hello and welcome to another article in today's article i want to debunk nine writing tips or items of writing advice that are often given to authors which i think are terrible and i don't think you should follow a few of them are okay in principle but we're going to modify those to make them more applicable for authors the first myth that we are going to debunk is read everything you can get your hands on i don't agree with this piece of advice i don't think you should read everything you could get your hands on yes you do need to be well read in order to you know have good grammar have a good understanding of the market or the genre potentially that you're writing for i don't think that you should read all sorts of books for the sake of it life's too short to read things that you don't enjoy or things that aren't very good so again take that piece of advice with a pinterest or don't read everything you can get your hands on myth number two is to write every day fantastic in principle but i don't know about you my life is quite busy i have a lot of things i have to do and i'm not a full-time writer.
so i don't have time to write every single day if you do have time fantastic and if you are able to carve out the time then well done it certainly will stand you in good stead but really i think this piece of advice should be modified to do something towards your writing project every day what i mean by that is it could be as simple as thinking about one of your characters you know spending some time if you're walking or you're on a commute just thinking how could i modify that character what could i do about that scene as long as you're thinking about your book every day and thinking of items to improve it then you will do very well so write every day don't feel pressured to write every single day i just think for most people that piece of advice isn't practical if you're enjoying this video about the nine writing tips and nine pieces of writing advice that you should ignore then please do like the video and subscribe to the channel as we will be bringing many more videos like this you can also follow us on social media at publishing push myth number three is don't start writing a novel write a short story first i'm afraid i don't agree with this piece of advice writing a short story and writing a novel are two very different disciplines they require very different elements and ingredients so if you want to write a novel go ahead and write a novel if you want to write a short story go and do that by all means one of course will complement the other.
the more you are writing but i would not start by writing a short story to then go and create a novel really if you want to write a novel and you have an idea for a novel go ahead with writing the notes number four that dialogue is all about recreating human speech again i don't agree with this piece of advice for writing you know if you listen to a conversation throughout your day people will pause they um they repeat themselves they talk in circles you know emily who films these videos for me has to listen to me try and repeat myself and get a phrase out multiple times because there are um if we were reading a book where the dialogue imitated human interactions exactly in human dialogue exactly it would be very boring because there are what you need from the dialogue in your book is to get to the point so by all means keep it in the same tone or style that that particular person would have in real life but again it doesn't need to exactly imitate human dialogue okay myth number five is this one really gets me don't worry about grammar that's what spell check is for so yes spell check is useful a proofreader is useful but it is important that you understand the core elements of grammar just in terms of getting the book in a state way then you can pass it on to an editor or pass it on to a proofreader.
and they don't have to spend hours and hours deciphering what you've written so grammar is important the way i often explain this to people is imagine you showed up to a job interview and you're wearing ripped clothes and you hadn't had a shower and it was a complete mess people will judge you by your appearance that is just an unfortunate fact of you know society that's you know we're very visual beings we go off what we can see the same is true for your grammar so people will think oh they haven't put much care or attention into their writing this probably isn't worth going further with and you know i i so that's why i would urge you to really understand grammar you don't have to be an expert yes that is why you have copy editors and proofreaders but have a working knowledge of grammar and most of the the basic and the core principles okay so number six this one i'm always conflicted about it is good advice in one sense but bad advice in another sense and this particular piece of bad writing advice is right what you know now i want to caveat this by saying it's only bad advice if you take this literally so i shall explain write what you know is fantastic if you have led a very interesting varied life but for most people particularly if they're writing fantasy or science fiction it's difficult to write what you know you know most people haven't been to space or they don't have supernatural powers or you know super human strength so they have to envisage or imagine what that might be like so there are certain topics that are very hard when it comes to writing what you know that being said what you do want to draw from are your own experiences so potentially it could be adversity have you faced adversity how did you deal with it and then you could put that into the character.
who is you know the main character in your story so write what you know you have to draw from what you know draw from your own experiences but again when you're writing in certain genres of course you're going to have to use your imagination and push further and push beyond okay number seven on our list of nine said is dead so the idea here is that anytime you say patrick said you should try not to use the word said in your writing i don't know if you've received this writing advice in the past i think it's particularly bad advice you don't need to remove the word said said often is what i would call an invisible word when you're reading a book you don't really even notice that it's there and on top of that it's often used a bit like punctuation so patrick said you know and then the next line will start i don't think you need to always be using other words in its place such as announced you know patrick announced this rather than patrick said this you know you can where that's applicable but you don't need to avoid using the word said all together okay number eight is view your characters like tools rather than people so i've heard this bit of writing advice used quite often i don't think it will help you create characters that the readers can really relate to sympathize with and get behind i do think from a you know from a from a wider perspective it would help you to potentially make your characters do terrible things or you know kill off characters if you're not too attached to them and you just see them as tools but for me personally the stories that i engage with the most are ones where you're rooting for a character or there's more of an emotional connection.
so i don't think this is fantastic advice i would be more emotional with your characters think about what they're going through and the same if they are doing things that are wrong or bad it's probably going to be more interesting to think how are they coping with these things what are the coping mechanisms they use you know and that could potentially then create more layers to your character number nine so i saved this one till last this piece of advice if you have a passion for writing you should absolutely ignore it and that is don't aspire to be a writer have a backup plan don't make this your main focus if you truly have something that you're passionate about in life whether it be writing or whether it be you know something else that you particularly enjoy then you should pursue that passion because passion in life is quite rare so if you really enjoy writing and you want to be a successful writer then give it your all it's not going to happen unless you give it your all i'm not saying go and quit your job and throw caution to the wind but if this is something that you really enjoy doing then put as much effort into it as possible there are lots of authors who are making very good money as an author so don't be put off.
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