How To Write. Maybe.

here - have some 'writing advice'

If you're anything like me, then a major amount of time spent in front of the computer screen is not always time spent... well, writing. Like the husband imagines it is. Actually he probably still thinks I'm shoehorning in a bit of on-line dating, which I did a lot of at the time we met (and I spent a lot of 'courting' hours trying to reassure him I'd deleted all my accounts the second our eyes met, but you don't want to know all this).
*ahem*
So, whilst the internet is, indeed, a marvel of modern technology, it also holds way too many distractions that I never considered possible. Procrastination- fixes are so easily and quickly fulfilled when there's a Google in your face (if you told me 25 years ago I'd be writing that sentence I'd have snorted into my Brandy and Babycham!).

Point in case: this post. As I couldn't think of anything entertaining, educational or worthwhile to say, I thought I'd have a sly Google (again, *snort*). I typed in "how to write" and could NOT believe when the search returned 529 million results. That's a heck of a lot of advice I'd say.

And then I started trawling. A lot of it is repetitive, like "Don't Use Adverbs".
Another helpful tip is, of course, to "use adverbs freely".

"Never use a verb other than SAID" seems to be a clear favourite, followed closely by the tip of (yup, you guessed it)  "Never JUST say"...
Which I agree with.  For instance, I'd have warmed a little more to Peter if he'd shrieked "Help!" as he plummeted from the plane rather than simply said "Help!", which for me, makes Peter look a little too blasé for the seriousness of his predicament. Let Peter hit the ground in a mangled mess of bloody limbs if that's his attitude.

There's an author (who I'm fond of) who almost never deviates from the *rule* of not using anything but 'said' - and for me, it kind of flattens a scene. It doesn't stop me reading on because the characters are always so frothy, but a bit of embellishment doesn't hurt, I don't think.
Think of a jam tart, then add cream. Isn't that better? cherry on top? Don't mind if I do, thanks.

Another hint is "Read it back aloud". Why? Do you generally read books aloud - unless they're about ducklings that get lost on the way to the pond or blustery days and rabbits that get stuck in holes? Al....righty then.

Then there's "Read everything you can in your chosen Genre".  Followed closely by (yeah, you're getting good at this) "Read widely outside of your Genre, if you write fiction, read non...". Now, call me old-fashioned but I'm  sure reading a Haynes manual for an Austin Allegro is not going to help me further my endeavours, so I'll stick to books I enjoy; actually want to read and not books somebody else thinks I should be reading thanks all the same.

I get particularly disturbed at the suggestion that I will get precisely nowhere without a degree in Creative Writing or similar.  Or else it will take me ten times longer than someone who does have one.  And whilst I thoroughly enjoyed my education, the thought of having to return to a classroom, constructing and de-constructing sentences, living on bread and water in a draughty garret (see - I don't need a degree to give me creative license) is not my idea of time or borrowed money well spent.

Anyway, after all this Googling (which I read somewhere will almost certainly make me go blind, so it must be true) I arrived at the station marked *Conclusion* and underneath, like a nice little welcome mat, it said "Write.  Just write.  That's all you need to do.".

help yourself - go on!

My Top Writing Tips

1) Don’t save good ideas for “later on”. When I first started writing novels, I would hold onto my darlings, such as an original metaphor. But in time I realized, that if get your best bits of inspiration down straightaway, more will follow. So if you imagine a really exciting scene between your MCs, or have thought up a highly relevant, amusing joke, run with them then and there. This is one more way of making sure that every chapter sparkles, not just the first and last and climatic ones. In other words, don’t let the quality of your work wax and wane – aim for it all to be the best it can.

2) Don’t be scared of adverbs. I recently battled over the use of ‘reluctantly’. I told myself it was lazy, that really I should show the character’s feelings about having to go down and answer the door in the middle of doing her homework.
Nessie tossed her pen on the table and went downstairs – um, no, makes her sound ratty.
Nessie sighed and went downstairs – um, not too bad but she’s already done a bit of sighing.
Nessie stuck her fingers in her ears and carried on with her homework – um, no because then the doorbell will have to be run more frantically/she will have to be called down more loudly, and really it’s not that sort of scene.
Reluctantly Nessie left her homework and went downstairs – perfect.

3) Probably not something many of you need telling, but when I first started out I got it into my head that my prose and dialogue had to be written ‘properly’, that I couldn’t possibly put down abbreviations and contemporary references and slang and ungrammatical sentences. I now realize that is not the case at all - especially with my current commerical teen book. I guess what I’m saying is, don’t be afraid to write how people speak - where necessary.

4) Kill the Thesaurus. Honestly – it’s just for occasional use. Like a large Havana cigar, treat it as a luxury, one that can give intense pleasure (when you actually find the right word) but, in excess will kill all your hard work. Keep your vocabulary simple. Avoid the exotic.

5) Vary your word structure, especially if you are writing in the first person, otherwise the word ‘I’ will jump out at the reader. If you read widely, you will no doubt instinctively use a variety of conjunctions and vary the position of your clauses. I was very aware of word structure the first time I wrote a novel in the first person, but have noticed, after consciously tracking and changing the position of the different parts of my sentences, a book later the whole process comes much more naturally. So, some things can be self-taught.

6) Finally, over time you’ll learn which advice to take on board and which to ignore. One of the ones I now pay less attention to concerns the throwing down of the first draft. Yes, I throw mine down, but then I’ll hone a day’s work, edit it and polish, before moving on. Doesn’t mean to say I won’t rewrite it all at the end, it’s simply the way I work and one reason I am failing miserably at Nano! Embrace your own foibles. Do what works for you.


