Developing your own style of writing, your narrative voice, is personal and important. It’s individual to each writer. Long before I ever came in contact with the online community of writers and authors, I had been writing on my own. I instinctively knew basic grammar and English rules from school, but beyond that I wrote however felt right to me. I told stories and created a narration exactly how I wanted and how best fit the character. My mind wasn’t filled with tips and rules invented by other writers who believed their way was the only way.
Since joining the writing community on Twitter, I’ve experienced both good and bad. The main problem I’ve noticed is just how much writers have become caught up in trying to shave down their writing and conform to all the advice authors and other writers have given. All of these rules and ideas are so common place; I suppose if you are accustomed to being surrounded by it, one would think nothing of it. But being new to the publishing circles it was, and still is, simply perplexing. Since when do writers all need to cut down on adverbs and adjectives, since when does it need to be all action? Since when do writers need to be dictated how to tell their story?
I’m not speaking of basic grammar rules or the techniques of speaking and writing English. Nor am I speaking of social issues which need our attentiveness. I mean the simple way you choose to write. The type of tense you use, the amount and style of prose…It’s up to you how much description you choose. It’s up to you how much information you give the readers, how much internal dialogue and reflection to give. I see people becoming so obsessed with “show verses tell,” with shaving away their style and flair because, apparently, it’s “filler” if it isn’t plain and simple.
Of course, if a writer wants to write in a more basic and straightforward manner, that is their choice. But I fear everyone’s voices will begin to sound the same because they’re afraid of having too much of one word, or that they’re “telling” too much, or they used too many adverbs, etc. It’s all cut away until there’s nothing individual about the writing. There’s a balance between too much flair and prose or too much description and then not enough. I have to wonder if the writing community has veered off the in the other direction, completely going to the opposite extreme. This rampant fear of having “filler,” not using adverbs, not using a certain tense, worrying about point of view, not letting people narrate how they want. Somewhere along the way, we started letting other people dictate how we tell our stories.
But you know what? If your character looks “very angry” then write that. Because as a reader, I’m not sitting there picking apart and counting how many adverbs you used. I’m not going to sit there and keep a tally of how much action versus description there is. I’m not going to pick apart someone’s writing and closely inspect it and measure it up to how I think it should be, because it’s not my story. And it’s not my writing. If it has correct grammar and is coherent and engaging, that tends to be all I care about when it comes down to the technical side of reading.
If I’m reading, I really do want to know if your character is “happy” or “extremely happy.” Hell, tell me they’re “rather elated” and then describe how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking. Show me with an action if you want. For the love of God, please give me both because I’ll eat it up. I adore reading how a character is thinking, how they’re feeling, just as much as I want to see how it looks for them to carry out those emotions. Find balance.
My fellow writers just take a moment to breath. Writing advice is valid and important, this whole thing is my own advice, so at the end of the day, if you don’t like it please, ignore it. Because it’s advice and opinion, not fact. Any time you see someone saying what you absolutely cannot do, or simply must do when writing, just take a pause. It’s their opinion. It’s okay if you disagree, it doesn’t matter if they’re a best-selling author. What works for one writer is rarely going to be the same for the next. Write what feels natural to you, use the narrative voice that suits your story. And don’t let the unbalanced rules or opinions of others poison your creativity.
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