prillalar | That is the question.

That is the question.

Writing advice I'm now trying to follow:

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. -- Mark Twain

Writing advice I gleefully ignore:

It's often wise to cut down on verbs of being, replacing them (whenever possible) with action verbs; that'll make your writing punchier.

I loooooooooove the verb "to be". It's my favourite verb. I work those predicate nouns and adjectives as hard as I can. I like the flatness of it, the plainness.

What's your favourite writing advice? Or your favourite advice to ignore?

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In one of my classes, my professor would slap me around (verbally!) for using too many semi-colons, dashes, colons, etc. to extend a sentence. So every time I'm tempted to do it more than once in a paragraph (or so), I check to see if the sentence would be better off chopped up, to make for more reading variety and to add emphasis. It's really helped make my writing clearer, I think.

(she kicked my ass about a lot of stuff, writing-wise, but that was mostly writing for academia)

favorite advice to follow:

Use less words to say more. I got it from a Hemingway biography, not sure specifically where or even the exact quote.

favorite advice to ignore:

punctuation. Its purpose is to make writing clearer but I'll cheerfully ignore it if it's hindering the mood I'm trying to portray or evoke.

Hee. I've heard similar advice about the superfluousness of "very." Advice I tend to ignore, not because I disagree with it, but because I'm too lazy.

Something I'm trying to pay more attention to: overuse of adverbs. Stephen King says they're "cheating," which I don't strictly (heh) agree with, but he does have a point that many times a piece of writing is better served by taking the extra effort to get something across without using an adverb.

I tend to purposely ignore the rule about ending a sentence with a preposition. But, again, that's more out of laziness. And due to my time spent in popslash I've learned the literary merits of selective capitalization, or the use of the period not as the end of a sentence, but as something stronger than a comma. Er. You may have to read them to get what I'm talking about. Hm. I know there's grammar "rule" that I just vehemently disagree with that I cannot think of at the moment. I'll let you know if I do.

I don't know you, but I fear you, because your post is practically identical to what I was going to say.

Follow: "Death to all adverbs!" (Yossarian, Catch-22)

Ignore: Never end a sentence with a preposition.
I actually tried doing this when I first started writing fiction, but I quickly realized that the sentences I was constructing were a form of English that no one ever speaks. So I chucked it.

Favorite to follow: Omit needless words.

This requires careful choice as to what is needless. It does not require removing the poetry from the language.

Poetry, you see, is needful.

I ignore "kill your darlings." I ruined a book manuscript by doing that.

First rule: Let people know when you love their icons. Which I am now doing. Is ADORABLE, Hal!

I shall think of other rules another time.

Hee, thanks!

lapislaz made it for me.

"Omit needless words" is my favorite. I try to say as much as possible in as few words as possible.

Which could explain why I can't write long stories. *g*

And also, cutting back on the adverbs.

The rule I ignore- and I don't think it's always detrimental - is "show, don't tell".

Some things aren't worth the time it takes to show them. *shrug*

I thought that Orson Scott Card had some interesting things to say on the subject of telling vs showing.

Some things, like motivation, can't be shown -- they must be told.

have been told: find that sentence or phrase in the work that you love the most, the one that makes you proud, the turn of phrase you have crafted most skillfully... and scrap it.

i think there's something to that.

That sounds like the "murder your darlings" advice that another commenter cited above. I think it makes sense to carefully scrutizine your darlings to see if they're pulling the story out of shape, weighting it down, calling too much attention to themselves, etc. But following the rule mechanically sounds counterproductive to me. It more or less says "If you think one bit of the story really, truly works -- chop that out. Only keep the parts you're iffy about."

Favorite to ignore: Never start a sentence with "and."

Amen. :)

One of my favorites, that was borne of a friend's despair at reading one too many awful pieces of fanfiction:

Note to the beginning fanfiction writer: upon finishing your story, search for each appearance of the word "suddenly" and evaluate if it adds anything to the story. [HINT: It doesn't. Delete it.]

This is a specific and useful rule. :)

Favorite advice to follow: Set a daily goal in writing--a word count, for example--and write that much every day. (Second favorite: Keep a journal.)

Favorite advice to ignore: Pretty much everything else. I love adverbs, employ the passive voice, pet my darlings, and generally thumb my nose at all experts.

I've had to impose this rule on myself: when the first draft of a story is finished, go through and un-italicize at least half the italicized words. And then go back and un-italicize half of what's left. You would gape at the number of italics in my first drafts, I'll tell ya.

And as far as rule-breaking, my rule is: Learn the rules, and learn how to write within them. Once you've done that, you can figure out when it's necessary to break them. Being conscious of the rules makes you realize when you're breaking them for the right reasons.

I've cut way back on italics myself, over the years. I think it's too easy to rely on them instead of writing your prose in such a way that they not necessary. And the more italics there are, the less effective each one is.

Try to follow: If you have to use an adverb, then the verb you have chosen isn't strong enough. I think an English teacher told me this. It doesn't always work, but I have a thing for adverbs, so it's good to make myself evaluate each one.

Also, if you feel you need to bold, italicize, capslock, or otherwise emphasize a phrase within your text, rephrase until the words themselves add the emphasis. Another piece of "strength of language" advice.

Ignore: No sentence fragments. No comma splices. Never start a sentence with "and" or "but." I tend to ignore many of what I consider the "style" rules when I feel there's good reason.

Adverbs! I'm re-reading PoA right now and sometimes my mind goes into Adverb Lock and they jump off the page at me. Here's from just one page:

Ron asked awkwardly
Hermione approached ... cautiously
said Ron quietly
Crabbe and Goyle chuckled trollishly

This is why I will never defend JKR as a great writer. She has some fantastic concepts and she does some wonderful things with the archetypes on which her characters are based, but her fondness for several forms of poor writing technique makes me want to tear my hair out.

And since I haven't done it in a while....

::licks your icon::

Rule I follow: All right, like all wrong, is always two words.

Rule I play with: If I have darlings, I put them in a separate notebook all by themselves and hope they will breed into a piece of writing that is entirely darling... hasn't happened yet.

Rule I break: In casual writing, especially.... I prefer ellipses to any other punctuation.

I use ellipses a lot in dialogue, I find. In prose, I'm addicted to em dashes. I should really start doing search-and-destroy on those. *g*

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