C. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?
Wincest. It makes me very happy that, in this fandom especially, anything goes, but personally I just can't go there.
N. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?
There are these self-congratulatory lists of "what not to do" (such as this one (http://www.plainlanguage.gov/examples/humor/writegood.cfm)) that are so all-inclusive that imo any work that really avoided all these dubious no-nos would have to be the most self-conscious, boring crap ever written. Lists like these may be entertaining, but if you took them too seriously, they would be utterly paralyzing. I hate lists like that! They only serve to make it even harder to get past one's insecurities and just write. Which leads to:
M. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?
Ironically, the person who gave this advice mostly gave terrible writing advice (my sucky high school English teacher, who lived to criticize everyone for every little thing, especially me for some reason), but somehow he did come out with this nugget, I suppose because in so doing he was able to criticize someone in another way. We were reading Camus' The Plague, in which there's a character who spends the entire novel honing the first line of the book he's writing. My teacher pointed out he needs to just START WRITING and get on with it, that if he spends his whole life fixated on perfecting a single line, he'll never complete the novel. I've actually encountered a lot of great writing advice in my life, I'm happy to say, but that's one I think of when I start fussing over some small detail--just keep writing and come back to it later (when usually the fix is way easier than if I'd kept beating my head against the wall right then, whether because in writing more the solution has become clear, or simply because I'm in a different headspace that makes it easier).
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2014-08-24 09:04 pm (UTC)C. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?
Wincest. It makes me very happy that, in this fandom especially, anything goes, but personally I just can't go there.
N. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?
There are these self-congratulatory lists of "what not to do" (such as this one (http://www.plainlanguage.gov/examples/humor/writegood.cfm)) that are so all-inclusive that imo any work that really avoided all these dubious no-nos would have to be the most self-conscious, boring crap ever written. Lists like these may be entertaining, but if you took them too seriously, they would be utterly paralyzing. I hate lists like that! They only serve to make it even harder to get past one's insecurities and just write. Which leads to:
M. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?
Ironically, the person who gave this advice mostly gave terrible writing advice (my sucky high school English teacher, who lived to criticize everyone for every little thing, especially me for some reason), but somehow he did come out with this nugget, I suppose because in so doing he was able to criticize someone in another way. We were reading Camus' The Plague, in which there's a character who spends the entire novel honing the first line of the book he's writing. My teacher pointed out he needs to just START WRITING and get on with it, that if he spends his whole life fixated on perfecting a single line, he'll never complete the novel. I've actually encountered a lot of great writing advice in my life, I'm happy to say, but that's one I think of when I start fussing over some small detail--just keep writing and come back to it later (when usually the fix is way easier than if I'd kept beating my head against the wall right then, whether because in writing more the solution has become clear, or simply because I'm in a different headspace that makes it easier).