Writing Advice

 My friend recently mentioned this over on her blog, and it’s something I agree with and it was brought to my attention again as I was looking over my twitterfeed and found a piece of writing advice posted, along with a link to a longer article which explained the advice further.

As a young writer – and when I say young, I don’t mean in age – there is this subconscious need to find the rules set out by other writers who have come before you. I know, because I did it. Not so much in my early, early days where I didn’t really care about what I was writing because no-one else would see it but me. But when I started to share my work, I also started searching out advice on how to become a better writer. I wanted reassurances that I was doing it right...

And you know what the one thing I learned is? Just keep writing.

I sucked! I sucked to the point where I can’t even look at my old pieces of work without cringing. Nowadays though, there’s much less cringing (though it still happens too often because I’m a perfectionist in my writing), and as my friend pointed out – that shows growth.

Did this growth come from all that advice I read? The pieces that said avoid first person? The ones that said to avoid using adverbs? Or how about this latest piece of advice in which they say to write how you write, not how you speak?

No. Because those aren’t tips or bits of advice. They’re preferences. Preferences that vary from mine.


I love first person, both when writing and reading. I've never had a problem with adverbs when reading, unless they're seriously abused and used twice in every sentence. As for writing how I write and not how I speak, I like to write conversationally. And I enjoy reading pieces written like this too.

So what is the purpose of this blog post? It’s to say that not all writing advice is good for everyone. In fact, sometimes you have to break the rules. Sometimes you have to ignore the advice (unless it’s from Neil Gaiman, he often has some bloody good advice – such as write, write and write!).

The first step to becoming a better writer is to write, and read. It’s like learning to play the piano, when you begin, you’ll hit the wrong keys sometimes, but eventually, if you practise enough, your fingers will automatically reach for the next key without you even having to think about it.

When your confidence starts growing, and when your writing does too, you’ll learn what works best for you and what doesn’t. Just bear in mind that you can’t please everyone, so start by pleasing yourself.