It's my final week in the writing cave before I send my WIP to my editor (eep), so today, Amy Tintera is guest blogging for me. Take it away, Amy!
There’s a lot of good writing advice out
there. So much, in fact, that I’m not going to talk about it. Instead, let’s
talk about the advice I totally disregarded.
(But first, a quick note: Everyone is
different. No one can tell you how best to write. Just because the below didn’t
work for me doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. Try a few of them!)
And now, the Writing Advice I Totally
Ignored:
1. Don’t rush just to get words down. There’s
no point in writing words you know you’ll delete later.
Nope,
sorry, this one doesn’t work for me. I’ve moved away from word count a bit, and
I do focus more on producing quality words, but I still need my messy first
drafts. In fact, they’re not even first drafts. Their messy messy messy rough
drafts I maybe don’t even finish. I
recently wrote 45,000 terrible words of Reboot
book two. It was insanely helpful in figuring out the story.
2. Find a critique group to read your work
as you write it and help motivate you to finish.
Critique
groups that meet weekly (in person or online) are not for me. I can’t have
someone else’s opinion on my work when I don’t even know what I’m doing yet. My
beta readers (basically crit partners who read the finished second draft) are
very, very important. But I like to keep early reads to my agent and my sister
(and even then, on a very limited basis).
3. Read your draft out loud.
This
one will probably come back to haunt me. I’ll probably be standing up in front
of everyone at my book launch, reading from Reboot,
and realize it’s terrible. But still, the idea of reading 80,000 words out loud
sounds exhausting and terrifying. No thank you.
4. Publish a short story first.
This
is really great advice for people who write short stories. But I don’t. I write
novels. Short stories sound very, very, hard to me. You have way less words to
build character arcs and your story. (Although, I would consider writing a
novella. But I haven’t tried that either. Yet.)
5. Get a professional editor to look at
your manuscript before querying agents.
I
actually saw this advice on an agent’s submission guidelines and I don’t like
it. I think writers do need outside people to read their work - critique
groups, beta readers, your (honest) friends - but I do not think you need to
pay a professional before even submitting to agents. (This, of course, does not
apply to self-publishing. If you’re self-publishing I think you really do need
a professional freelance editor.)
6. Print out your manuscript when it’s time
to edit. It will make it easier to catch mistakes.
It
might be easier on my eyes, but that sounds like a waste of paper and ink to
me. And I’m really bad about replacing my paper and ink. Let’s not make my life
more difficult.
7. Write first thing in the morning, before
you go to work or start your day.
DUDE
IF YOU WANT TO GET UP AT 5AM TO WRITE THAT’S COOL. I’M JUST GOING TO BE OVER
HERE SLEEPING.
8. Don’t plot the ending in advance. You
have to earn it.
I
can’t remember where I read this piece of advice, but it’s always stuck with me
because it provoked a major WHAAAAAAT response. Of course you have to earn your
ending. But for me, I need to know where I’m headed in order to figure out how
to get there.
9. Keep a diary or a journal.
Spending
that much time with myself sounds terrifying. I’d much rather hang out in my
character’s heads.
10. Don’t start out writing novels.
Why
not?
Amy Tintera is a full-time writer living in
Los Angeles, CA. HarperTeen will publish her debut novel, REBOOT, in Summer
2013. Visit her website and blog: amytintera.com or
follow her on Twitter: @amytintera
