Advice that is useless. A collection.

[RepresentingWrath]

Just like Corty's bit, is really bad on its own, but can be good advice when it's explained.

What this actually means, at least to me, is not to be afraid of others' criticism and write what you like, cause even if your story isn't popular, there are people that will enjoy it. Put this way, it may not be great advice, but it's definitely not useless, particularly if it's specified seriously considering criticism and feedback is a completely separate matter.

I've seen too many authors (mostly here on Scribble) that would receive criticism and immediately rush to change their story to fit what they were told. That's a quick way to ruin the story and the enjoyment from writing it. Similarly, a lot of people here have been heavily discouraged by bad reception.

Also, I had a thought just now, pretty much any kind of advice that can fit into a phrase is useless. There's too much room for interpretation then.

Doesn't really matter what it actually means since people don't elaborate. They leave "write for yourself ?" and go. I don't have a probelm with elaborated advices. Same way how Corty won't have problems if you elaborate on show don't tell, provide examples, tell why and how it is used, and stress out it's not a rule but a guideline. But the reality is, people don't do it.

Also, I still disagree with it. It's not transparent enough. As someone who did two feedback threads that turned into graveyard of stories, I am certain in this part, and no one will be able to change my opinion. You should always mention that if you don't make sacrifices, chances are high you will have no readers. It is important to stress this part out.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Best worst advice I ever got was from a buddy-gone-ghost-in-times-of-need: "Read more prose ! If it doesn't sound like the lovechild of Kafka fucking Shakespeare and Dickens in a day-long orgy, while the reader needs a 2k pages long glossary then it isn't worth reading"

Prose is well and good, but there's a time and place and it isn't now! Or Ever! Effing dood had a prose-boner the size of the Eifel tower...

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

"Just read more." For newbies.

You've seen what I have to say about this. In short, tear that bitch apart and look at the "how" it was written than the substance it contains. You need a skeleton to start off with. You can easily add-on anything to that afterwards.

Open books at random pages and ask how the dialogue is being portrayed. What is being said? Why is it important? Do you need to know the background as to why the context is happening the way it is for this random scene? No.

You figure out what is being given to a reader not a character! Are you getting details on an event, person, object? Is something even being described or is it pure emotion between characters, a situation, an exposition? How do the details being given matter? Is it giving context to something or someone? Illiciting emotions? What is being tied to what and how? In the brief writing that you have seen are things speeding up or slowing down? Maybe meandering?

It's perfectly fine if you have blobs or mannequin heads floating around as you try to visualize it. At a random point in a story it's doubtful you are getting another descriptive event for the characters shown. Focus on the glue that is holding the random (from your point of view) paragraphs, the prose, style, etc.

 

[lambenttyto]

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.

Indeed!

But I would add, at least for myself, read genres you think you aren't interested in. You will learn a lot.

 

[Story_Marc]

This may or may not shock you, but I hate most common writing advice. Most of it is, frankly, the blind leading the blind.

This is one reason I do what I do and constantly try to improve myself, as I'd rather give people actual substance and true direction instead of that vague bullshit.

Here's a list of incompetent advice that is meaningless if you don't actually know what you're talking about.

- Write what you know
- Characters should be relatable
- Just write
- Start with action to hook readers
- Write every day
- Edit ruthlessly
- Just write
- Your protagonist needs to be likable
- Kill your darlings
- Make your antagonist the hero of their own story
- Just write

I fucking hate people who just parrot stuff. Seek understanding, not advice.

...Also, it's not that the advice itself is inherently bad -- I could easily explore all of this on my own with some stuff -- it's that I feel how one presents the advice that shows how competent they are at explaining writing. Or how much they even actually understand sometimes. Like, going from show, don't tell, I agree it's bad advice. I believe the actual principle behind it is great, but most people are terrible at breaking it down. It's one reason I ended up making a whole video on it where I explain a better way of looking at it, why it works, and how to find telling and then a counterpart video for when you should tell instead of show.

...Circling back around to this, since I want to dig a little deeper into the big issue here. A lot of writing advice is recycled, oversimplified, or disconnected from the actual challenges writers face. It's a terrible game of telephone where advice passed down gets stripped of nuance, which turns it into more performative than practical. It's surface-level platitudes.

 

[Puji-Maki]

I don't listen to advice, because it makes me feel less of a writer. However I respect their opinion and I will never belittle them. Also whenever my readers ask for more chapters, I also feel the same as them. But ideas and writing are different things. There are times when I don't know what to write.