The date was October 26, 2007. In the normal course of my Internet cruising for interesting links, story ideas, and general online ephemera, I came across a webpage being featured as a popular writing-related link on the social bookmarking site del.icio.us
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Seeing the title, I was intrigued. “Words Other Than Said.” It only took a second and I realized I would be writing about this page one day. “This has to be the worst example of writing advice I’ve yet found on the Internet,” I said to myself. And, no, I didn’t blurt, expound, grunt, or warble. I said.
No disrespect intended to the site’s owner, but this is a terribly bad idea.
While this isn’t the only writing disinformation I find on the Web, it was one I had to bring up. The problem, I’ve been mulling during the past few months, has to do with what feels like a more and more blurry line between a long, hard-fought tradition we call writing and the younger, perhaps fresher form of communicating online, particularly blogging. More on that a little later.
In the meantime, do yourself a favor, don’t follow writing advice you find online, at least not without extra shakes of salt.
Comments 14
Maybe you could start a list of inappropriate -writing- advice sites. Can’t wait to see your post on blogging-
Armand
Posted 29 Apr 2008 at 11:46 am ¶“Why is it such a bad idea?!” I inquired exclamatorily.
Posted 30 Apr 2008 at 4:02 pm ¶Hell, yes. I was 15 or so when I realised the deep and immovable truth of the rule: Never use any word other that ’said’. I was reading a Sherlock Holmes story, and was alarmed to read: “Good Lord, Holmes!” Watson ejaculated.
Hmm… maybe he shouldn’t have done that.
’said’ is a mortar word; it holds the other, more important, words together and should never draw attention to itself.
Posted 02 May 2008 at 3:13 am ¶Told, Asked and !
Hilarious comment, Ocky !
Sorry to post twice in comments, but I just had a thought. I will occasionally use the word >told< particularly in this type of scheme:
“”I never met him,” he told her.
Told has a certain sense of finality and authority.
And just to be fair, I do use other words on occasion. I like snapped, muttered, mumbled and screamed. So there. I guess I like words that start with M or S. Although, now that I think of it, I never actually write the dialogue when I use mumbled or muttered. I just use them to describe an action or to indirectly report dialogue: He stared out the window mumbling to himself about the price of real estate.
Also, am I the only one who has trouble with asked and exclamation points?
Asked seems to be the obvious choice for questions, but the actual word seems unwieldy and awkward. There are no real substitutes however. Words like queried seems stiff and would get old real fast. I almost feel like attaching to said to questions:
“Are you going to eat that?” he said.
I dunno. I wish I could invent my own substitute for asked. I would use ganned.
“Are you going to eat that?” he ganned.
And exclamation points. I’m pretty much afraid to use them. I see them so rarely in fiction these days. In my mind, you can’t use them with said, but there’s also no reason to use them with yelled, hollered, etc. because the fact that you used an exclamation point makes it obvious that there was some sort of emphatic communication going on.
I also have a superstitious fear of putting an exclamation point next to a quotation mark, so all my exclamations are immediately followed by dialogue that ends with a period like:
“Ever since we left New York, you’ve been a bastard! I hate you.”
Finally, I love the idea of semicolons but will almost never use one in a story because- in my mind- it will accomplish the same thing as slapping a fiction editor across the face.
Armand
Posted 02 May 2008 at 11:14 am ¶I don’t mind ‘told’ or ‘replied’ or even the occasional ‘insisted’. But not much else.
If you’re writing in free indirect style, the good ol’ close third person, then you probably don’t need quote marks at all, let alone all that ‘he said’ stuff. If a writer is careful enough in weaving the character with the style, it is usually clear what is being said and who is saying it.
Posted 04 May 2008 at 8:36 pm ¶Dear AftertheMFA,
Speaking of writing advice online, I’d like to let you know about the new Amistad books blog, amistadconfidential.blogspot.com. You once did a wonderful interview with our author Edward P. Jones and I’ve been checking out your site ever since, I’d love for you to take a look!
Posted 08 May 2008 at 5:53 pm ¶There is a great deal of bad advice to be found on the internet, and not just about writing. However, I have also found a lot of very helpful advice on various sites that are focused on writing. As with everything else in life, you really must exercise good judgment when it comes to reading things on the web.
Posted 09 May 2008 at 10:57 pm ¶As a librarian, I’m acutely aware that there is all manner of bad information easily acquired, across all formats, paper and electronic.
This does rank as bad advice, but it doesn’t follow that we should avoid writing advice on the Internet. The key is to develop critical skills for assessing information. What’s the source? Why is this person providing this information? What are his or her qualifications?
At this point, I stop, to be kind to the person offering the “advice.”
Posted 14 May 2008 at 7:51 am ¶K.G. — you are absolutely correct. There are all sorts of critical questions and factors to come into play when processing information — particularly online, and I think that’s probably my major point.
I guess I get irked when I see people posting unwise or blatantly obvious information about writing. I usually interpret this is a way to drum up blog traffic.
Thanks for bringing all that up.
Posted 14 May 2008 at 10:43 am ¶Christina,
Thanks for the reading and mentioning the Amistad blog. I will definitely take a look and post a link here.
Posted 14 May 2008 at 10:44 am ¶Thank goodness Nabokov and Fitzgerald didn’t take this idiotic advice.
Posted 15 May 2008 at 12:47 am ¶…and where on the site in question that you link to, do you find any actual *advice* whatsoever for you to so callously and jump-to-conclusionly label ‘bad’?
Posted 25 May 2008 at 1:28 pm ¶Hey there!
Just came across this, and appreciated your post on the site.
The list I conjured was something that my English class created when I was about 10. It was much use to me in my earlier days of writing, and - as most writers find- they shed the rest and choose favourites.
My intention is simply to show choice. I’m sorry you feel it’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve ever seen, but it’s a list- not advice. I hope most people see it that way.
Posted 25 May 2008 at 1:36 pm ¶Hi Scarlett-
As a frequent contributor, I’ll step in in a sort of ambassadorial way and says, Damn! Now I feel kind of lame for having poked fun at your entry. If it makes you feel any better, several people took me to town in Dec 2006 for saying literary classics could be safely removed from MFA program curricula (and that was advice). I shuffled around your website a little and was relieved to find that your profile doesn’t seem to suggest someone who is going to lose much sleep over this, anyway.
By means of an explanation many, but by no means all, of the writers who post here (myself included- and maybe you too ?-) generally subscribe to the “said is best” philosophy, and I think your list touched that nerve.
Nice design on your web site by the way.
I wish you the best in your writing and hope you drop by again.
Armand
Posted 28 May 2008 at 3:00 pm ¶Speak Your Mind