A great Trending Topic happened on Twitter today: #BadWritingTips. For those of you who missed it, here are some of the gems.
Tell, don’t show. #BadWritingTips
— Jon Winokur (@AdviceToWriters) June 24, 2012
“Then” and “than” as two different words is confusing. Choose one, and stick with it. #BadWritingTips
— Nicholas Lewis (@NicLewis) June 24, 2012
#BadWritingTips In fantasy, one must express a character’s exoticness with apostrophes and clustered consonants. Ex:LORD K’THRK’VSSHH”NG.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 24, 2012
Name your characters so it’s really obvious who’s good & who’s bad, i.e. Nickelback J. Hitler.#BadWritingTips
— brx0 (@brx0) June 24, 2012
Your book-obsessed main character does not need to show evidence of knowing anything about them beyond their titles. #BadWritingTips
— Claire (@shadowsidhe) June 24, 2012
Your main character should be drop-dead gorgeous and have absolutely no idea. #badwritingtips
— Jennifer Magnesi (@JenniferAnne30) June 24, 2012
@maureenjohnson end every chapter/sentence/paragraph with “…” #badwritingtips
— Sean Trani (@seantrani) June 24, 2012
Second drafts are for sissies. First drafts are GOLD. #BadWritingTips
— Megan Whitmer (@MeganWhitmer) June 23, 2012
Write lots of fan fiction. Then change the names of your characters and sell it. #BadWritingTips
— Amy (@EncoreUnReveur) June 23, 2012
Every *serious* contemporary novel is about the author’s horrific childhood in Appalachia. So start by having one of those. #BadWritingTips
— brx0 (@brx0) June 24, 2012
Assume your readers are idiots. #badwritingtips
— maureenjohnson (@maureenjohnson) June 24, 2012
Put the entire book in quotes. That way, technically, there are no spelling or grammatical errors. #badwritingtips
— Gene Cawley (@genecawley) June 24, 2012
Caps lock. #BadWritingTips
— Ken Ziegler (@kenisajerk) June 24, 2012
Do not use contractions, ever. It is distracting and unprofessional. You are a writer, not a person. #BadWritingTips
— Gina Denny (@ginad129) June 24, 2012
#BadWritingTips – Good books don’t need conflict.
— Kathleen Doyle (@Kathleen_Doyle) June 24, 2012
Do you have a favorite that I missed? Post it in the comments below!
Amy Leigh Strickland is a writer and teacher from Townsend, Massachusetts. She has a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Amy currently lives outside Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, Kyle and their two dogs, Apollo and Linus.
Pingback: Bad Writing Tips #badwritingtips « The Write Frame of Mind