5 Best Pieces of Writing Advice I Didn't Get In School

I ran across this... blurb?... article?... blog post?... anyway, ran across this on Cracked and thought others out there would like to take a look. He talks about what he's learned about writing that he wasn't necessarily taught in school. I like the video where he talks about influence vs. plagiarism.

Frankly, I'm having an issue with #2 with my original story I'm trying to write. But that helps knowing that I'm not the only one thinking it.

What do you think? Is this some helpful advice?

Hmm, I kind of have to agree with the article but I also find that sometimes you can't just follow his guidelines as well. And really, all good stories originate from one idea, it's the way you get to the end that's different. I'm working on the Disney Challenge right now and I find that all I'm doing is taking a story that already existed, taking the important elements from it, learning from them, and then making them my own. I'm not copying it, nor am I blatantly stealing parts of it, but, I am using what I know to make my stories the same and different.

I don't know if that helped. Personally, I found number 4 annoying. You can't always use humor to do a plot- what if your story is dark? I do agree wholeheartedly with number 3 though I personally learned that fact in my English classes in high school. Hmm, what do you think?

I agree with the humor point and was thinking that when reading it. Some things just don't call for humor. (imagine Romeo and Juliet cracking jokes when claiming their love... )

I end up the night running through a story in my head as I'm dozing off... the only problem with that is I come up with some great ideas and forget them by the morning.

KEdakumi wrote:
I end up the night running through a story in my head as I'm dozing off... the only problem with that is I come up with some great ideas and forget them by the morning.

I do the same- or I do that in the shower and by the time I end up writing stuff down, it doesn't sound as good as it did before. Anyway, I wish you good luck with your stories and look forward to reading them!