Happy April Fools’ Day! In honor of the holiday, I’ll be giving highly prescriptive, condescending writing advice that sets arbitrary limits, reinforces inflexible constraints, and just generally crushes your creative spirit. For fools, from a fool.
*throws confetti, the most foolish of celebration tactics*
- Write what you know! Only what you know. Don’t make anything up. Don’t try new perspectives or wild plot lines, especially in early drafts. Don’t ask what if.
- Write every day. If you don’t write every day, you’re not a real writer. You don’t care enough. What could possibly be more important? If you really cared, you’d find a way.
- While you’re at it, quit your day job. Because day jobs are for suckers. Real writers just write. You can always downsize to living in someone else’s walk-in closet and eat nothing but instant ramen — have you thought about that option? Try it. And there’s always crowdfunding. A real writer would make it work, somehow.
- Real writers also produce perfect first drafts. Whatever you put on the page that first time sticks with you forever, so definitely obsess over it. Word after laborious word.
- Beta readers? You don’t need them! Only you know your creative vision and no one else is qualified to help shape your book. If they did that, it wouldn’t be your book anymore. So no critique partners, no workshops, no conferences. The only path to writing brilliance is a completely solitary one.
- When someone asks you what kind of reader your book is for, the only correct answer is “Everyone.”
- When it comes time to seek publication, there’s only one way to do it. Whatever way you think you might want to do it is stupid. The right one is the other one.
- Once you’re published (which you definitely will be, following this awesome advice), when people review your work online and they don’t love it, tell them how wrong they are. Contact them personally and really let ’em have it. How dare they, even? And if someone writes a review that reads like a five-star but only gives you four stars, rake that person over the coals too. That extra star is really meaningful. One more star on one more review makes all the difference.
- You must be on all social media all the time, whether you like it or not, and definitely pressure everyone you encounter to BUY YOUR BOOK at all times because what’s more convincing than shouting BUY MY BOOK into the void? A DM to every new follower telling them BUY MY BOOK, that’s what. Do that. It sells truckloads.
- When people congratulate you on your success, which they’re definitely going to — you’ll probably even get interviewed on TV! — take 100% of the credit. You earned it all by yourself with no help at all. Luck doesn’t play any role in writing or publishing, for sure. Only people who deserve it get published, and if you don’t make it, it’s because you weren’t good enough. That is the only reason. See, told you should have quit your day job.
Q: What’s the most foolish writing advice you’ve received?
About Jael McHenry
Jael McHenry is the debut author of The Kitchen Daughter (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books, April 12, 2011). Her work has appeared in publications such as the North American Review, Indiana Review, and the Graduate Review at American University, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing. You can read more about Jael and her book at jaelmchenry.com or follow her on Twitter at @jaelmchenry.
OMG Jael this post is everything! Off to broadcast far and wide. The most foolish writing advice I’ve received? Heard from multiple sources: “Agents are gatekeepers who only exist to take money that’s rightfully yours and keep you from achieving your publishing dreams.”
I hear I might be seeing you at UnCon? I hope so! It’s been too long.
Love this! Thanks for the laughs, so close to home—the best kind.
Ha! I swear I’ve heard each of them at least once, especially #2! As an addendum to #6, be sure that your book (first draft with no beta readers) is all things to all people. I mean, it can’t *just* be a supernatural spy thriller period piece with dynamic and diverse characters, it also has to be pure poetry at the word level, include an inevitable but still surprising final battle, and offer a workable solution to climate change.
Hahahahahaha. Love it!
Dee
The best writing advice I ever received was that there is only one way to do it.
I’m sharing this with my critique group which will, if we follow your advice, immediately disband.
Laughing out loud on a Monday morning. Great fun! Thanks for this :)
Thanks, Jael! Now I know I’m on the right path to complete success. NOT.
PS A good laugh, that comes first, is a wonderful way to start my writing day.
Nobody to blame but myself. In 2014 I took an online course How To Write Like A Professional. True if the professional is a formulaic hack.
All the other correspondents thought that it was great. I thought it was a load.
Most of the critiques that I get with rejections are worthless. If I had wanted to write the story as they suggest, I would have done it. Moving on to acceptance somewhere else.
I haven’t been given this advice, but apparently a lot of writers have – Always namedrop your books when you introduce yourself. My favorite example came from a conference a few years ago. A gentleman stood up to ask a question of the panel of editors: “My name is Bob Blah, author of the very-specific-genre series of books, the fourth of which “Generic Title” is due out in April, and my question is….” When you do this, be sure your next sentence has nothing to do with your book, genre, or publishing in general.