Advice—Sifting the Good from the Bad

These days, there’s a lot of advice out there for aspiring authors. This is one of the best (and I’m going to argue, potentially the worst) things about the internet, on-line loops, list-serves, blogs, conferences, writers’ groups, workshops etc.

Molly’s great talk and blog on beginnings—particularly her point that if you believe all the advice you’ve heard about how NOT to start a book, it would be impossible to start one at all—combined with me extolling the virtues of reading industry blogs last week, spurred me to think about how hard it can be, for newbie writers in particular, to sift the good advice from the bad.

And newbie probably isn’t the right word. And it’s a totally subjective thing, anyway. I think some people who decide write educate themselves quickly (Sinead) and stop being newbie writers within the first year, even if it takes them another ten to get published (but it’s not going to take Sinead that long). Others are still newbies after publishing their tenth book. (No names mentioned here, but definitely NOT Molly.)

My point is, a newbie in the context I mean here, is anyone who gets confused/overwhelmed by conflicting advice. She/he hears advice and lacks the filters or experience to decide whether it ends up in the good advice or bad advice bin.

And there’s a LOT of bad advice out there. A LOT. And to complicate things, what I consider bad advice, others—at least the person offering it—considers good advice. So what’s a writer to do?

For me it goes back to what I’ve said on this blog before. You have to decide what kind of career you want. What kind of a writer you want to be. Then knowing that, you’ve already got your first filter. Does this make sense for the type of career I want. Does the person offering the advice have the kind of career I want? Write the type of books I write?

But even then, each successful author’s story is a little different. For example, some will say get a great agent first. That is, never submit to editors without an agent because then if you get rejected, agents won’t touch your project because it’s already been shopped. On the opposite side of the advice wall, others will insist it’s much easier to get a publishing contract than literary representation, so you should submit to editors and once you have a contract in hand, call your top five dream agents and choose one then.

I know people who’ve been successful both ways, but personally, in sifting through this particular instance of conflicting advice, I thought about what kind of career I wanted, what kind of publisher I wanted (did they even look at unagented submissions), how many years ago the authors offering the advice first sold and who they sold to. Also what other circumstances may have come into play—like what the market was doing at the time, how they met their editor if they did the editor-first route etc. After applying those filters it was clear for me. I took the get an agent advice.

Another thing it’s important to remember when reading advice is that there are no absolutes. Nothing in writing is black or white. (Except maybe paper and ink?) Diana Peterfreund has a great series of articles on “Good Advice Gone Bad” I wish I had written. They basically all make the point that if you take any piece of advice too literally, you’re probably making a mistake. The articles are indexed at the side of her blog. Check them out.

So when you hear/read some advice (including what I’m writing now, LOL) the first thing to consider is who’s giving the advice? Check out their books, their website, other things they’ve said. There are (in my not-always-as-humble-as-it-should-be opinion) some real idiots out there on the loops offering up their “wisdom” to the masses. And I’m sure there are people out there who think we drunk writers are idiots. (They’re wrong. At least about Sinead and Molly.)

It's also important to understand the reasons behind any particular piece of advice. Don't just accept it as a "rule". I think this is particularly true with advice on craft. I mean, of course you can have a flashback in a book. Lots of great books have flashbacks. But I think it’s important to understand why Jenny Crusie and many others think they are a very bad idea. She’s smart and her reasons make sense—but that doesn’t mean that, after knowing those reasons and thinking about your particular book, that a flashback won’t be the very best way to tell your particular story. Just be honest with yourself.

Another thing to remember with craft advice: there are many, many ways to say roughly the same things. Three act plotting, four act plotting, hero’s journey, heroine’s journey (all loosely the same thing); inciting incident, put your hero up a tree, first point of conflict (all loosely the same thing); turning points, plot points, reversals; black moment, climax; GMC, conflict, tension; outlining, storyboarding… And two great books on writing (McKee's Story and the Browne & King book on editing) both use the term "beats" and mean something completely different.

There are as many ways to think about writing as there are writers writing who enjoy writing about writing. (Phew!)

Don’t get bogged down in the vocabulary or conflicting advice. Learn what you can, figure out what works for you and then JUST DO IT. (Am I going to get sued by Nike now?)