphere. Of course, there will always be readers who just want the meat and nothing more.

 

[AngryCat]

"Usually, because they expect the author to show them the rules in chapter one, the same rules you can't show them yet as it wouldn't make any sense plot-wise. For that, the story needs to advance first, but they bail because they weren't shown nor told. Now what?"

I can so relate to this. Man, makes me real happy you pointed this out. Happened to me once in the past. Someone wrote a 0.5 review after reading like just three chapters, complaining that the author gives no information about 'this', and 'that'. I was like 'Nigga, this is information that would be revealed like at least after a hundred chapters into the story, or somewhere at the end'. Or even worse, they ask about information that is very easy to deduce, and would clearly be in the category 'show', however, that requires a certain minimal brain power to be had.

In short, some people are just too stupid. Stupid, and they think they are some kind of genius. Sad, but true. Wish there could be some sort of option for writers to completely avoid certain readers before they have the chance to 'open their mouths'. Alas...

 

[ThrillingHuman]

Of course, there will always be readers who just want the meat and nothing more.

 

[LilRora]

There is no room for interpretation in the first version as the author tells it as it is: She is angry. But that was my point, exactly, that when most people say show, don't tell, they are trying to say that they expect a description of the character's reactions, not the author writing, "She is angry." But they can't explain themselves and just throw out show-don't-tell comments. My whole point was that they just parrot it instead of explaining the issues, handwaving it away with this umbrella term.

Ok, makes sense. I mostly do agree on this, though whether angry is up to interpretation is debatable.

How do you show that? Start describing how people were walking from street to street? Isn't that just more "tell" if the author starts describing it, and we start following random people to show they can go from one place to another?

That's the issue. From the character's perspective, that's almost impossible to tell - and for that reason, writing it directly is weird. When you show that, however, you can write that the people were walking quickly, you can add they weren't looking around or meandering. What this means is subject to interpretation, but that's only as much as we can glean from a quick look if we're not omniscient.

I deemed it useless advice because 9 out of 10 times, the ones who give that advice don't explain what they mean by it. And just know that it is the most used one. What you described is what should have been the criticism for a prose that falls into those quagmires, but instead, people simply say "show, don't tell" and dust their hands.

Ergo, it is useless advice because the author won't even know what they mean by it and can't improve or fix it. When asked for an explanation, the next step for them is usually to point toward some tips and tricks thread or YT video instead of giving the author examples from their own work so they can understand the advice that is being given to them.

Meaning it was useless advice because it didn't have the supposed effect.

Makes sense, you used slightly different criteria for useless than I did. With this context, I agree.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Every advice is a useless advice if you are as dumb as me.

 

[Corty]

Every advice is a useless advice if you are as dumb as me.

I advise you to stop eating glue! ?

 

[Rookieqw]

Every advice is a useless advice if you are as dumb as me.

You are not dumb. Your novel is rather popular, from what I can see. Believe in yourself and go have fun.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

You are not dumb. Your novel is rather popular, from what I can see. Believe in yourself and go have fun.

 

[LilRora]

Weird Dialogue Tags
Write said, it's invisible. Don't do weird ones like, "she squirted," the readers are going to stop reading and are like WUT?
It is true, so it has its merit. But I am personally fond of tags that are not that usual. Of course, not every tag needs to be like that, but not every tag needs to be said.

Like consider this:
"Who's there?" she whispered.
"Who's there?" she said, her voice barely audible.

It adds flavour, prevents repetitiveness of said, and is expressive.

Thoughts?

I mostly agree on the weird tags, but I couldn't disagree more on the said. Weird dialogue tags can be distracting and they shouldn't be used much, but using said or whispered or shouted can be just as bad if used excessively.

It's not invisible. It is, in fact, glaringly obvious and disrupting when listening to audiobooks and can be annoying to a lesser degree when reading normally. It may also be troublesome for authors, because it forces you to name who's speaking. It's often far better to completely skip the tag or replace it with an action.

In your examples, you can do:
"Who's there?"
"Who's there?" Her voice was barely audible.

 

[MarekSusicky]

I mostly agree on the weird tags, but I couldn't disagree more on the said. Weird dialogue tags can be distracting and they shouldn't be used much, but using said or whispered or shouted can be just as bad if used excessively.

It's not invisible. It is, in fact, glaringly obvious and disrupting when listening to audiobooks and can be annoying to a lesser degree when reading normally. It may also be troublesome for authors, because it forces you to name who's speaking. It's often far better to completely skip the tag or replace it with an action.

In your examples, you can do:
"Who's there?"
"Who's there?" Her voice was barely audible.

Yes, that was what I was pointing at. It's an advice often said. When I need to specify who is talking without them taking an action, I can use said, but I usually try to avoid writing it, and as you said, I just write:

“I know, child. Trust me, I would know.” With a swift motion, he opened a drawer and pulled out a crumpled, yellowed document.