Are we ready to hear good advice?

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I have a theory about writers and writing advice: “No advice is good until we’re ready to hear it.”

Take me, for example. Years ago, having just read Anne Lamott’s BIRD BY BIRD, I called up a writer friend to rave about it.
 
After burbling on about the book’s awesomeness for about three or four minutes, I heard my friend give an audible sigh.

“I’ve been telling you about that book for years,” she said (a tad ungraciously, I thought).

It was true. I’d heard my friend discuss BIRD BY BIRD before, but I’d never heard it. 

Over the years, different messages and bits of advice have bubbled to the surface of my awareness, depending on where I  was as a writer.

Here are some of the most useful nuggets that have stuck with me over the years.

  • Write every day at the same time.

I can’t remember who was first with this classic piece of advice. The bottom line: You have to develop your brain’s writing muscle the same way you develop other muscles–by repeatedly exercising it.

  • Slice the salami.

To get unstalled in her writing, Editor and writer Kate White says she had to learn how to break up large projects into small, manageable chunks. She calls it “slicing the salami.” She began by writing for fifteen minutes on Saturday and Sunday. Months later, her first book was finished. This was the single most helpful piece of advice that helped me start writing back when I was a single mom with a high-pressure job.

  • Begin and end each paragraph with a short sentence.

This is a simple technique to build pacing and rhythm into your work. The short initial sentence eases the reader’s entry into the paragraph, and the short line at the end provides a rhythmic “bounce” into the next paragraph. This advice came from Miss Snark, the literary agent; I’ve used the technique to good effect. (And if you haven’t discovered Miss Snark, you should check out her archived blog. It’s filled with tons of great writing advice)

  • Think of your writing as a camera. You’re not successful until the reader “sees” the story that’s filming in your head.

    I’ve noticed that there’s often a disconnect between a scene that is playing in the writer’s mind, and the one that is conveyed on the page. To locate   the reader in your story, you need to add context and positioning details. For example, if a minor character is standing behind the main character, about to do something interesting, you need to establish their positions relative to each other in the reader’s mind. Otherwise, readers can quickly become disoriented and untethered from the story, like an astronaut floating in deep space. (See a related post, The Real Secret of Bestsellers.)


So, what nuggets of writing advice have been the most helpful to you, in your career as a writer? 

19 thoughts on “Are we ready to hear good advice?”

  1. Kathryn, aside from Jim Bell’s frequent advice to “first get it down, then get it right,” the best advice I’ve had is similar to your “camera” metaphor, but this one helps me keep a consistent POV–imagine the camera perched on the shoulder of the POV character, the microphone next to his/her ear, and POV becomes relatively simple.

  2. Terrific tips, Kathryn. I’ve always tried to abide by Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 basic rules for writing, but especially #5: Start as close to the end as possible.

  3. THank you. Good advice, all. I guess the most valuable thing I’ve picked up, from multiple sources, is “You can’t fix it until you’ve gotten it written down.” That, and LaMott’s corallary that everyone has permission to write shitty first drafts.

  5. Sol Stein always said the key to suspense was never take the reader where the reader wants to go. As much as the actual craft of his writing lacks, Dan Brown does this well by giving you a cliffhanger, then making you read through two other intriguing scenes before you find the end of that cliffhanger. By then, you’re already wondering about the end of the two intriguing scenes, so you can’t put the book down without finding out what’s gonna happen. Wash, rinse, repeat.

  6. Pick and choose what you describe and let the power of inference do the rest. This came from a writer of flash fiction.

    For example, if you are sending your character to church, let the reader infer what is proper attire for church. Don’t add unneeded description unless your character is NOT dressed appropriately and that is relevant to the story.

    Same for almost all backstory. I really didn’t get the backstory thing until I read a chapter in a self-pubbed book where the MC was sitting on a hill waiting for something cool to happen and while waiting, mused, in great detail, about his 8 college degrees and every scrap of job experience. It was like reading a bad resume.

    Terri

    • The power of inference. I like that! One thing I always worry about is that if I leave something out of the MC’s description, the reader may form a different picture in her mind; I have to watch out for putting in a detail later that would be at odds with that earlier impression.

  7. Kathryn – sometimes I feel like I hear the advice but it takes me way too long to ‘get’ the advice! I like the KISS rule as I make everything way more complicated than it needs to be…:)

  8. What a good post, and so very true! Since I’m behind most (or all) the writers here on TKZ, I come here for that good advice, and I try to be listening as often as possible. The beauty of a blog (or book) is that even if I miss some good advice, I can come back whenever I’m ready to listen, and hear it all over again.

    I do agree the “write every day” and “get it down, then get it right” are two powerful pieces of advice I need to hear over and over. Still working on developing those habits!

  9. So true about “hearing” advice only when you’re ready.

    Advice I found helpful: Pick the character with the most to lose when deciding on whose POV you’ll tell the story through.

    Although scene to scene, this generality may not always apply. I like to break perceived “rules” at times, but I still use the basic idea.

    Thanks for the thought provoking post, Kathryn.

  10. You are so right about our selective hearing. After I had two other people – an agent and a judge suggest I add another character’s POV in a story, I thought it was a good idea. When I told my critique partner, she said she’d suggested that to me months before!

  11. I spoke on this sort of topic recently, absorbing vs. hearing, seeing vs. looking at.

    Best tools that have worked with me thus far:

    1. Start with action
    2. Hire an editor
    3. No visits from Mr. Beam nor any member of the Seagram’s family until writing quota is done for the day…or at least mostly done.

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