This week’s topic from the Marketing for Romance Authors 52-week blog challenge is Giving and Taking Advice: How It Can Help. This is a blog hop, so pop over to the MFRW website and check out the other entries. https://mfrw52week.blogspot.com/
Whether it’s a mundane challenge, like this week’s leaky basement caused by Washington State’s Snowmageddon, or pregnancy, or launching my writing career, I always read what the experts say before taking action. Trouble is, there’s so much writing advice out there: classes and webinars, craft books and writing magazines, podcasts for writers, my daily avalanche of emails offering free advice and paid guidance. Whom to listen to, what to ignore?
Some of my critique partners have been rather doctrinaire. Save the Cat, GMC, The Hero’s Journey, Deep 3d POV– whatever their chosen writing bible, they’re sticking to it in all circumstances. The trouble is, writing to a formula can squash all the life out of a story. For example: I annoy the bejeebus out of my husband when we’re watching TV and I say, “Watch, this is what’s going to happen.” I’m usually right, because TV scriptwriters often stick to a tried-and-true formula. I’m delighted when I get the chance to say, “Wow. Didn’t see that coming.”
I’m currently working on a spicy contemporary romance, third in a series. (Ahem–the first book’s on my shelf, above.) Resources I’m using include Damon Suede’s Verbalize, Gwen Hayes’ Romancing the Beat: Story Structure for Romance Novelists, Leigh Michaels’ On Writing Romance, and Cara Bristol’s Naughty Words for Nice Writers. I’m a huge fan of the Writers in the Storm blog, always a source of excellent writing advice. (Sorry about the weird formatting. Word Press’ newest iteration still has kinks.)
But my most valuable resources by far are well-written stories in my genre, and my critique partners.
Writing advice I treasure is “Write the story you want to read.” It’s great fun to gobble contemporary romances and figure out what works well–and sometimes, alas, what turns me off as a reader.
My in-person and online critique partners are all published or soon-to-be published novelists. (Those doctrinaire former critique partners hadn’t yet published anything.) I don’t follow their every suggestion, but they’re great at pointing out areas of confusion, clumsy phrasing, inconsistencies, etc.
Which brings me to giving advice. I’ve learned so much from critiquing others’ works in progress. It’s an honor to gain another writer’s trust so she’ll let me witness her book baby’s growth, including those clumsy first steps.
Where do you find your best writing advice? Or do you just go your own funky way and ignore the experts? I’d be grateful to hear about your favorite craft books, writing blogs, etc.
It’s true. There’s lots of advice out there. It’s a matter of finding what works best for you. If someone tells me part of my story isn’t clear or they had to re-read a sentence to understand it, then I make changes. Regarding how characters act or the direction of a plot, I generally go with my preferences instead of someone else’s opinion.
Friends and acquaintances consider me a card-carrying member of the grammar police, so I tend to pay more attention to their suggestions regarding content than of the copy editing sort.
I’m a staunch believer in writing what you’d like to read. As for advise, craft books are terrific at providing guidelines, but beta readers do an awesome job giving feedback and offering suggestions.l
I treasure the advice “Write what you want to read” too. I get a lot of advice from author groups. When I first started writing, I spent a lot of time researching in the library and subscribed to Writer’s Digest. I browsed that magazine like it was gold. LOL. We have so many choices now. I love your bookshelf.
I’ve rid myself of huge stacks of cooking magazines and women’s magazines, but I still hang onto those Writer’s Digests. Thanks for stopping by!