1. Show, Don’t Tell
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” — Anton Chekhov
That’s great and all. But how do you even know it’s nighttime? Why does the story require it to be nighttime?
Tell yourself the story first. Get your ugly first draft going.
Write your story like you would tell a friend about your crazy weekend. You don’t talk about the light glinting off of the glass over coffee. You would tell them that it was nighttime, if that was even necessary.
You are a natural storyteller. You already know what parts will deliver the most impact. You already know how to set up a punchline.
Write that way first, so that you know what the hell is happening. And then, *then* show us how it all went down.
Do me a favor and ignore this advice until you get at least to your second draft.
2. Kill Your Darlings
“Murder your darlings.”— Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Your darlings are probably the thing that makes you unique.
Over-usage is different. If you are partial to the word “gobsmacked” and you use it twelve times in your manuscript, folks are going to start rolling their eyes. (But who cares? You aren’t even remotely close to sharing your work yet.)
The reason why this advice is given out so frivolously is because it is fairly good *editing* advice, not writing advice.
Go support your darlings. Hug them, give them some soup. Write the damn thing first before you go all trigger happy on your darlings (Which are also most likely the thing that lights you up when you are writing anyway).
Besides, that quote is taken out of context. Are you ready for this? Here is the full quote:
“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. “Murder your darlings.”— Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Case and point.
Before we move on, time for a brief poll!
Let me know in the comments what your writing schedule typically looks like!
Okay, back to our regularly scheduled content!
3. No Adjectives or Adverbs Allowed
Again, this is solid editing advice but not necessarily great writing advice. You’re a new writer, you’re not at this stage yet. So forget about trying to replace adjectives with stronger verbs. You’ll just end up staring at your computer screen, using up valuable brain RAM to try and find the perfect word or worse, you’ll fall down a theasaurus.com rabbit hole that will kill your writing session.
Do adjectives make your writing weaker? Well, yeah. They tend to add fluff. And as a general rule of thumb, you shouldn’t use three words when you can use one because it obscures the meaning for the reader.
But you don’t have any readers yet— so who cares? You need to tell yourself the story first. Worry about clarifying it later.
For example, if you just started going to the gym, you wouldn’t start with a 200lbs weight, would you?
You will probably break something and then you will never, ever, ever want to try it again.
Do yourself a favor and start with the 5lbs weight, and then eventually you’ll be able to handle 10lbs with almost no effort because you’ve been training.
You need to be able to color outside of the lines as a new writer. Stop. Please, for the love of God, stop imposing rules on yourself. It’s hard enough to get words down, let alone the “right” words.
Use your adjectives. They are not evil. They are not useless. They are tools to help you tell a story.
4. This is What You Should Do Instead
When I was a kid, we didn’t play tag or hide and go seek on playgrounds. At least not right away.
It was an unspoken rule. First we go down the slides, swing across the monkey bars, climb up and down rock walls. Up and down ladders and stairs and fireman poles.
Round and round we went until we got bored and decided to spice things up with a game. And games always have rules.
We did this, because how could you possibly strategize a game of hide and go seek if you don’t know the boundaries of the playground? If you don’t know all the nooks and crannies that you could hide in, if you haven’t done the due diligence of exploring first? How could you possibly outpace a pursuer in tag?
The answer is— you can’t. You are going to trip, you are going to fall, you are going to run straight into the support beams of a really well meaning jungle gym like Wile E. Coyote with a full on “boing” rattling your brain.
It makes you unbalanced, confused, lost, and frustrated. And guess what? The same thing happens when you try to place rules on a story you haven’t written yet.
Play first. Establish rules later.
I love how you went the other way with this...I think as writer you've got to follow your heart and your instincts...even if that means going against conventional wisdom...