The Only Writing Advice that’s Direct and Universal
Writing is such a personal and human experience that it’s almost impossible to give universal and direct writing advice. It’s probably not a coincidence that one of the most popular books on writing (On Writing, by Stephen King) is part memoir, part craft advice. The book shares the experience of one writer (King) and how he came to the profession and honed his craft. We get to live in his head for a bit and see what he’s all about, and take from his stories and thoughts and advice what we will.
Most other insanely popular craft books have some element of memoir to them as well, or at least are so reliant on the personal experiences of the writer that you cannot separate their guidance from their unique voice. I’m thinking of books like Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott, and her “shitty first drafts”) or the Artist’s Way (by Julia Cameron and her morning pages), where you get to know the writer alongside getting to know what works for them.
When it comes to craft, I tend to follow the advice from Robbie Robertson, the great Canadian songwriter, Bob Dylan backup, and all around cool dude, which was immortalized in his song: “The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down”: “Take what you need and leave the rest.”
There’s a lot of great craft advice out there, but this quote reminds us that we need to find our own way to craft. If some piece of advice works for you, then great. Go for it. (I’ve benefited from many a craft book - I wouldn’t be writing without them!)
But if it doesn’t work for you, forget it. If nothing works for you, leave it all behind. You don’t need to contort yourself to fit into what worked for some random guy writing about what happens after a small town teenage girl gets covered in pigs blood on prom night, or a screenwriter who happens to be super productive in the mornings.
The One Piece of Advice that Does Work
However, I have found one piece of advice on writing that is both direct and universal. It’ll work for anyone, anytime, anywhere, no matter what state of life they are in.
And that’s this: Just write.
The only way you can become a writer – whatever that means to you – is by doing it. The only way you can get better is by writing, and getting feedback, and writing more, and getting more feedback. It can be painful, it opens you up to a lot of criticism and exposure, but it works. The only way I got better – and I think most people get better – is by writing, a lot.
The thing that has stuck with me the most from On Writing was not any specific advice King gives, but his approach to sharing his work. He said that, in the early days before his immense success, he hammered a nail into the wall behind his desk and tacked any rejection letter he got to that nail. That was, until the rejection letters became so numerous and heavy that the nail fell to the floor under their weight.
Once that happened, he went out, got a spike (he doesn’t specify what kind, but I imagined a massive railroad spike), and nailed that to the wall. And kept sticking on the rejection letters, the new spike secure enough to hold them all.
Any type of writing requires determination. You must be as fearless as you are committed to the process. You’ve got to keep going, no matter how many rejection letters land on your spike (metaphorical or otherwise – I ended up taping a folder to the wall behind my desk, where I slipped in my rejections. It fell down pretty quickly and now it's placed neatly on a shelf.)
The only thing you can do to learn how to be a better writer is write, and write for other people, and see what those other people think about your work.
