Other Writing tips that you heard when starting out that are actually terrible

[an_awassi]

What are some writing tips you heard, whether it be from school or from others that end up doing more harm than good?
One that I always heard was "Never say 'said'" Basically saying that you should never use the word said when having a character speak. This only ends up making things sound awkward when you start running out of variations and start seeing weird synonyms. Normally the times I use different versions of the word said are when I'm referring to the character's volume and when I wanna get an emotion across, I portray it via body language.

 

[SmallKoy]

Forcing yourself to write every day. This might seem controversial to some, Idk, but you should write as often as you can. If you can write daily, perfect. Try not to get hung up on the mindset that you have to write every single day.

 

[Vessel]

sooooo many. the "don't say 'said'" one is definitely a big one. generally when there's a simple dialogue tag like "said," readers will gloss over it once they see it enough times. using a word that's too "unique" or unusual just draws attention to it when the attention should be on the dialogue and not its tag.

I have a love-hate relationship with "show don't tell" since I think some people get caught up in being as descriptive as possible when it's not always necessary.

 

[anotherrooster]

I have a love-hate relationship with "show don't tell" since I think some people get caught up in being as descriptive as possible when it's not always necessary.

This, especially in roleplay where there's plenty of scenes that just don't translate/work when you only write half the characters.

Timeskips especially, some writers struggle or just can't do these at all. You have to tell and not show, otherwise you're going to be writing a massive, strenuous response that your rp partner can't actually reply to
Also hi lol

For my own personal bad advice, write what you know. Of course this has logic behind it, and is helpful for new writers, but I've seen writers absolutely terrified of simple things as the opposite gender, different sexualities, time periods or even genres

When it comes to culture and other heavier topics, yes this is understandable, but I don't think you should be afraid to embrace and research a story just because you don't 100% relate! Most will appreciate you trying, as long as you're open to fair criticism.

 

[lizardanya]

this might be a controversial take but i actually think "don't write said" is great advice. the problem is the way it's phrased: the assumed logical conclusion of that advice is to just vary your vocabulary, but vocabulary is actually not the problem here. it's sentence structure. the actual problem is when you have pages upon pages of dialogue that all go "[dialogue]" character said. "[dialogue]" character said. "[dialogue]" character said. if you replace the vocabulary all you're doing is wallpapering over the actual issue, the issue being that we already know these characters are having a conversation, you constantly repeating the fact that these characters are speaking is wasting words to convey the exact same information you've already told to the reader a million times.

the real advice would be: vary the way you convey the fact that these characters are having a conversation. we already know they're saying words, that's not necessary information, the only thing you actually need to make clear is which character is speaking at any given time and what tone they're saying it with. a lot of the time you can straight up skip the word 'said', not by replacing it with something but getting rid of it altogether. make the dialogue interesting and characterize the emotion in creative ways, show don't say. "[dialogue]," character was fiddling with a ring on his middle finger, his lips curving around the vowels cautiously, carefully. <- that is a better sentence than "[dialogue]," character said nervously, and that's not a matter of finding a cool synonym for said, it's a matter of describing the specific details of how you might know a person is speaking nervously when you observe them. it tells you the specifics of how they're nervous, lets you know some character quirks, uses language in a creative way. it uses sentence structure in a better way. really writing is about conveying information in the most effective way possible, and a lot of bad writing advice is bad because instead of explaining how one might use language to convey information effectively, it just shortcuts to a cookie cutter solution that ends up only working in specific cases.

anyway, for me possibly the worst early writing advice is "no repetition". repetition is a technique like any other, it's not inherently good or bad, it just can be used effectively or poorly. repetition can be extremely effective and potent, as long as it is done thoughtfully. i think much better advice would be "think about why you're repeating something if you are repeating it". if you're using a word constantly, are you doing it to make a point or just because you're running out of words? does it make a point regardless? thoughtless repetition can be a plague, and, inversely, thoughtful repetition can be one of the best things there is.

 

[StrawberryAvalanche]

For me it was copy what your favorite writers do with your own work. So like writing in the style of Jane Austen for a bit for example while writing my own stories. Sure, it's a great warmup exercise to try and think how they would write something but not for a whole story.