Ammokkx

The Worst Writing Advice

Honestly, most of the writing advice here people post here are either people misconstruing what are meant to be guidelines towards writing and instead, taking them to heart in a draconian manner. None of the rules mentioned here are necessarily wrong, per se, barring a few minor wishy-washy platitudes. When mishandled improperly or misinterpreted, that's when the problems begin.

@Bork Lazer

That's the thing, though. They are often misinterpreted and used in a draconian manner.

I agree that the spirit of the message isn't wrong, but I also can't deny that the way I've seen these sentiments echoed and used have been in exactly the way described right here in this thread. Quite simply put, these rules get told in their short and easy to grasp on a surface level forms. The problem, then, is that people who don't understand the deeper meaning to them take them too far. Those people, then, tell this advice further without knowing how to apply it themselves.

Personally, because of stuff like this, I'd be extremely careful with these "guidelines" because people properly fail to explain them. You should always take the TED talk route with stuff like this, where these rules are just a title to a much longer explanation. They often aren't, though, and that's what makes it bad advice.

The Worst Writing Advice

I'm also going to say that if someone is writing "to make art" they're doing it for the wrong reasons. You shouldn't write to make art, you should write to express something that has meaning to you, regardless of how "artsy" that is. I've never met someone who reads books for the prose, its about the story and the message, regardless of how that's presented. I don't think it's about mass appeal or trying to be popular, because if using simple prose made things more popular then Ayn Rand wouldn't have so many fans. Some of the best fiction doesn't do anything extraordinary with its prose. 1984 has very basic prose when you look at it but that doesn't make it any less emotionally draining a read.

@Bluetommy

The statement "Writing to make art" was me saying in a tongue-and-cheek-way that the people who'd avoid "Said" at every cost wouldn't be on a roleplaying forum because they're too busy revolutionising the medium of text.

People who write as an artform don't exactly make books like 1984, at any rate. They're using and abusing literature in different ways, and the most common form to show this with is poetry.

Writing can absolutely be an artform, but the kind of people who'd do that, and thus avoid the mundane usage of words as we do it, woudln't be here on a fucking RP forum. Therefor, just use Said.

I realise it's a bit disconnected from the whole "bad advice" context of the thread, but that's also why it's a rant and I didn't write it out at first until Broken very clearly didn't know what I was on about for a moment.

Also, rants like that are written at the dead of night for me when I'm low on brain juice. Certain details slip my mind in those moments.

EDITS: To clarify a bit further; the statement "If it is literally any other reason" is meant to indicate that, outside of that very specific context, it's fine to rely on 'Said' as a word. And I doubt even a single person on this site unironically considers himself to be writing art, thus, they should be comfortable using the word "Said". Get the idea, now?

The Worst Writing Advice

...acknowledges "Said" is a fine word to effectively convey dialogue...

@Ammokkx

Anyway, writing is a very subjective thing and almost every rule you can think of has a time and place where it works and doesn't work... Just like "don't use said."

@BrokenPromise

??????

@BrokenPromise

Oh, fine. If you want the rant, you'll get the rant.

"Don't use said," phrased in that way, is inherently bad advise. "Said" is not only a fine word, but needlessly forcing yourself not to use it is not only an exercise in frustration and futility, but also incredibly obnoxious.

Ask yourself this: Why are you writing? If the answer is "To make art" then, yes, you should absolutely avoid 'said,' but you'd also need to do much more than that. You'd not only need an extensive grip of the language you are writing in with all its peculiarities and commons, but also fundamentally understand that which you will be writing will not be appreciated by an audience at large. You are actively trying to elevate the medium beyond the realm of normal consumption and would, thus, use extremely thought-out and uncommon words and sentence structures. That, or you go the complete other direction and boil it down to sound poems. Either way, you're going deliberately out of your way to avoid the mundane with purpose.

If it is literally anything else, don't purposefully try to avoid "Said."

While a big audience can definitely swallow some big words, the most appealing literature to the masses is also written in simple language. It is not about expanding the words you use, but about using the words you already know well. It's fine to strive to expand your vocabulary, but it need not be a goal. A lot of successful books have been written in very basic language that a lot of people can understand, and this is by design.

By telling a person they should avoid a word wholesale without explaining why, you're entirely missing the point. Even then, you shouldn't be telling them to avoid the word to begin with. The thing you should say isn't "Don't use said". What you should say is "Use said in these contexts" as that is not only far more useful advice, but also makes the fledgling writer think about the why and how of their writing.

And, to tie it into KISS, don't think too hard about your writing. "Don't think about it at all" is not what I'm saying here, though. I'm saying you should definitely give issues like these some though, but never get caught up in them. If you really struggle to effectively write without relying on some words, then just use those words. There aren't only a lot of options in how to phrase a sentence, but there's also a lot of ways to manipulate your own mannerisms into something readable and workable.

Source: I don't follow any of my own advice and my writing is fucking garbage because of it.

The Worst Writing Advice

@Ammokkx I actually like to skip said and just describe an action, which works for the most part.

<Snipped quote>

There are lots of options.

Anyway, writing is a very subjective thing and almost every rule you can think of has a time and place where it works and doesn't work. Just like "show, don't tell," Just like "write what you know," Just like "don't use said."

@BrokenPromise

I also have one golden rule that trumps all.

KISS.

Keep it simple, stupid.

Anyway, I had this entire thing written up but instead I'll just point out that the very image you linked has a small section where it, itself, acknowledges "Said" is a fine word to effectively convey dialogue. The alternatives, by its own admission, should only be used sparingly, and preferably in the rough contexts under which they are categorized.

The Worst Writing Advice

There are more interesting alternatives TBH.

@BrokenPromise

The problem with thesaurus-shorthands like these is that they often feel very unnatural in most people's writing and takes away from the inherent simplicity that makes it pleasing to read in the first place. A vast majority of them go unused because despite appearing elegant on the surface, they're actually clumsy as hell to pour into sentences.

(I don't actually have anything to add to the conceit of this thread because I can't remember any genuinely and blatantly bad writing advice I've gotten.)

Feeling ignored. Part 2.

Aommokkx

@Majora

Aommokkx

@NesyExecutive

okay, so i know people generally don't know how to pronounce my username

but this one's new even for me

Roleplaying Outside of the Box

I like role-playing on top of the box.

@Inkarnate

get off the fucking soapbox, ink

Terrible Terrible Fate - A Dark Magical Girl Roleplay

Oh, you closed the other thread.

Yeah, this clears up a lot of the 'what' behind this setting.

Roleplaying Outside of the Box

Going to be honest here, of these 20 examples, I think I could only consider maybe two "out-of-the-box" at best. That phrase, ironically, makes me think of a specific type of RP set-up; that being, anything that isn't a traditional setup.

When I think out-of-the-box, I think the following concepts: Not having a single set character, everyone controlling the same guy, making your character up as you go along, etc.

Basically, anything that deviates from the "Here is my character sheet" style of RPing we're all used to in both forum and tabletop-style RP. That, to me, would be considered "out-of-the-box."

Everything else proposed just has to do with the narrative flow of the RP, and are often just more tools to explore within that boundary of traditional character sheet-based RPing. Sure, they're not always explored fully or utilized as well as they could, but none of these ideas constitute a roleplay all their own. Most of what I've read here just comes down to "how much planning do you want vs. how much improvisation" and "if we improvise, in what manner do we improvise?"

What I'm saying is that this is a lot more out-of-the-box to me than the stuff which is proposed in this thread.