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CharlesR comments on Rationalist approach to developing Writing skills - Less Wrong Discussion
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Write a lot. Read a lot. Brandon Sanderson had to write five novels before he sold one. Read every day. Read Strunk and White. Learn the rules. (Yes, writing has them.) Get a giant wall calendar showing every day of the year. Set a writing goal and every day you meet it, draw a line. After a few days you have a line segment. Don't break the line! Convince yourself that reading and writing is "work" and don't let friends and family tell you otherwise. Find a room with a door. When you're writing, close it. Don't edit when you write. Move forward, forward, forward. Get to the end. If you need help with motivation, read these books.
If only defining something as "work" were an effective motivating strategy for most of us!
It's probably more useful to say "Convince yourself that reading and writing is IMPORTANT."
Be careful with this. I get lots more writing done when it's not work.
I mean it in the following sense. Writing takes time. Time that you would be spending on other pursuits (and other people!). Don't feel guilty when you've been writing. Feel guilty when you haven't been.
Most successful writers also say having set hours helps.
I have no set hours, multitask compulsively, abandon writing to do other things when I feel like it, do not experience guilt about it until and unless I am in danger of missing a deadline, and sometimes allow the unavailability of my beta readers to prevent me from writing even when I'm otherwise in the mood.
And I ship.
Ship as in deliver or ship as in romantically pairing characters? Both seem plausible on the topic of writing.
As in deliver. Shipping as in romantic pairings would have been contextually irrelevant.
I'm glad your method works for you.
Or not.
The point is there are rules. Before you break them, know what they are.
No-one is doubting that rule systems for assisting writing exist, but the issue is whether they are supported by any particular evidence or are in the realm of self help book platitudes.
Strunk and White isn't self help. It's a style manual.
Apologies for the ambiguity, I meant it may have similar issues in not basing its reccomendations on hard data about what the majority of people find useful
It's very hard to talk generally, even about fiction. But if you send the same manuscript to ten different editors, the same problems come up again and again. Try not to use adverbs. Watch point-of-view. Don't use too much (or too little) description. Watch pacing. Avoid the passive voice. Show, don't tell. Use said. Etc.