It could just be that I'm at the stage in life in which I trust myself more than I do anonymous "advice givers". There was a time when little wall plaques with cliched sayings were all the rage. "Live Laugh Love". Okay. I'm definitely on board with the "living" part, but I hardly need a reminder to do so. And what if something isn't particularly funny? A command to "love" seems rather cold. I can make up my own mind about who I choose to love.
Writing tips are like those wall plaques. Some folks derive inspiration from them; others say, hey, wait a minute!
The most common tip I've seen is "write every day". I don't want to write every day. I do have an actual life (as the plaque reminds me); I'm not a drone. And even when I'm in the writing mode, I need time to think about my story ~ where it's heading, what I wrote the other day that isn't really working. Yes, I could pound out words on the keyboard every day, but I prefer quality to quantity. While I'm not a planner or "outliner" in the technical sense, that doesn't mean I sleepwalk through my stories. For me, writing every day would simply lead to more passages I'd need to backspace and delete. That's not productive.
And speaking of outlining, that is another tip that comes up frequently. I've made it clear that I do not outline, would never outline, and would in fact give up writing if I was forced to do it. My writing engagement derives from the element of surprise ~ my surprise. I trust my creative abilities enough to discern where the story needs to go. I don't need some impersonal sheet of paper to guide me through that. An outline, to me, is simply following directions. It's like assembling a piece of modular furniture. The second, at least, has a purpose. But furniture isn't meant to be "creative". It's simply functional. Functional writing is better left to instruction manuals.
"Use writing prompts." I suppose if I was really bored and had absolutely nothing else to occupy my time, I might try that. No, actually I wouldn't. What is the point? If I'm going to bother writing, it had better serve a purpose, which means "advance my story", not someone else's three-word hint. What am I supposed to do? Incorporate a paragraph about an "old lady's shoe" somehow into my manuscript?
"Always carry a notebook and a pen." Well, first of all, I don't want to look like a freak. Wait, honey, before we head off to the dry cleaner, let me grab my writing utensils! If I'm out and about and some interaction or observation strikes my interest, I'll most likely remember it. Oh, Supermarket Checkout Lady, can you repeat what you just said so I can jot it down? If you're a writer with short-term memory loss, I don't think I'd want to read your work. Unless it's some kind of dystopian tale.
"Writing in the morning ensures fewer mistakes." Really? I can make mistakes any waking minute of my day, even in the morning. Write whenever it works for you.
"Write down every idea you have. You can always edit it out later." I can go either way on that. While it can inspire creativity, it can also produce a mish-mash of crap. I like doing clean edits and editing as I go. As much as I hate outlining I hate disorder just as much. If I type out an idea I'm unsure of, I can cut and paste it somewhere and revisit it later.
"Read widely." This one I actually agree with. Of course, it takes more than voracious reading to make oneself a writer. Reading and doing are not interchangeable, but how does one even form the concept of writing without reading first? While I'm not currently much of a reader, I certainly was an early one. I loved (loved!) my elementary school library. I started with Laura Ingalls Wilder books and proceeded from there, into biographies (third grade versions) of famous people, and even to Jack Wilder books before I even slid into fourth grade. I read anything and everything ~ comic books, the backs of cereal boxes. My mom let me subscribe to some service in which I'd get a book every month in the mail, one of those concoctions that contained two books in one. You'd flip the book upside down and the second novel would be on the other side. In junior high and high school I bought paperbacks ~ books like The Godfather and even Airport (It always bugged me that the movie left out the suicidal air traffic controller), and books that scared me to death, such as In Cold Blood (a masterpiece of crime writing) and Helter Skelter. I've written about my reading obsession in my twenties and thirties (and forties) and my waiting list signups at the library before I had enough money to simply buy the books I wanted. A book I remember well from back then is The Thorn Birds, a great, beautifully written soap opera. I quite naturally absorbed all those decades of reading. Did it help when I wrote my first novel? No. It did at least help in the sense that I knew how to form complete sentences. (Don't scoff. Tons of people don't even know how to do that.) What all that reading did for me, though, is present a panorama of writing possibilities.
"Find writing rules that work for you." Okay, that one's mine. I don't wear a size four. The Gen Z girl whose cubicle used to be in front of mine did. I'm pretty sure we don't shop at the same boutiques. You must buy this mini-dress! she says, twirling gaily. Uh, nope. That dress is not gonna work for me.
What works for me?
Write, write, write. Not necessarily every day. Think of writing as a marathon. If I was to compare my writing today to my first novel from 2015, it would read like two different authors. Because I wrote and wrote and guess what? I got better. You can't avoid getting better, even if for some perverse reason you wanted to. That's not how humans roll. We don't even need to try to get better. It's inevitable.
Keep a good thesaurus at hand. I'm the epitome of the person who has the right word on the tip of her tongue, but just can't grasp it out of the air. Or I reread a sentence and realize I've repeated a word unintentionally. Time to find a replacement word, but not one that makes me sound like a British literature professor. I'm wary of getting too fancy.
Write a story that's interesting to you. You know you're on the right track if you reread your novel and can't wait to find out what happens next. Trust me; it happens. If you write as much as me, you tend to forget every detail. And here's the deal: Even if nobody chooses to buy your book (because they don't know how awesome you are), you still have your dignity. You didn't write a pulp novel.
Turn on some background noise. I used to write in complete silence, but it felt isolating. So I began streaming music or listening to talk radio. Talk radio works best for me. The other day when I was writing I worked through a complete three-hour broadcast without hearing one single word the hosts uttered. You could torture me and I still wouldn't be able to rehash any of the topics, but it was just enough of a distraction to keep me focused. That's what works for me. You do you.
Those are my only tips that come to mind. Tips; not rules.You as a writer need to individualize your "rules". By all means, read up on advice for writers, but eye what you find skeptically. I'm a rather natural doubter. I need proof that something works. And I surely don't do things because someone tells me to. Thankfully, I'm past those days! I no longer have a boss, and certainly no anonymous internet tip writer is going to boss me around, either.
P.S. I know Stephen King hates adverbs, but sometimes you just need 'em. Yea, don't modify every verb, because that'll only look goofy. But the fact of the matter is, there isn't always an action verb that works, and you'll find yourself stretching credulity if you resort to inventing one.
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