Well, folks, I could go on and on. But I won’t. I’ll open up the floor. What can you teach us all?

Tipping off balance

Don't use passive voice
Don't use adverbs and adjectives
Avoid the verb 'to be'
Delete anything that you actually like
Shoot yourself immediately if you ever feel tempted to use a dialogue tag other than 'said.'

All right, so I exaggerate just to be stupid, but sometimes it feels as though the advice given to 'aspiring' writers is designed to stop you ever actually writing anything. How come you can pick up any published book and find adverbs, characters whispering or shouting things rather than saying them, and the verb 'to be' used perfectly sensibly without ruining the entire story?

I don’t think there’s one rule for published writers and another for first-timers. I think what’s really going on with advice like this is that the same problems crop up over and over, and helpful people want to warn against them. The trouble is that there’s nothing to catch the writer before he or she tips too far in the other direction, and one analogy that springs to mind here is with learning to ride.

When getting on a horse for the first time, many people subconsciously feel safer if they hunch their shoulders forward. The ground doesn't seem so far away, which is comforting, and the horse's mane is nearer for the rider to grab. A side-effect of hunching over is that the rider's toes point downwards. This whole posture looks ugly, but more pertinently than that, it’s not safe at all. It shifts your centre of gravity and messes up your balance so it doesn't take much for you to hit the deck.

That’s why anyone who had riding lessons as a kid will remember some demotivated, weathered fag-ash-Lil of an instructor bawling 'HEELS DOWN!' every five seconds. So you concentrate hard on keeping your heels down, and then she bawls 'HANDS DOWN!', and when you start thinking about the hands, you don’t notice the heels creeping upwards again.

I’m not a 'natural' rider, so any ability I have is down to trial and error (mostly error). As a pony-mad but nervous kid, I was a prime target for the 'HEELS DOWN!' shouts. Eventually, I started remembering not to let my toes point at the ground – hooray! I’d got the hang of it! Or so I thought.

I pushed my heels so far down that I ended up leaning back like a water-skier, with my feet sticking out next to the pony’s shoulders. Just as off-balance as I’d ever been, but in a different direction.

Some years later, it all became clear when a different instructor told me: 'The soles of your feet should be parallel to the ground.'

So that was it! Pretty simple, eh? Why hadn’t anyone just said that in the first place? They didn’t mean 'Heels down,' at all - they meant 'Heels not so far up!'

I think the same is true for the rules of writing. They are there for a reason – ignoring them altogether makes your work ugly and ineffective. But taking instructions too literally is just as likely to send you toppling into the dirt. In riding, recognising your centre of gravity becomes instinctive. It’s more difficult to achieve that with writing (for me, anyway) – maybe because it’s not so much of a matter of life and death – but I think it gradually becomes possible to recognise when the rules have a point, and when they’re tipping you off balance.

The Adverb Question

Strictly Writing has been going for over two months now, so it's about time we had a run-out of the perennial advice: “If you see an adverb, kill it!”

For those few who have never looked at a writing website or read a how-to book, this paraphrases a Mark Twain quotation about adjectives, and is used to illustrate the accepted wisdom that adverbs are the Lex Luthors of the English language. If you let one of those evil, pace-sapping little fiends near your book, you might as well chuck the whole thing out the window and get a normal hobby, because publishers are going to laugh at you, my friend.

I can understand why this wisdom exists. I only have to look at The Most Embarrassing Story in the World, which I wrote when I was a sixth former and sent off to a competition in The Times. I was going to root it out and give you a choice quotation, but I can't find it. Honest, guv, I can't. Suffice to say it was full of people talking nonchalantly or angrily, and fires burning redly. Actually, it would still have been crap without the adverbs, but they didn't help.

Of course new writers - and plenty of not-so-new ones - overuse adverbs. That goes without saying (except, er, I've just said it), because none of us would take up writing in the first place if we didn't love using words. But I think “no adverbs” is too often presented as a blanket rule that doesn't take into account the context, the story, the narrator's background, the target market or the writer's voice.

It's a British habit, for example, to modify speech for the sake of ironic understatement or to avoid appearing too pushy. A strong British narrative voice might well make brilliant use of adverbs. They can also be good indicators of character. Someone who says: “I probably shouldn't, but may I possibly have another tiny sliver of that rather delicious cake?” is very different from someone who says “Stuff the diet, give it here.”

But what I like best about adverbs is the sense of freedom they give me during a first draft. It would be wonderful to have the knack of turning out perfect sentences first time, but for me it's more important to get the book's structure sorted out before going into fine detail with the prose. Adverbs are handy placeholders while I'm caught up in the excitement of finding out where the story is going. The careful crafting comes later, and it's true that I'll say goodbye to many adverbs and adjectives – but it's a fond goodbye after they've helped me along my way. I'm glad I didn't know about the no adverbs rule when I started writing – it would have made me agonise so much that I would never have finished anything.

Those opposed to adverbs sometimes admit that it's OK to leave in one or two provided they're working hard. Quite right ... but that's true of everything else in the book too, isn't it? I feel sorry for adverbs, being singled out as the villains like that. Like other parts of the language, they can be useful or redundant, perfectly or lazily placed. We should judge them individually on what they do, not what they are.

http://www.carolinerance.co.uk/

Picture: Huckleberry Finn, by E. W. Kemble, 1884