What's the worst writing advice you've been given in school?

[Xarpho]

Kind of inspired by this bit from @Diana Moon Glampers in an A&N post.

Kiwis, if you write anything (especially for pay), please do yourselves this one simple favor:

Delete sentences like this from the start of your articles. If the background information you're using as a lead-in is known by literally every human being who will ever read the article/essay/whatever, it doesn't need to be there. If your English teacher taught you to write this way, go stab her in Minecraft and tell her she was an idiot and wrong. Same goes for anything involving a dictionary definition, or any opener that starts with some stupid factoid ("there are now x billion devices connected to them thar intarwebs!111").

It's normal to use these kinds of introductory facts as a sort of lead-in for your writing, to get yourself in the right head space about what you're trying to say. It's like erecting scaffolding in order to do the real work of construction. But leaving it in is like leaving the scaffolding up when you are all finished: it makes the whole project look worse, and it makes its creator look like a fucking amateur even before someone can really evaluate the rest of the work being done.

It reminded me that English teachers in high school usually have really bad advice for high schoolers, who can barely write as-is. I think one of the top candidates for "bad advice" is "Said Is Dead", which was to avoid the use of "said" through a laundry list of synonyms, all of which are extremely specific and would ridiculous if the whole work used it. (Purple prose is something to be avoided.)

What are some of your "hall of shame" writing advice from school?

 

[TurdFondler]

Synonyms. Endless fucking worksheets on vocabulary to "avoid repetition" and encouraging you to use a thesaurus. Writing should be clear and concise, if you have to use a word more than once so be it.

Also the obsession with correct grammar and not structure or content. As long as your drivel was grammatically correct you got an A.

 

[Xenomorph]

Having a regents diploma will guarantee you entry in any college.

 

[Red Hood]

"Write what you know" can be good advice, but oftentimes it just leads to navel gazing teenagers writing about how hard middle class suburban life is and literature professors writing fantasies about fucking their students.

The best writing advice I ever got though, was "do plenty of research".

Synonyms. Endless fucking worksheets on vocabulary to "avoid repetition" and encouraging you to use a thesaurus. Writing should be clear and concise, if you have to use a word more than once so be it.

Also the obsession with correct grammar and not structure or content. As long as your drivel was grammatically correct you got an A.

It's okay to use a big vocabulary- if that's your style. Lovecraft wouldn't be the same without his two dollar words, and Hemingway wouldn't be Hemingway with them. For grammar I focus on how it sounds. If it sounds right, most people won't notice if a preposition or whatever is misplaced.

 

[Testacles Maximus]

“Stop writing such graphic sex scenes.”

I don’t care if we were only in second grade, don’t stifle my fucking creativity.

 

[DaBigBopper]

It needs to be X amount of words.

For lazy students yes, but in your own work it doesn't. Unless you're being paid per word or per page keep it concise. I think requiring students to do a ten page report is why so many students suck at writing. Quota systems only lead to mediocrity.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

Here are a few common ones:


"Keep all the paragraphs in an essay a similar length."

Paragraph and sentence length are the primary signpost used to help the reader understand relative importance and expected focus within a work. Long sentences and paragraphs invite skimming and are good for dense body copy, but bad when you're making big points. Short sentences -- or those punctuated in ways that set off important clauses -- give your reader a clue to slow down and read more carefully.


"Start by developing your thesis statement, then write your intro, your body, and your conclusion."

This is advice literally given to teach to the requirements of standardized writing assessments, where you have an hour or less to compose an essay. Once you graduate high school, you should never write this way again ... but college profs are often idiots who tell you to do this, too. I can't say how many profs I've seen who tell students to have their thesis statement and then start researching and writing an essay. What a backwards idea! How do you know your thesis before you've grounded yourself in some research? Write down some preliminary notes about how you think you feel about the topic, then start your research, then keep jotting notes down to start forming your thesis.

So, write a "placeholder" introductory paragraph when you think you've got something good, work through your body, and then the magic happens: you'll find that your conclusion may actually have a different thesis than your introduction. That is good! It means you've learned something -- taught yourself something! -- while writing your paper. Your conclusion will have your real thesis. Go back, delete as much of your placeholder introduction as seems prudent, and retool it with your new, more educated thesis in mind.


"To edit your work, go through it and fix the grammatical and spelling errors."

This isn't what editing is. That's proofreading, and it's the absolute final step before something goes out the door. Editing comes before proofreading. You start editing from the macro level and move toward the micro level. Start with a global read of your paper. Does it make sense overall? Does the body of the paper have arguments supporting your conclusions? Are those arguments backed with appropriate, convincing evidence?

