Terrible Writing Advice to Avoid: A Light-Hearted Guide
Everyone’s got a hot take on how to write better, but half the so-called wisdom floating around will sink your prose faster than a lead balloon. Let’s laugh at the worst offenders, then swap them for tactics that actually work.
Bookmark this guide the next time a well-meaning friend swears you need flowery metaphors in every paragraph or that adverbs are literal poison. You’ll thank yourself when your drafts stay crisp, your voice stays yours, and your readers stay awake.
“Always Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is a One-Way Ticket to Rewrites
Hemingway never said it, and even if he had, typing under the influence usually produces bloated paragraphs you’ll trash the next morning. Alcohol slows the prefrontal cortex, so you chase shiny tangents instead of plot.
Swap the whiskey for a fifteen-minute timer; sprint-write while the kitchen kettle boils. You’ll capture the same reckless energy, keep your liver intact, and face a coherent draft at sunrise.
The Myth of Mandatory Intoxication
Screenwriters in Hollywood pitch rooms sip green juice, not gin, because clarity sells. Try a brisk walk or lo-fi playlist to nudge the brain into alpha wave mode; both mimic the relaxed focus people chase with booze, minus the hangover.
“Never Use Adverbs, Ever” Starves Your Sentence Rhythm
Striking every –ly word sounds noble until you realize “she whispered” doesn’t convey volume, only volume plus secrecy. A well-placed adverb can steer mood, pace, or irony in a single beat.
Delete the flabby ones (“really,” “quite”), keep the surgical ones (“softly,” “murderously”). Read the sentence aloud; if removing the adverb changes the music, it deserves its spotlight.
Spot the Slackers Fast
Search your draft for “ly” and highlight verbs that already carry the meaning. “Sprinted quickly” is redundant, but “smiled cruelly” adds a twist the verb alone can’t supply.
“Write Only What You Know” Traps You in Your Zip Code
If Tolkien had obeyed, hobbits would never leave the Shire, and space opera would not exist. Fiction’s job is to generate empathy beyond lived experience.
Research turns unknown territory into familiar terrain. Interview a beekeeper, read a subway operator’s manual, or spend an hour on PubMed; notes beat nostalgia every time.
The 5-Hour Rule for Alien Worlds
Give yourself five focused hours of study for every fresh topic you tackle. That single afternoon prevents blooper-level errors and gifts you authentic details no Wikipedia skim provides.
“Open With a Bang” Often Explodes in the Reader’s Face
Car chases and explosions before we know whose heartbeat to fear feel like theme-park rides: loud and forgettable. Tension starts with stakes, not shrapnel.
Try a ticking clock hidden in plain sight: a visa that expires tomorrow, a kettle whose whistle means an abusive parent’s homecoming. The reader leans in because they care, not because their ears ring.
Micro-Stakes vs. Macro-Booms
Compare “The bomb detonated” to “She hesitated, thumb over Send, knowing the email could sink her ex’s career.” The second detonates inside the reader’s imagination, a quieter but deeper boom.
“Characters Must Be Likable” Flattens Real People Into Puppets
Walter White and Scarlett O’Hara fill arenas with haters who can’t stop watching. Fascination outranks likability every season.
Give your protagonist a contradiction: a hospice nurse who sells fentanyl to afford her daughter’s violin lessons. Complexity invites loyalty; charm invites yawns.
The 60/40 Moral Split
Map one redeeming trait against two questionable ones, then flip the ratio for secondary characters. The imbalance keeps moral math unpredictable and pages turning.
“Delete Every ‘Said’” Clutters Dialogue Like Grease on Glass
Replacements—“uttered,” “exclaimed,” “opined”—slow the eye and scream amateur hour. “Said” is invisible; let it do its ninja work.
Reserve alternates for when the delivery contradicts the words: “I love you,” she lied. One exception per chapter is plenty.
Beat the Tag, Not the Verb
Slap in an action beat instead: “I love you.” She stared at the knife. The visual does the emoting, and you skip the verb entirely.
“Outline Everything or You’re Lost” Ignores Discovery Draft Magic
Rigid scene lists can fossilize spontaneity. Some stories refuse to reveal their secrets until your fingers surprise you mid-sentence.
Try a “headlights” outline: plan only the next three beats, then reassess. You steer with enough road to avoid ditches yet leave room for roadside attractions.
