The more you write, the more you learn about how to write. The more you “learn” about writing, the more you realize every writer thinks he or she is an expert. Ultimately, you end up with a lot of contradicting “facts” about what you should be doing to become a better writer (of course, better never actually means your writing is better; it just means you get published more by places of higher esteem).
Much of the feedback we receive as writers comes in the form of what not to do rather than what we should do. So what should we do? Obviously we should do the opposite of what we shouldn’t do.
Here are 57 things I’ve learned not to do as a writer in the past decade:
1. Write pointless intros to blog posts
2. Use first person
3. Use second person
4. Use third person
5. Use flowery adjectives
6. Use unnecessary adjectives
7. Use any adjectives
8. Rules 5, 6, and 7 also apparently apply to adverbs
9. Write in present tense
10. Write in past tense
11. Shift the point of view
12. Engage in head-hopping
13. Write about absurd things
14. Write about serious things
15. Submit unedited stories
16. Submit stories I’ve only edited once
17. Submit stories I’ve only edited between once and twelve times
18. Submit stories to The New Yorker
19. Use profanity
20. Write stories with no profanity
21. Describe what someone is wearing
22. Leave out everything someone is wearing
23. Give too many details about the setting
24. Give no details about the setting
25. Not have a setting at all
26. Create cliche characters
27. Create unrealistic characters
28. Create characters who fall somewhere on the spectrum between cliche and unrealistic
29. Write from a woman’s point of view
30. Write from a child’s point of view
31. Write from an old person’s point of view
32. Write from my own point of view
33. Write a story about a drug addict
34. Write a story about Death
35. End a story with death
36. Follow all the rules of grammar, punctuation, etc.
37. Break any rules of grammar, punctuation, etc.
38. Experiment for the sake of experimenting
39. Not experiment at all
40. Begin a story with “It”
41. Begin a story with a sex scene
42. Begin a story with a masturbation scene
43. Use dialogue that doesn’t move the story forward
44. Use unnecessary dialogue tags
45. Write dialogue using a regional dialect from a region other than where I live
46. Attempt to use a dialect at all
47. Respond to rejection letters with a request to rewrite the story and submit it again
48. Write more words than a story needs
49. Write fewer words than a story needs
50. Ask too many people to edit a story
51. Ask no one to edit a story
52. Write a story that is too Kafkaesque
53. Attempt to mimic any writer
54. Write a story that isn’t as good as something Hemingway wrote
55. Submit to writing contests
56. Self-publish
57. Write or submit anything at all
What are the “lessons” you’ve learned as a writer? Post your own bits of wisdom in the comments.
Change all names to protect the innocent. Or the guilty (to avoid litigation). Write ‘shit’ if you mean ‘shit’ and not feces, excrement, poo, number 2 or whoopsie daisies (courtesy of the brilliant Louise DeSalvo). It’s not fair to ask your spouse to read your work. When you start spending hours moving articles around it’s time to step away for a few hours/days/weeks. Thank you for this though, it’s one part of exactly what I needed to read tonight.
Great additions to the list. Thanks for sharing!
18!