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5 Reasons I’m Ignoring Stephen King’s Advice

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Most writer’s have heard Stephen King’s famous writing advice.

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I’ve read Stephen King’s book On Writing. It’s an interest read, though I confess, I haven’t reread it since 2008.

5 Reasons I’m Ignoring Stephen King’s Advice

1. Consuming is Easier than Creating

It’s not easy to admit, but I can be lazy. Reading is easy. Writing, at least for me, is work. Hard work. If allow myself to be lured in by this, I will spend all of my time reading.

2. Time Is Scarce Commodity

I’m not saying I don’t read. I read a lot. But I don’t read nearly as much as he recommends. By the time he wrote On Writing, he’d been a full time author longer than I’d been alive. It’s a lot easier to say you don’t have the time to write if you don’t have the time to read voraciously when writing is your day job.

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This might give me more time as I would never be able to sleep again.

3. I Lose My “Voice”

Voice is an author’s unique way of writing. It changes over time, grows, matures, but it still is what makes their work unique.

But when I read a lot of another author, I see their voice bleeding into my work. May not be a big deal if I’m reading someone like Tessa Dare who I’d love to emulate, but…

4. My Favorite Genre Can Be “Spotty”

I love fantasy romance, but there are a lot of newer authors in the genre. That can be both fabulous and awful. I can find some really great stuff out there, and then some not so great stuff. One book I got 25% of the way through and finally gave up because errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling kept yanking me out of an already mediocre story.

5. Learn by Doing

As great as reading is, and as much as I love it (I will NOT admit how many times I’ve gone to bed late because I was reading), reading only gets me part way there. I also need to apply bottom to chair and write. I’d rather have the brain surgeon that’s performed 3,000 successful surgeries as my doctor than the one that has read about it 5,000 times. It’s a skill, and for me, sometimes the only way to learn it is to do it.

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I’ll keep reading my couple of books a month and make time to write.

How about you? Ever ignore expert advice? Why or why not?

Common Writing Advice That Doesn't Really Work

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Some of the most common advice I’ve heard to a new writer is read more to write better. I’ve heard this a lot lately, and those touting the advice quote none other than J.K. Rowling and Stephen King. So it has to be good advice, right?

I can’t decide if the people telling this to authors are:

  • Telling us what we want to hear. Most writers love to read.
  • Using it as an attempt to sell us more books.
  • Genuinely misunderstand how humans learn.

This is pretty dense, but it’ll tell you that to learn, you need to engage the brain. If you tell the brain what it already knows, learning doesn’t occur.

Think about your morning commute. Ever arrive at work uncertain how, exactly, you got there? Happens to me more than I want to admit.

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Just reading is similar to this. You read the book. You finish the book. You either like it or don’t, and then move on to the next book. Kind of like your morning commute.

What’s missing from the advice of “read more” is the critical element of analyzing what you’re reading. Even if you’re not in a formal book club, you can still ask questions of yourself:

  • Why did you like the book?
  • What didn’t you like about it? Why?
  • Would you read it again? Why or why not?

 

After you have the answers to these questions, dig deeper.

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If you loved the hero, why did you love him? If he was too stupid to live, why did you feel that way? Did you want him to succeed in the end? Why or why not?

How do authors engage your senses to make you feel like you’re riding along with the characters? How do they connect you so you care what happens?

I normally love to read romance novels, and I write them, but lately, I’ve had a bad run of them. Characters I hate, situations I find contrived at best, love stories that are a study in lust. But, they have taught me a lot. And not just because I’ve read them.

I may not even finish a book, but I can learn a lot if I take the time to figure out why I didn’t finish. Were the characters not compelling? Was the situation so contrived that my eyes got stuck when I rolled them?

I want the happily-ever-after ending, but I want the characters to earn it. I’ve learned this about myself, and I try hard to put it into my writing. I also want the love story to be believable. I need the characters to earn that, too.

But learning how to do this takes more than reading. It takes the time, patience, and brain engagement to really analyze what I’m reading. I can learn a lot from the bad as well as the good, but I still have to take the time to think.

 

How about you? Do you find reading improves your writing? Do you stop and think about why you love or hate a book? What makes you love a story? Hate it?

"Saving" the Bad Boy

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So, while we know that in the real world that women actually prefer nice guys, lots of fiction has the heroine living happily-ever-after with a bad boy.

While I appreciate Star Wars portraying how that worked out for Princess Leia, in romance writing, we expect the ever-after to stay happy.

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Biggest problem I’ve seen is how does the writer get there.

Most of us can believe that Han has reformed after being frozen in carbonite and putting his life on the line for the Rebellion even after Jabba has been “paid”.

In romance novels, I see heroes as colorful as Han, but rarely do I see the crucible of the story they’re put through strong enough to elicit the change in them required to give the audience their happily-ever-after ending.

And in Romance, if there isn’t a happily-ever-after ending, it isn’t Romance. That’s a key component of the genre.

I won’t name the book, but in a novel I put down recently, the hero was a classist jerk. He was born an earl and had nothing but contempt for the lower classes. Until along comes the heroine who is a girl from the streets. She might be a viscount’s long-lost daughter, which of course she is because this is fiction, but the hero doesn’t know that.

Somehow he overcomes his classist jerkiness because he’s in lust with the heroine.

Ad yes, lust, because they’ve known each other all of three days and he’s been unpleasant most of it because he’s “put out” having to host her.

Um, yeah, not buying it. When I opened the book, I was willing to suspend disbelief. I’m willing to believe this girl is the missing viscount’s daughter. I’m even willing to believe that the earl can be shown the error of his ways.

But I need a lot more than he wants to bed the heroine for that change to be believable.

I see this same issue over and over again in Regency fiction. The number of reformed rakes is amazing. Yet, few authors give me a really good reason why that rake reformed. The love of a good woman just isn’t enough.

According to my grandmother, a tiger doesn’t change his stripes, and if someone shows you their true colors, don’t try to repaint them. Must run in the family.

But she’s onto something here.

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Can people change? Yes!

Do they change often or easily? No!

So, if you want me to believe that your rake has reformed, he needs to go through something that causes the reformation. Perhaps he has a brush with his own mortality, or something significant happens that shows him what a hollow life he’s leading. Maybe falling in love does this to him, but there has to be some depth there.

If he’s in love with the heroine because she’s attractive? Sounds to me like he’s still a rake.
How about you? What do you need to believe a real or fictional person has changed?