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How Intuition Can Be a Writer’s Best Friend

For this week’s Throwback Thursday, we’re looking at an excerpt from a previous post titled Why Writers Need to Trust Their Intuition.

In my last two posts for Throwback Thursday, I shared a number of quotes from famous authors on writing. These were quotes I came across that I disagreed with. Some I felt were just plain bad advice, and I gave my reasons.

But so as not to sound utterly haughty, I am happy to admit there is a lot of great writing advice out there. Only you can decide what is “truth” for you. My aim at sharing my thoughts like this is to help writers listen more intuitively to suggestions or critiques.

Elizabeth George, in her writing craft book Write Away, writes about listening to our bodies, paying attention to how a scene feels to us. I relate to this intuitive method strongly. Here are some things she says:

“You must develop your instincts for storytelling. I advise my students to trust their bodies when they’re writing because their bodies will never lie to them about the story, the pacing, the characters, or anything else. Their minds, on the other hand, will lie to them all the time, telling them something is good when that sinking feeling in their guts . . . tells them irrefutably that that something is bad. Or vice versa. . . . Your body . . . is the most effective tool you have.” Continue Reading…

More Bad Writing Advice You Can Ignore

For this week’s Throwback Thursday, we’re looking at an excerpt from a previous post titled More Words of Advice from Famous Authors That Are Just Wrong.

Last week, I went over a few bits of writing advice from famous authors that I personally disagreed with. Maybe some of you disagreed with me. I think it’s great to agree to disagree.

Hopefully, though, some of you got the point—that just because someone is famous, it doesn’t mean you have to follow their formula (or creed or belief system) to become a great writer. Or a successful one.

Sometimes following a lot of advice from other people tends to confuse who you are. You are an individual, unique, and what works for one writer may not work at all for another. Stephen King doesn’t like to plot, but somehow his books have been hugely successful. His method seems to work for him, but I can assure you it doesn’t work for everyone. Continue Reading…

Famous Authors’ Bad Writing Advice

For this week’s Throwback Thursday, we’re looking at an excerpt from a previous post titled Words of Advice from Famous Authors That Are Just Wrong.

I imagine this post is bound to draw some criticism, but bring it on!

Maybe it’s just me, but when I read pithy statements from famous authors that are hailed as sage advice, I often scratch my head. Based on my experience as an author, sometimes the savvy advice is more rosemary or thyme than sage.

This silly analogy makes me think of spices, which leads me to think how everyone’s tastes are different. You may love cumin in your chili (I do), but a friend of mine says it tastes like dust and she can’t stand it.

So what’s my point about sage advice? That just because some really famous author said it, doesn’t mean it really applies to you. What works as gospel for one writer may be madness for another.

So it may be wise to take such advice with a grain of salt (unless you don’t like salt—so maybe that expression doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in this context). For you, maybe that great advice is just plain wrong. Continue Reading…

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