Next, check your paragraphs and sentences. Do they flow well from one into another? Two exercises will help. #1: Read it out loud. This will genuinely help your ability to find sentences that end abruptly or seem to not flow correctly into the next sentence. #2: Print out your entire paper in a relatively big font (it may be a lot of pages). Cut it up: cut each paragraph out separately. Jumble them up. See what happens if you try to put it back together. Did you put it back together in the same order? If a paragraph seems like it doesn't flow or isn't focused within itself, cut it up further into individual sentences. See if you can put it in a different order to make it make more sense (possibly after changing some of the connective tissue to improve flow). Don't be afraid to delete some sentences entirely. Digressions may be true but they don't contribute to your actual argument.

Only after you've done this work at the overall argument, paragraph, and sentence level should you concern yourself with the more typical tasks of proofreading: grammar and spelling checks, punctuation, and so on. Don't try to do this step at the same time as the others. Do it after. You don't even know what you're keeping or where it's going until you've done real edits.

 

[Dysnomia]

Bongland professor wouldn't let us double space. To me it looked messy.

I did like how a lot of the students who bought papers failed. I think he knew.

I had an English professor who sounded more like a kindergarten teacher. I liked him but he wanted us to be overly descriptive and make sure people knew what we were writing about.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

Also, Kiwis, I will undoubtedly regret this but if you want some pointers about your academic or professional writing, send it to me. No fiction, please. No erotic fiction especially please.

 

[Xarpho]

I did like how a lot of the students who bought papers failed. I think he knew.

There was software (TurnItIn) that my English teachers used back in the late 2000s where essays got uploaded and cross-referenced with each other (as well as other texts from books and the Internet) to check for matching text.

 

[seri0us]

It needs to be X amount of words.

For lazy students yes, but in your own work it doesn't. Unless you're being paid per word or per page keep it concise. I think requiring students to do a ten page report is why so many students suck at writing. Quota systems only lead to mediocrity.

http://rinkworks.com/stupid/explanation.shtml
Why write all these words when he just could've written "About you, not for you"?

 

[Testacles Maximus]

No erotic fiction especially please.

I’ll take that.

There was software (TurnItIn) that my English teachers used back in the late 2000s where essays got uploaded and cross-referenced with each other (as well as other texts from books and the Internet) to check for matching text.

Oh I remember that fucking shit.

 

[LateNightMuffin]

Bongland professor wouldn't let us double space. To me it looked messy.

The professor was a moron. That really is the worst advice he could have given. First, yes, it's harder to read. Next, publishers of all sorts generally require double-spacing. Third, it's almost impossible to edit single-spaced pieces of writing.

 

[Alabaster Disaster]

Advice against split infinitives was an attempt to make written English more and more Latinate but it's a Germanic language and it's perfectly fine to split an infinitive like a Roman skull in Teutoburg Forest

 

[Clout $ Monei]

I had the best high school philosophy teacher : he told us to he would give a failing grade to any essay that started with "Since the dawn of time" or any other tired cliché like that. Also taught us Freud was a weirdo and the best brands of chainsaws are Husqvarna and Stihl. I have yet to see any proof of the contrary, on both accounts.

Worst advice I got was regarding a creative writing assignment where I intentionally used repetition and a very bland style to convey boredom and monotony. It completely flew over the teacher's head, who gave me the most conformist "correction" imaginable : "avoid repetition", "make richer sentences". Imagine if Palahniuk's editor told him to be more creative when he wrote "copy of a copy of a copy" in Fight Club.

 

[TurdFondler]

Creative writing is basically pointless to teach in school. Most teachers have no fucking idea about writing and they'll critique the grammar endlessly without touching structural or stylistic issues.

I remember all through grade school and into high school being encouraged to write purple prose.

 

[Safir]

I didn't have creative writing, I had critical essay writing, and I used to start my essays in this exact retarded way (here's the link the op refers to, and the quote):

"Animation has come a long way since shows like Looney Tunes and characters like Mickey Mouse. While it was initially geared towards a more adolescent audience, animation has grown in its maturity and been used to tackle far more mature themes in a medium easily accessible to anyone."

No one in particular taught me, I learned it by cultural osmosis that it's how you're supposed to write essays to get good grades. Fortunately, as I was about to finish school, another class's teacher took pity on me and told me she'd fail me at the finals if I did that, and gave me permission and training to write better. But, because it was nearly finals time, I never got to put my opinion in my own essay (I did it later ghostwriting for a friend in a public school).

Anyway:
the worst creative writing advice I've seen, after "write what you know", is "the opening paragraph has to immediately grab the reader, so you should start in media res". Not because starting in media res is bad, but because retarded fucking hacks who take it don't have the balls to follow through and resort to flashbacks. So you get shit like this:

Bob was being chased by monsters / mobsters / cops! Bob veered left! Bob dodged right! An enemy blocked his path, and Bob took out his weapon and took a single shot, and closed his eyes against the rain of blood and guts. "Fuck, not my new suit", Bob sighed.
Just this morning, when he'd met the elf king / mafia boss / police captain,

Noooooo. Noooo you didn't. Fuck you. Get raped with satan's spiked dildo, forever. I'd rather read 18 pages about the weather than this.

