When writers are new or even old, they like to ask authors and other writers for advice. I have done my fair share of asking for advice. But when to take it and what advice to take can be tricky. I am not here to give you advice, I am here to tell you some of the things I have run into when asking for advice. Some advice is golden, like reading as much as you can. Other advice only works for certain people. And then there is advice that some authors or writers or teachers give that other authors, writers, or teachers will disagree with. I have learned that one must take only the advice that works for you as a writer.
When I was in college, I took a novel writing class. In this class, we were to write a 250 page novel in one semester. Every week we were to turn in at least one chapter, more was better. But once we turned in these chapters, our classmates would read them then give us advice or critiques. I got many critiques during the course of that semester. One of the things that my professor first taught us was to populate our novel as quickly as possible. He said that introducing new characters late in a book would be confusing to the reader and would make the character seem as an after thought and not make them important. I took that advice. In the first chapter I had two characters in the first page, and seven by page ten. I thought all was well and good, but then I sent my novel to be edited by Jackson Pearce who said that it was very bad to populate the novel so quickly. She said that introducing so many characters in such a short time was confusing to the reader and the minor characters will get tossed by the way side.
Now these two pieces of advice are very conflicting. So which to take? There are readers who are intellectual and like a challenge when reading. These readers would benefit from populating a novel early. But then there are the readers who read as a fun activity and don't want to have to work while reading. What I have learned to do is take both pieces of advice and combine them. Now, when I write, I make sure to introduce new characters, but at time span that is not confusing, that gives that character purpose, and still be interesting to the reader.
Then there are writers who say to edit while to write, while others say not to do that at all. There is an author who edits what they write once they finish a chapter. Then there is an author who won't even read a sentence of what they have written until they have finished their manuscript. I can see the merits of both of these points of view. Sometimes I can go a few days or longer without writing something in my novel and need to go back to find out where I am, but once I look back, I find something I want to change. But looking back can hinder you from going forward.
The next piece of advice is one I have touched on before. To plot or to pants. Now I believe that before I said that I do a little bit of both. There are some authors who plot so far in advance that they have their entire book, every scene, plotted out. Some authors don't have a single idea of their book plotted out. They want their characters, scenes, dialogue to come organically. Some say that plotting is a good way to write books very quickly and without much effort. Others say that plotting robs the writer of their creativity. So which to do? Either. Neither. Both. Like I said, I do a bit of both. I have a few select scenes that I know I want to happen. Some words of dialogue that I want to be said. I keep a notebook of every novel I am writing with the ideas and scenes and such that I have for them. But then I usually let the rest flow organically.
One final piece of advice that I would like to talk about is where to start a novel. Some say to start in the beginning, chapter one, word one. Others say to start where the characters and novel scream the loudest. To me this doesn't really matter. Also, this is a bit of a complicated one for me. More often than not, I will discover the novel idea with a scene in the middle of the story. But then I figure out where it all started and begin with the first word of the first chapter. So I guess I would go with both. I'm not sure how important this piece of advice is. I think, as long as you start somewhere, that is the most important thing.
There you have it. The four pieces of advice that I have learned the most about and have heard asked or talked about the most often. Now, I know that these pieces of advice are all different and all conflicting, but I think that the most important thing is to find what works for you and go with it. Really, the most important thing is the writing, not the way you write. So go forth, use any advice that you like, write any way you like, but do write.
