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Hey Pandas, What’s The Best Piece Of Writing Advice You’ve Ever Received?
I'm an aspiring writer working on a novel, but I've hit a writer's block. To all my fellow writers (even if it's just that one story you wrote ages ago in school) what's your favorite piece of writing advice?
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I know I am so late to this, by an actual author told me this and it helped a lot. Have a designated writing space, a place you only use to write. Make the environment comfortable and productive. This really helped me a lot.
I can't seem to find a button to add a post, so I'll put my advice here. Never let your characters talk about fantasy exposition in such detail that the reader understands everything about your world system, no matter how tempting. I mean, if you're writing a novel set in the world we live in, would you spend five pages having Amy Jones from America explaining in minute detail how electricity works and how the political system has been structured since the Constitution was written? You can't expect your characters to know everything about the world they live in. As long as you, the writer, understands how the fantasy world works, this will bleed through into your writing with mild exposition cropping up when necessary. An example of this flawed exposition is in Keeper of the Lost Cities (sorry if you haven't read that, it's the only one I can think of) where Fitz explains literally everything Sophie wants to know about the elf world off the top of his head. If someone from another -
- universe rocked up and started asking me to explain the workings of a combustion engine so he can understand how a car goes, I sure as hell wouldn't be able to! TL;DR - keep world building exposition to a minimum when your characters are doing the explaining, because they aren't infallible sources of information about the world and probably don't keep up with every aspect of fantasy life to the point that they can explain it.
Load More Replies... I know I am so late to this, by an actual author told me this and it helped a lot. Have a designated writing space, a place you only use to write. Make the environment comfortable and productive. This really helped me a lot.
I can't seem to find a button to add a post, so I'll put my advice here. Never let your characters talk about fantasy exposition in such detail that the reader understands everything about your world system, no matter how tempting. I mean, if you're writing a novel set in the world we live in, would you spend five pages having Amy Jones from America explaining in minute detail how electricity works and how the political system has been structured since the Constitution was written? You can't expect your characters to know everything about the world they live in. As long as you, the writer, understands how the fantasy world works, this will bleed through into your writing with mild exposition cropping up when necessary. An example of this flawed exposition is in Keeper of the Lost Cities (sorry if you haven't read that, it's the only one I can think of) where Fitz explains literally everything Sophie wants to know about the elf world off the top of his head. If someone from another -
- universe rocked up and started asking me to explain the workings of a combustion engine so he can understand how a car goes, I sure as hell wouldn't be able to! TL;DR - keep world building exposition to a minimum when your characters are doing the explaining, because they aren't infallible sources of information about the world and probably don't keep up with every aspect of fantasy life to the point that they can explain it.
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