(Instead, drop a piece of info later on that the police / mafia / elf patrols are looking for a guy because he supposedly did a thing, and the reader will go "ooh, that must be Bob!" and get a boner gender euphoria from his own cleverness and like your book more.)

 

[Xarpho]

I didn't have creative writing, I had critical essay writing, and I used to start my essays in this exact retarded way (here's the link the op refers to, and the quote):

No one in particular taught me, I learned it by cultural osmosis that it's how you're supposed to write essays to get good grades. Fortunately, as I was about to finish school, another class's teacher took pity on me and told me she'd fail me at the finals if I did that, and gave me permission and training to write better. But, because it was nearly finals time, I never got to put my opinion in my own essay (I did it later ghostwriting for a friend in a public school).

Anyway:
the worst creative writing advice I've seen, after "write what you know", is "the opening paragraph has to immediately grab the reader, so you should start in media res". Not because starting in media res is bad, but because retarded fucking hacks who take it don't have the balls to follow through and resort to flashbacks. So you get shit like this:

Noooooo. Noooo you didn't. Fuck you. Get raped with satan's spiked dildo, forever. I'd rather read 18 pages about the weather than this.

(Instead, drop a piece of info later on that the police / mafia / elf patrols are looking for a guy because he supposedly did a thing, and the reader will go "ooh, that must be Bob!" and get a boner gender euphoria from his own cleverness and like your book more.)

The thing about in medias res is that it often needs an unusual situation for the characters to be in given the established narrative. Why is a main character being held hostage in the Middle East, when it was his former coworker that was shown to be captured on the last season finale? Why are they all locked in a bank vault? Why is the main character running around an empty warehouse, and why is his lady cop friend pointing a gun at him?

(These are all from TV shows in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Good on you if you get all 3.)

All of them then continue to "x days/months earlier", and the story is figuring out how they got in that situation to begin with, which usually happens somewhere halfway in.

The other problem that TV shows have a much longer script than anyone in college or high school is writing for, up to 45-60 pages, so when the payoff from the in medias res happens is at least 20 pages away. If you're writing a short story for public school, you can build a multi-page story with a beginning, middle, and end, but you won't have time to reach up to a proper position where it actually pays off.

If Bob is fighting off mantis-men in the year 3001 and it cuts back to Bob the mild-mannered white collar worker in a government office, it's a somewhat interesting premise and might work in a longer work...but when the draft is only 4 pages long double-spaced, it's absolutely going to suck.

 

[Screamer]

I don't think I ever got particularly good advice. I was intelligent enough the teachers could ignore teaching me, not get to know me, yet not smart enough to get their attention.

I think there was bad advice for what subjects to do in the final years, no one guided me into doing subjects that were suited to me or my interests. I was just smart enough to be allowed to do hard subjects that I wouldn't enjoy.

Career advice for going off to college was awful. I was just on the train of, "you're reasonably intelligent, this is what intelligent people do." As opposed to finding my own areas of interest and what suited me.

Onto specific stuff, I still remember a creative writing assignment I did where I essentially wrote some sort of spy, thriller action-adventure story because that's what I was reading at the time. Those were the sorts of films I liked.

It involved a fictional updated version of the B-2 stealth bomber. I liked aeroplanes, I had plenty of books and magazines. I did research and incorporated technical details based on the B-2. "The 172 foot wingspan rolled out onto the runway." Shit like that which all good stories of this genre include.

It wasn't just technical shit, it was all just background for whatever the story was. I also put a lot of attention into details and being grounded. I was really pleased and happy with my story as thrilling action and adventure.

A story that I put way more work into than I normally did just shitting something out the night before, knowing I was smart enough to be able to do fine enough.

What was the end result?

The teacher gives a lecture to the class absolutely shitting all over my story. Talking about how people shouldn't just make stuff up, people should write about what they know. Full of thinly veiled references to my story and the technical details I included. He wasn't attacking my story, he was attacking the details I put in from research.

So what is the takeaway? Don't try, just coast on your abilities.

I remember mentioning to him I researched those details, and I got that sheepish, "oh well" because these small men teachers can never admit they're wrong.

 

[TurdFondler]

Anyway:

the worst creative writing advice I've seen, after "write what you know", is "the opening paragraph has to immediately grab the reader, so you should start in media res".

The big issue there is usually a flashback or opening scene that isn't a fully fleshed out arc. There's nothing inherently wrong with flashbacks or in media res openings, but fragmenting either, or worse, fragmenting both leads to boring and disjointed imagery.

I'd prefer a shitty flashback to a "main character wakes up" scene.