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Writing Advice That Is Both Good and Bad

Advice isn’t always black and white. Sometimes it’s both.

By Barbara KingPublished about a year ago 6 min read
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Writing Advice That Is Both Good and Bad
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

When looking online for writing advice you’re always going to come across those sites with the headlines. 10 pieces of writing advice to never ever listen to or your book will flop or 5 must-know writing tips to follow if you want to be a best-seller, but the thing about advice is that it’s just that, advice. It’s not a rule you have to follow and what’s good advice for one person may be terrible advice for another.

So here I give you five pieces of writing advice that are all good and bad so you can take them or leave them, it’s all up to you.

Write What You Know

Writing what you know is one of those tips that everyone says, but they don’t go too much into detail about what it means.

Does it mean that in order to write my horror fiction novels I have to know how to dismember a body into perfectly even pieces? No, but it means I have to have a general idea. If I don’t know an arm from a leg, it’s going to be pretty hard to write about which pieces are getting hacked off. The same goes for other genres, if you’re going to write a Regency-era romance, you should know something about what romance was like in the Regency era.

Good Advice because yes you should know what it is you’re writing about.

Bad Advice because you’re allowed to write about things you don’t know about, you’re just going to have to do a little bit of research.

Have a Designated Writing Space

If I waited until I had a designated writing space to be able to start writing then I would have only begun writing last year when I finally shelled out the money for a desk and a computer chair.

You’re designated writing space doesn’t have to be a desk, it can be a corner of the kitchen counter by the coffee maker or your bedside table, it can even be the toilet if you are really cramped for space.

Good advice because you should have a place you are able to write, but it’s also bad advice because not everyone has the tools or the money to have a space that is only used for writing.

Write When You’re Inspired

If every author sat around and waited for the inspiration fairy to come down and bop them on the head before they began writing then I can almost guarantee that there wouldn’t be a single book left on the shelves at your local bookstore.

Sure when that fairy does bop you it can be a mad dash to your nearest writing apparatus to make sure you get the words down before you forget them. Other times getting yourself to write can be like walking up a steep hill with 500lbs of weight, two golf carts, a pack of geese, and an elephant tied around your waist.

This advice is good because you should definitely strike while the iron is hot and write when you’re inspired, but if you sit around and wait to be inspired you’ll never write.

Don’t Write To Make Money

I have a love-hate relationship with this piece of advice because like the other pieces it is both good and bad. I love to write and would do it almost every day whether I made money or not, I also love to share what I know with new writers that are just starting out on their writing journey whether I make money or not, but the fact that you are reading this article on a site that helps give me an income so I can spend the time writing these articles instead of selling snow globes and t-shirts as a day job as I used to… well it says a bit on how I feel about this advice. This article may only make $0.01 or it could make $100, there’s no way to tell until time passes but I’ll write it and put it here anyway.

Making money shouldn’t be the only reason you write and anyone who writes will tell you sometimes it’s a pretty crappy way to make money, but if you’re doing what you love and getting paid to do it then there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Read The Genre You Want To Write

I’m assuming if you like to write horror fiction as I do that you also like to read horror fiction as I do.

Reading the same genre you write is good advice because you can learn things such as pacing and different tropes, but you know where else you can learn this? In other genres.

I read almost anything I can get my hands on from young adult novels to historical novels and everything in between and each novel I read makes me a better writer. Yes, you should read the genre you want to write, but not because you have to but because if you’re writing it should be a genre you enjoy.

Yes, this includes fanfiction if that’s where you spend most of your reading hours. A book is a book and some Harry Potter fanfiction is longer than all the Harry Potter books combined and written better than the original.

Final Thoughts

All advice should be taken with a grain of salt as there exists good and bad in all advice no matter how well-meaning the giver of it may be. All that matter is you write the story you are trying to tell and do it with the practices that are best for you.

Thank you for reading and keep on writing.

With love,

B.K. xoxo

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About the Creator

Barbara King

Barbara King is a full-time writing coach and novelist. King is a recent college graduate from Southern New Hampshire University where she earned her BA in Creative Writing.

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