Roasting Writing Advice
March 1, 2023 | Ian Everett
Allow me to preface this by saying that of course all of the following bits of writerly advice are useful in many circumstances, otherwise they would not be some of the most commonly shared advice out there.
Now, let’s begin.
Welcome, dear reader, to a bloodbath.
For today, we will no longer be oppressed by the same bits of trite feedback that get handed out no matter the context. Today, we push back. Today, we make a stand. Today, we’re going to roast the fuck out of some writing advice.
Every time someone offers a piece for critique, there are a few items that seem to always make an appearance, regardless of whether or not they’re actually useful to the writer. Feedback needs to be applicable and it needs to be actionable, and sometimes, repeating a common slogan of writing like it’s immutable law isn’t either of those things. So today, we’re venting, we’re roasting, we’re chewing, and most importantly, we’re having fun by taking the piss out of pieces of common writing advice.
SHOW DON’T TELL
When slaying titans, start with the biggest one. It makes the others scared. To that end, we’re tackling probably the most popular refrain first.
Show, don’t tell. I don’t think people actually register when this combination of syllables and consonants leaves their mouth anymore. It just kind of happens spontaneously, like some kind of memetic contagion. Does anyone even know what they’re asking for when they say Show, Don’t Tell? Or do they just pass it on without thinking at all, like COVID, or generational trauma?
Here is Susie, she is a character we’ve spontaneously created for this bit. She dropped a steak on the ground and her dog ate it. Oh wait, I mean, she tipped the plate over without thinking, and the flame-grilled meat toppled through the air, landing on the tiles with a wet slap. A creature with white and brown fur and many jagged teeth crashed into the kitchen. The creature, wearing a collar around its neck with a small gold piece of metal bearing Susie’s name and phone number, chomped on the steak and slobbered all over the floor.
Susie became pissed. I mean, uh, she clenched her fist, she gnashed her teeth, she stamped her feet, a vein bulged on her neck, her face became red which she saw in the reflection of the shinily polished sink (which I am showing you to tell you she is a clean person and this is why she’s angry at the creature slobbering all over her floor…)
The real problem with this advice is that people hear it and take it to a stupid extreme like the above example. They think that every detail needs to be relayed through physical blocking rather than a balance of narration and action. Also, newer writers might accidentally utilize tired cliches of character action to cross the street avoiding even a single bit of narrative explaining anything. There, they slam face first into the mirror they have their character inspect themselves in so they can give you all the physical descriptors (er, I mean, so they can “show” you what their character looks like).
The counter side to this is that Show, Don’t Tell is a basic bit of advice because it’s a fundamental: you can’t spend an entire story relaying it like a Wikipedia article. It touches on the need to ensure that your story has style—that je ne sais quoi that makes a story readable and compelling. Too much ‘telling’ or narration trying to relay information as quickly and neatly as possible, and you’re left with a story drier than a well-done steak.
For some good fucking foo—I mean, advice, on how to show and when to tell, see this blog post from my fellow Tomeworks editor, Anna.
WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW
Listen, man, I don’t know shit. So when someone comes across my path and tells me, “Hey, buddy, pal, guy, you’ve got to write what you know,” I’m just supposed to write “not shit”?
“Write what you know” always feels like a piece of advice writers don’t quite know what to do with. What if I’m a loser who doesn’t know anything? What if all I know is how to charge my phone, be bisexual, eat hot chip, and lie? Writers who grew up reading the same big fantasy series’ and playing the same big fantasy games might just regurgitate the same style of story with no new tropes at all. If all they know is Brandon Sanderson’s laws of magic, that’s all they’ll write. And sure, that’s probably fine, given that people are always clamoring for the next big fantasy series.
But we can do better than fine, can’t we? We can honor the sage Jeff Vandermeer, who clutches our hearts like a mutated raccoon, can’t we? Sometimes you need to tear down the fucking fence and fly into the wild unknown behind your literary backyard and play with ideas like fireflies in the dark.
On the other hand, sometimes people take a rejection of this advice to mean they can write whatever they want regardless of consequences. Unpacking what this advice is saying isn’t permission for a white person to jam a problematic person of color or a straight person to write yet another queer villain into their story and speak on their experience for the sake of inclusivity. Including elements that aren’t your human experience requires sensitivity, research, and listening to the guidance of those who do have that experience.
And that’s the key. Explore and learn humbly. Research with abandon. Write like you’re spelunking, like you can’t go back home. Take that familiar fantasy series, those cherished childhood reads that inspired you to start slinging words in the first place, and use them as a torch to walk the unlit path. Slash the tires of the conventional.
So no, don’t write what you know. Do the work and find something new to know. In fact, this advice is in desperate need of an overhaul, in my not so humble opinion, and so I have come up with a cleverly repackaged counter slogan: Know What You Write.
You may tattoo it on whichever butt cheek you like.
BETTER SAID THAN DEAD
“Hey,” the blogger said to the reader. “What’s up? What are you doing?”
“Oh, just changing out all my dialogue tags for said. Every single one,” the reader said.
“…Every one?” the blogger said.
“Yep,” said the reader.
