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How to Get Writing Advice Successfully

March 7, 2022

Writing

author, book, fiction, literature, writing

This is quite the meta-post: I’ll be offering you advice on how to successfully get writing advice. More maddeningly, perhaps, I’ll be partly asking you to ignore writing advice – advice which you’d have to ignore in order… not to ignore it. There are no simple answers, sorry!

Overall, what this little linguistic and conceptual wizardry underlines is:

  • Writing fiction is a complex process; it’s both art and isn’t.
  • Crucially, a certain level of critical thinking is required in order to know what advice to follow.

This latter part is what I’ll be focusing on in this post. I’ll offer you tools that will help you know what to do so that you get writing advice successfully. That is, what to do so that any writing advice you’re getting is actually helping you instead of misleading you.

Writing Advice
Writing fiction is not about fact; it’s about affect. Which means, there are only opinions, not objective truth. Thus, when you seek writing advice, you basically only seek opinions
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Author Trademarks: What Are They and Do You Need Them?

July 26, 2021

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

author, literature, writing

Let me make it clear right away: By “author trademarks” I do not refer to anything legal, e.g. in terms of copyright. Instead, in this post I use the term “author trademarks” to refer to a literary device. An author trademark is a reference (e.g. to an object, a character, or a happening) that is recurrent in the author’s work.

This likely reminds you of the concept of authorial style. You would be right to see a connection there. However, it’s important to understand something fundamental about what an authorial trademark is and how it works: Its presence in any single work (e.g. a novel) is neither unique to the given author nor particularly original. Its value – and its status as a literary device – comes solely as a result of its recurrence through the author’s canon.

We’ll explain all this in more detail right away, so no worries. Author trademarks are fascinating, but their peculiarities are important to know. Ultimately, you need to be aware of the dynamics involved before you can decide whether you need them or not.

author trademarks
Author trademarks are something that on its own is fairly mundane and common, but seen in a wider context it can become meaningful.
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How to Gauge Your Writing Skills

November 30, 2020

Writing

art, artist, author, fiction, progress, writing

Self-reflection isn’t easy, as humans have a tendency for confirmation bias. To put it bluntly, it’s easier to believe in a comforting lie than to face an ugly truth. Writers are no exception – indeed, as we’ll see, in some sense they’re particularly vulnerable to self-deception, but probably not in the way you’d expect – and as a result they struggle to gauge their writing skills.

gauge writing skills
Gauging your writing skills is about understanding the fault lines between past and present
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