Chuck Wendig stellt hier die (zutreffende) Behauptung auf, dass Schreibtipps immer aus dem ‚Survivors Bias‘ entspringen. Das heisst, Autoren die Erfolg hatten, gehen davon aus ihr Erfolg sei hauptsächlich durch ihr Können zustande gekommen und nicht etwa durch Glück, Zufall und den günstigen Moment in dem ihr Werk einfach den Geschmack der Leserschaft traf. Dass diese Autoren dann ihre Arbeitsweise als sicheren Weg zum Erfolg sehen und so ‚eiserne Regeln‘ des Schreibens entstanden sind, wie „Show don’t tell“ oder „Kill your Darlings“. Das diese Regeln aber nicht generell gültig sind, sondern sich manchmal sogar ins Gegenteil verkehren können. Hier seine Tweets dazu:
GOOD MORNING it is time for the Writing Advice song, so sing it with me, 🎶writing advice is a product of survivorship bias, an error of false conclusions based on success that is probably at least in part a bit of luuuuuuuck🎶
it's a catchy tune I know you'll dig that jam
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
next verse
🎶that doesn't make Writing Advice bad but it doesn't make it right either, it just makes it a thiiiiing you should look at and behold and then try or discard at your leiiiiisuuuuure🎶
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
final verse
🎶the things that work for other writers won't necessarily and don't haaaaave to work for yoooo-hooooo-youuuuu because art and story are not cake recipes or lawnmower repair manuaaaaaals dooby-dooby-doo you do yooooou🎶
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
I sing this song because I see that in addition to KILL YOUR DARLINGS we're starting to talk about SHOW DON'T TELL.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
SHOW DON'T TELL is another piece of advice that works until it doesn't. I'm wont to note that SHOW DON'T TELL is not a rule or a law —
It's a trick. An opportunity to fake the cinematic dimension in prose. That's it. It's a tool for the toolbox, not a law chiseled into rock.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
A film is nearly all show. It's visual. A story on paper — a short story, a novella, a novel — is entirely internal. It's all words. SHOWING is just shorthand for writing visually — but we're still STORYTELLING. You still gotta tell stuff.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
The goal is just to be either quick with the data and details or, failing that, be interesting. Sure, sometimes it's better to show a character's emotions, but other times, you want it confirmed: "Natalie was fucking pissed." You don't have to show it. You can say it.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
As with all things, a nice balance is useful — everything in moderation and all that.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
What other WRITING ADVICE CHESTNUTS can we roast?
WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW? Obviously nonsense-flavored advice if you view it as a law, because who wants to watch a writer writing about a writer writing about writing?
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW is not a commandment, but an opportunity. It is a many-flavored opportunity, to boot. It is:
– an opportunity to know more shit
– an opportunity to mine your own life and feelings for cool bits
– an opportunity to connect true experiences to imagined ones— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
But as with all these half-nonsense nuggets of writing advice, if you take them at face value — and you take them as RULES, not just hand-wavey maybe-sorta-ideas, you'll trip yourself up and end face-down in the word-mud.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
WRITERS WRITE EVERY DAY. Except yeah, no, only writers who write every day write every day. Even I only write five days out of seven. Some write huge swaths of word count at one time, others pick at the story like a bird making a nest. Long as the story gets told, who cares?
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
OPEN YOUR STORY WITH A BANG! ACTION ZOOM ZIP WHAM PYOO-PYOO. Except action is very boring without context and character, so unless you're really rooting it quickly to a character's problem and motivation to solve that problem, maybe that's not the best way forward?
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
CUT ALL THE FAT OUT OF YOUR STORY except wait hold on, fat is fucking delicious. A story can use a little fat — and some stories and genres downright demand a lot of tasty, tasty narrative fat marbled all up in there.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
ALL YOU NEED TO BE A WRITER IS TO READ AND TO WRITE. Just like all you need to be a carpenter is to hit shit with a hammer and sit on chairs! Boom! Instant carpenter!
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
PROLOGUES SUCK NEVER DO A PROLOGUE. Except some prologues are great, and some are essential, and isn't that really the rule? If the story needs it, it needs it, and it it doesn't, it doesn't? Otherwise just make it Chapter One? Or something?
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
NEVER OPEN WITH WEATHER but if it's relevant, why the hell wouldn't you open with weather? If there's a fucking hurricane, I maybe wanna know that, as a reader.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
NEVER OPEN WITH A CHARACTER REGARDING THEMSELVES IN A MIRROR except I totally did that in BLACKBIRDS, fuck you.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
CHARACTERS MUSTN'T BE UNLIKABLE except the subtext to this is, they mean women characters, not men, because dude characters get to be unlikable all the damn time. Characters should be interesting. They're best when they have agency. Livable over likable, I say.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
ADVERBS ARE EVIL, THEY ARE WIZARD PRISONS, and you should never use them, as long as you don't mind not using words like "never." Or "everywhere." Or "often." Or "too." Etc.etc.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
You get the point. Nearly every ironclad writing rule is about as ironclad as a boat made of crepe paper. For every piece of *bangs gavel* WRITING LAW there are dozens of authors who have broken those laws with grace, aplomb, and publishing success.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
Those bits of writing advice are useful, though, just for holding and considering why they exist — they're entry-level advice that identifies some problems that newer writers might encounter overmuch, and they set you up at the starting line.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
After which, you spring past them, because your voice is your voice. Your refine your process by testing these bits of advice from others and the ones you have yourself internalized. You challenge them. Maybe they survive they challenge, maybe they don't. The end.
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
(Sidenote: some people seem to misunderstand KILL YOUR DARLINGS as a proclamation to kill characters you love. The advice, broadly, is about eradicating those pieces in your story that You Love But Are Inessential — a sentence, a chapter, a character, a plotline, etc.)
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
okay I'm gone again buy my books leave me a review join my cult
laters pic.twitter.com/FtjKQHlxVJ
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 11, 2018
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