Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Don Murray says the three worst pieces of advice he was ever given were:
1. If you like it, cut it out.
2. Know what you are going to say before you write it.
3. Don’t write what’s been said before.
I’ve been given these gems of advice before myself and they elicit a big yawn.
Writers are always told to “delete their darlings” in the name of editing. It’s like some kind of sacred act of martyrdom that makes the piece better somehow. But, I say, keep your darlings and edit around them. If you like it, make it work.
As for knowing what you are going to say before you write it, that’s bullshit. I usually don’t know what I’m saying until long after I’ve written it. This leads to another piece of advice I can’t stand: “Always outline.” I’m not that structured. I prefer sitting and allowing a story to construct itself. If I planned it out, line by line, chapter by chapter, I’d bore myself to tears.
When someone says, “That’s been said before,” my response is, “Duh.” I’m pretty sure everything has been said before. Love, birth, death, betrayal — there are certain themes we revisit over and over again, through different stories, because they are part of the human experience and we hope to understand them better via new perspectives and voices and characters. That’s what’s different — the perspectives and voices and characters. The rest — the gist of your story — has probably been explored before.
Another piece of “bad” advice I’d like to add to Murray’s list is this:
“Write what you know.”
That seems very dull and reminds me of a Robert Duncan quote:
“If I write what you know, I bore you; if I write what I know know, I bore myself. Therefore, I write what I don’t know.”
So do I. I may reference emotions I’ve experienced, or draw on people from my life, but I prefer to write stories that demand research. That’s the joy of writing for me — delving into lives of characters who are not me.
What bad writing advice have you ignored?