A Not So Good Writing Guide
Sep. 22nd, 2011 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eastofthemoonOver at Equestria Daily they made a link over to this mini guide someone wrote on the basics of writing for My Little Pony Fanfic writers.
Twilight's Guide to Writing by ~Mister-Hand on deviantART
Now, there is some good advice in here such as to avoid writing cliches, check your punctuation, make the main characters someone to root for etc. However, maybe this is just a difference of opinion, but there is some really bad advice in here too.
Here's an example:
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Um...No. Yes, it's important to give your reader information about what's going on, but you can't give it all at once or it will be too over whelming. Information needs to be revealed when the time is right and when it fits the plot. If there's vital information that is needed to know early on or otherwise it makes the plot point feel like it came out of the blue, then yes, fine. Reveal it early, otherwise you need to judge when it's a good point to give information.
And here's another one:
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
I get what they're saying here, you can't write a story that everyone is going to like. However, the first person you should be writing for is yourself. It is always a good idea to have other people read it so they can tell you how you can improve your story, that is normal and a habit all writers need to get into to improve. However, if you yourself are no longer enjoying the story you are writing due to trying to please on specific person, this is not a good sign.
I'm curious as to what my fellow writers (both fanfic and professional) think of the advice here. As I said, not all of it is bad, but not all of it is good either. What do you think?
Twilight's Guide to Writing by ~Mister-Hand on deviantART
Now, there is some good advice in here such as to avoid writing cliches, check your punctuation, make the main characters someone to root for etc. However, maybe this is just a difference of opinion, but there is some really bad advice in here too.
Here's an example:
Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Um...No. Yes, it's important to give your reader information about what's going on, but you can't give it all at once or it will be too over whelming. Information needs to be revealed when the time is right and when it fits the plot. If there's vital information that is needed to know early on or otherwise it makes the plot point feel like it came out of the blue, then yes, fine. Reveal it early, otherwise you need to judge when it's a good point to give information.
And here's another one:
Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
I get what they're saying here, you can't write a story that everyone is going to like. However, the first person you should be writing for is yourself. It is always a good idea to have other people read it so they can tell you how you can improve your story, that is normal and a habit all writers need to get into to improve. However, if you yourself are no longer enjoying the story you are writing due to trying to please on specific person, this is not a good sign.
I'm curious as to what my fellow writers (both fanfic and professional) think of the advice here. As I said, not all of it is bad, but not all of it is good either. What do you think?
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-22 11:49 pm (UTC)I'm the type of person this thing is aimed at (someone who isn't a great writer and has little experience with fic), and I didn't find it all that helpful. The only good advice was the grammar stuff; and that goes without saying anyway.
And the guide didn't do a good job of explaining why character archetypes are bad but tropes are OK. The way I see it, the validity of archetypes and tropes depends entirely on how the author uses them.