The Reverse Outline Safety Net
After a wild draft, bullet every scene on index cards. Shuffle until causality tightens; you’ll fix structure without murdering inspiration.
“Write Every Day” Becomes a Guilt Club When Life Intervenes
Burnout, daycare closures, and dental emergencies don’t negotiate. Consistency of rhythm beats calendar perfection.
Schedule two “make-up” slots per week. Miss a morning? Slide into Saturday café hour without shame. The novel moves forward; your sanity stays intact.
Word Debt Banking
Track weekly, not daily, totals. Bank extra words on smooth days; withdraw on chaotic ones. The graph still climbs, and your inner taskmaster stays quiet.
“Kill Your Darlings” Needs a Trial, Not a Firing Squad
Deleting gorgeous lines feels righteous until you realize you axed the emotional core. Exile, don’t execute.
Dump cut snippets into a “darlings graveyard” file. Three drafts later you may spot the perfect spot for that metaphor you once mourned.
The Highlight Test
Print a chapter, highlight every sentence that gives you goosebumps. If a darling doesn’t serve structure, try relocating it before deletion; sometimes paragraphs, not sentences, are the real traitors.
“Show Don’t Tell” Used as a Cudgel Creates Exhausting Prose
Four pages of weather to imply sadness turns manuscripts into humidity. Telling has horsepower when time or tone demands speed.
“She’d miscarried twice; rain felt personal” tells in one line what three pages of drizzling windows might dilute. Balance, not dogma, wins.
The Ratio Rule of Thumb
Reserve showing for pivotal emotional peaks; tell across valleys of transition. Your reader breathes between hills instead of slogging an endless slope.
“Never Start a Sentence With ‘And’ or ‘But’” Fossilizes Voice
That rule belongs to 19th-century schoolmarms, not modern readers bred on memes and mic-drop tweets. Conjunctions at the helm create propulsion.
But use the trick sparingly. And when you do, make sure the rhythm earns the punch. Over-seasoning still dulls the blade.
Read-Aloud Cadence Check
Record a page into your phone. If conjunction openers mimic natural speech, keep them; if they feel forced, trim. Your ear is smarter than the rulebook.
“Flowery Prose Equals Literary” Drowns Meaning in Perfume
Endless metaphors smother tension like potpourri in a sealed car. Literary voice emerges from precision, not petals.
Choose one lush image per page. Let the rest breathe plain so the ornate moment sings.
The Single Highlight Method
Open any literary classic; notice how one striking image per scene lingers. Mimic that scarcity; your paragraph will smell like gardenias instead of compost.
“Revise Only at the End” Leaves Structural Rot Untreated
Ignoring moldy beams until the roof is finished means tearing down whole rooms later. Spot-fix as you go.
After every chapter, run a five-minute audit: Does the want change? Is the conflict escalated? Answer no, and you just saved a future weekend rewrite.
The Chapter MRI
Time yourself: two minutes to list each scene’s goal, obstacle, and pivot. If any column blanks, the chapter’s骨架 needs braces before you add flesh.
“Reading While Writing Pollutes Your Voice” Starves Your Evolution
Voice isn’t a fragile antique; it’s a living muscle that grows by lifting other voices. Avoiding books while drafting traps you in your own clichés.
Read outside your genre to steal unfamiliar cadences. A sci-fi writer grazing poetry learns compression; a romance writer inhaling true crime learns pacing under pressure.
The 25-Page Shuffle
Read twenty-five pages of a classic before drafting, but pick an author whose tone contrasts yours. The friction sparks fresh synapses instead of mimicry.
“First Person Is Easier” Masks Its Own Trapdoors
“I” narrators tempt endless navel-gazing and filter phrases like “I saw,” “I felt.” The camera stuck inside one skull can feel like a GoPro taped to a forehead.
Master deep POV instead: delete sensory filters, let external details imply internal states. The reader forgets they’re tethered to one mind and stays immersed.
Voice Consistency Drill
Rewrite a news article in your protagonist’s first-person voice. If the paragraph still sounds like CNN, your narrator needs sharper diction goggles.
“Semicolons Are Pretentious” Is a Self-Inflicted Handicap
avoiding them creates comma splices or choppy fragments. Semicolons link closely related beats; they’re the handshake between independent clauses.
