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

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.

Thanks for the reading and mentioning the Amistad blog. I will definitely take a look and post a link here.

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.

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.”

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!

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.