| I'm still alive | bad writing advice |
 I'm still alive | bad writing advice
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Dec. 10th, 2022 @ 11:40 am 
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For a while I even lost my password!
But also for the last few months I have been recovering from a quite severe concussion, so that doesn't help with text-based anything.
I now have a scar across the bridge of my nose like some kind of fantasy character.
Until the concussion derailed it I was writing an original work of fiction - I'm over 300k words in, but I'm struggling a little with it post-concussion, which sucks. We found a guy who specialises in concussion treatment (there are actually treatments, it's a whole thing) and it's helping a lot but I'm still having trouble with memory - short term especially, but longer-term is pretty erratic too.
I'm starting to be able to read things a little bit but not if it's too complicated or requires too much thought or mental engagement. I do better with things I've read before.
Nonetheless I came across some "writing advice" that was so bad it made me angry.
The initial advice comes from Chuck Palahniuk, and he advises that people avoid using "thinking" words - knew, realised, thought, etc. It had example passages of detailed descriptions of characters' body language and movements, and he was all "you'll hate me for this, but" and yes, Chuck, I do, but not because it's hard but because it's shit advice.
If you're stripping all of those things out of your writing, you're making it your deliberate intent to write every character as a thoughtless, reaction-only template with no interior life or cognitive processing. Which, sure, for some characters, but it shouldn't be your default.
(Honestly I think this advice says a lot about Chuck Palahniuk and what a soulless, tepid void of a human he must be.)
Because look at it from the perspective of a real person.
Say the person is me, and the other person in the "scene" is ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) velithya.
I don't think: "V's shoulders are slumped and her mouth has something of a downward slant about it. Her movements are sharp and crisp, something jagged about the way she unzips her boots."
I think: "I think V has had a bad day."
Because people form conclusions! People think about things!
And if you strip that out, not only do you portray your character as a very specific type of void, but you lose the ability to do some of the most interesting (imo) character work out there: the unreliable narrator.
Now, I don't doubt it is far beyond Chuck Palahniuk's skill or capacity to write a character in such a way that the reader can see that the character's perception of events isn't wholly accurate, but that's fantastic in the hands of someone who has the ability to do it. Because that's a thing! People interpret what's going on all the time but sometimes they get it wrong.
I wrote a fic set called triptych that presents the same set of events from three different perspectives because perspective is interesting, and if you strip out all of that perception stuff? All the thought?
You've stripped out the perspective entirely.
Chuck Palahniuk's advice is shit advice that will only work for cishet white men with excesses of privilege.Current Music: cricket commentary
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| From: | kate |
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| Date: |
January 8th, 2023 11:53 pm (UTC) |
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I have always hated this advice and struggled with why, so thanks a lot for putting that into words for me. :)
Also: HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
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