Use when the second thought amplifies or mirrors the first. Don’t flaunt, but don’t amputate a useful limb to sound folksy.
Semicolon Spotting Shortcut
If you can insert a period without changing rhythm, yet the ideas feel magnetized, drop a semicolon. Your prose gains elegant muscle without lifting weights.
“Backstory First, Action Later” Narcotizes Your Opening
Dumping childhood trauma before the present stakes invites skimming. Readers bond through choices, not biographies.
Weave history in only when it impacts immediate decisions. A scar revealed during a knife fight carries more weight than three pages of playground bullying.
The Trigger Rule
Allow backstory only when a present event triggers it, and keep it shorter than the trigger scene. The past serves the now, not the other way around.
“Thesaurus Every Verb” Spawns Linguistic Frankensteins
“Stated” becomes “enunciated,” then “vociferated,” and suddenly your cowboy sounds like a Victorian robot. Precision beats rarity.
Choose the simplest verb that still carries nuance. If “said” leaks ambiguity, ask whether dialogue itself needs sharpening, not the tag.
Reader Alienation Test
Hand your page to a non-writer friend. Circle any word they pause to decode. Replace circled words with grade-eight equivalents; comprehension skyrockets.
“Longer Equals Smarter” Bloats Essays and Novels Alike
Academic journals reward verbosity; readers don’t. An 800-word insight hits harder than a 3,000-word swamp.
Prune ruthlessly: if a sentence survives without changing meaning, nix it. Your audience rewards velocity with loyalty.
The 10% Condense Challenge
After final draft, force yourself to cut one tenth of total words. The exercise reveals hidden filler and tightens muscle without crash-diet gimmicks.
“Ignore Trends, Write Pure Art” Ignores the Market You Must Eventually Enter
Refusing to glance at bestseller lists is like sewing a couture gown and wondering why no one wears it to grocery stores. Art and commerce share a duplex.
Study tropes to subvert them knowingly, not accidentally. Your fresh angle lands faster when you understand the map you’re redrawning.
Trend Transmutation Exercise
Pick a trending trope, list its three expected beats, then write a scene that delivers the opposite of each. You ride the wave while flipping the surfboard.
“Beta Readers Will Fix Everything” Offloads Authorial Responsibility
Expecting volunteers to patch plot holes is like asking dinner guests to cook the meal after serving salad. You invite mutiny and cold potatoes.
Polish to your best ability first, then seek targeted feedback. Specific questions—“Does the betrayal feel earned?”—yield surgical notes instead of vague surgery.
The Question Ladder Technique
Send five escalating questions instead of an open “What did you think?” Each rung forces deeper critique and prevents polite fluff.
“You Need a Fancy App” Drains Wallets, Not Drafts
Scrivener, Notion, and AI corkboards sparkle, but a grocery receipt and Bic pen wrote half the Booker longlist. Tools amplify discipline; they don’t create it.
Pick one minimalist setup—legal pad, cloud doc, or typewriter—and guard it like a dragon hoard. Mastery trumps metadata.
Feature Creep Detox
List every bell your software offers. Disable 70% of them for one draft. You’ll finish chapters instead of color-coding them.
“Voice Will Magically Appear” Keeps You Imitating Heroes Forever
Voice isn’t a butterfly that lands; it’s a callus built by reps. Deliberate mimicry drills speed the process.
Hand-copy two pages of an author you adore, then rewrite the scene in your own setting. Compare side-by-side to spot rhythmic gaps.
The 30-Day Style Gym
Rotate one author per week for a month. By day thirty, your paragraphs will splice their DNA into something recognizably yours, not photocopied.
“Finish Every Story You Start” Chains You to Dead Weight
Some narratives belly-flop by chapter three; recognizing sunk cost is professional, not quittership. Shelf the corpse, salvage organs, move on.
Keep a “parts graveyard” doc: killer dialogue, tasty descriptions. Recycling reduces waste and softens the emotional burial.
The Pivot Checkpoint
At 10,000 words, ask: Am I bored? If yes, audit for missing stakes or conflict. Can’t resuscitate? Eulogize and start fresher soil.
Ignore the echo chamber of absolutes. Swap rigid rules for flexible tools, your brain for a testing lab, and your readers for willing guinea pigs who’ll thank you with page-turns instead of yawns.