“So no pontificating, no mocking, no reciting, no declaring, no repeating, no joking, no adding on, no yelling, no screaming, no whispering, no nothing?” the blogger said. “You don’t think that’ll get a bit boring?”
“Nonsense,” the reader said. “It’s the dialogue itself that carries the tone.”
“But you can massively change how a dialogue is read with different dialogue tags. A line that is screamed is received differently by the reader than a line that is whispered. A unique texture can sometimes only be conveyed by unique tags,” the blogger said.
“Well, I read that you should only use said. Never any other dialogue tags,” the reader said.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet,” the blogger said emphatically.
“You can’t use adverbs, by the way, that’s too spicy,” the reader said.
“That’s a different section on this list,” the blogger replied.
“We’re in a list?” the reader said.
I should hope, dear reader, that it’s obvious using “said” as every dialogue tag without exception is not a fun or spicy way to read. In fact, it’s monotonous to all hell, sounding more like an executioner’s drum than the rhythm of spoken conversation. It’s okay to change out “said” for other words, especially ones that help convey tone a little stronger. Obviously one can break up conversation with action tags, as well, but there’s no need to revert back to “said” every single time someone is simply speaking.
NO MARY SUES
This one might be controversial. But people have kind of run away with the Mary Sue Discourse. Any and all strong female protagonists have been slapped with the label, regardless of whether or not it fits. Mostly, the people who tend to be applying these labels are men of the critical-drinker-sad-puppy-incel variety. They can’t stand to see a woman with agency and action, so they just hit ‘em with the old Mary Sue allegation and call it a day. It’s a dismissal in their own minds and nowhere else.
But the thing about Mary Sues is that’s not what Mary Sues are. Mary Sues are a specific type of character: they are author self-inserts with idealized competency and talent, who see no meaningful challenge or pain in their story because they solve all problems instantly with their amazing abilities and / or prowess. They might have a traumatic backstory to give the aesthetic of pain, but it doesn’t matter for the plot. A dead mom and dad that they kind of wish were dead mom and dad in real life or something. I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist.
But I’m here to say: fuck the haters, it’s fine to write an author self-insert character. It’s fine to process your parental trauma by pretending they’re dead in the book. It’s fine even to give your self-insert cool powers you wish you had. The only thing truly unforgivable about a Mary Sue is that they’re not challenged, so as long as you KICK THE EVERLOVING SHIT OUT OF THEM, it’ll go smoothly!
And to be quite honest, sometimes self-insert characters can make your novel super relatable. Twilight (revealed in a cryptic dream to our prophetess Stephanie Meyer, holy is her name) is the story of Bella, a painfully average teenage girl attaining a hot vampire boyfriend.She smacks of self-insert, but she also sold millions of books and theater tickets. However, Bella is also meaningfully challenged within her relationship and by external forces, and also the ancient YA tradition of having to choose between two hot boys that both like her despite her painful averageness.
If you’re doing it right, in my humble opinion, most of your characters will be at least partial reflections of you. From the main character to the one-line shop keep, you might invest a bit of your creative spark in them to give them life. Just remember that they can’t win all the time, to give them meaningful flaws, to not make the world bend over backward for them, and no one will truly know the difference.
NO ADVERBS
Now we will quickly end this article on the last of our five items. The reader is obviously charmed and open to thoroughly exploring new ideas, and will zealously reject out of hand any attempt to invoke traditional reliance on catchy slogans-as-laws. The reader will bravely go forth and I can’t fucking do this anymore.
There’s an obvious end of the spectrum of adverbs that is a bit much, so I totally see where this advice comes from. But we’re not here to agree with these adages, we’re here to ROAST them.
People who say no adverbs don’t season their chicken. People who say no adverbs paint their whole house white and gray and cover up hardwood floors with carpet. People who say no adverbs only wear sad beige clothes for sad beige children.
Like all other major word forms, adverbs are meant to be used, not avoided religiously. They can enhance and clarify your sentences (but used badly, they can also ruin your sentences, too.) Notice here that I’m not even saying using them a lot is a bad way to use them: as long as the writing flows and does its job, maybe even artfully or elegantly or any other adverbly way, you can get away with anything.
PARTING THOUGHTS
Really, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Getting away with anything. As a writer, we’re meant to get away with everything we can. Anything that isn’t nailed down is fair game. And dear reader, you can bet your precocious little patootie that writing rules are not nailed down—they’re clinging with their fingernails in the middle of a hurricane. They’re usually barely suggestions, not even in the same plane of existence as a “law.”
You don’t need to feel like a criminal when you eschew common writing advice. You should learn these fundamentals, of course; write with them in mind and apply them as much as possible. But when it suits you, you should take a fucking bat to their knees and make them pay you protection money.
And if you, dear reader, are in need of sorting out the good advice from the bad, or looking to get feedback you know is going to turn your novel up to 11, then the prophesied day has come: the Tomeworks Editing Collective is here to break the chains of your oppression. Reach out to us for a professional editor who won’t tell you to always use “said” or to avoid adverbs like the plague (or something worse than the plague because we all know how trying to avoid the plague went).
That’s all for now! Be sure to tip your waiters, and we’ll see you in the forge. Byeeeeeeee
