Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Advice about writing can be good or bad so how can you tell the difference?

Today is the one year anniversary of the Insecure Writer's Support Group website. To celebrate, the insecure writers of the world are putting together an anthology. The book's purpose is to assist and encourage other writers on the journey, so they are looking for tips and instruction in the areas of writing, publishing, and marketing. Now, since there is so much of this on the internet already, and I think there is literally nothing I can say that can add to this chorus, I thought I'd write an article on decision-making itself and how a person can separate good advice from bad advice. To be clear, my article here isn't intended for the anthology. Rather it's meant to somehow complement all the advice that's out there by perhaps looking at the giving and receiving of advice in a different light.

In the realm of "advice" I think the word "specious" comes to my mind particularly often. The definition of "specious" is something that has the "ring of truth" but is inherently false, and it's been my observation that all of us are guilty of accepting specious advice because of a thing called "confirmation bias."
Now, if you don't know what this is, "confirmation bias" happens in those moments where everything you see seems to confirm your wisdom. It occurs because of a misconception that your opinions are the result of years of rational, objective analysis when in truth...your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information which confirmed what you believed while ignoring information which challenged your preconceived notions. Don't take my word for it, but take what Terry Pratchett has to say through his character Lord Vetinari from The Truth: a novel of Discworld:
"Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things...well, new things aren't what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don't want to know that man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds...Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already know is true."

So I guess if I have any advice to give with regard to accepting advice from others (writing or otherwise), it is this: be skeptical of anything that promises to solve a problem especially if it fits your existing ideology. Instead, consider examining the advice using a method outlined by Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson in Psychology Today and see if it stands up to the following conditions/questions:

1) Is the advice true? Is there evidence that supports a conclusion?
2) Does the advice have actionable steps that can be reproduced by anyone? Take a recipe as an example. If you follow a recipe exactly, you will always end up with the same thing. If you apply this to say...publishing advice...and follow the steps someone has outlined exactly then you should be able to arrive at the same conclusion. If not, then the advice is probably bad.
3) Consider the source and what their agenda might be (if any).

Basically, what I'm saying is to be careful of taking advice that comes from such an ambiguous cloudy thing as "personal experience," especially if the personal experience is not framed properly. No two situations are ever alike, but with a proper frame job you can at least understand not just what worked but why it worked in the first place.

17 comments:

  1. Yes, always consider the agenda behind the advice, because often there is one!

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  2. Great explanation of confirmation bias!

    With writing/publishing, it's such a slippery slope. Because what might work for one person, may not for another. And it's not that the trick or advice is WRONG, per se, it's just not always right. If that makes sense.

    I'm a big fan of trying a bunch of things until you find out what works best for you and sticking with it.
    (but i have a huge pet peeve about this kind of advice that is given out as Rules or Law. Nope! Like Steve Brust says, you can do anything as long as it works)

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  3. This applies to life as much as writing. Like deciding which news station to watch or which newspaper to read. We pick the ones that align with our views.

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  4. You could not be more right. No two situations are the same, so we have got to stop judging ours by someone else's yardstick.

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  5. Nicely written Mike. And the Pratchett quote was spot on. Some of the best advice I ever followed came from character insights in books :)

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  6. One thing to remember, it's always variables which cause the differences, as in the recipes (variables=your oven, what kind of ingredients you use and your skill at measuring and following instructions)

    However, you are right in that there is a ton of writing how-to's in the published world, and almost every author has written one, especially after a book or two. Nothing wrong with this but it's a lot to wade through. I've become better at sifting the chaff from the wheat. Very good points, Michael.

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  7. But -you- just proved what I already thought! Now, I'll have to just go take everyone's advice!

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  8. When it comes to advice, most of the people offering it are either pompous or selling something. All rules are made to be broken and it's best to seek your own council.

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  9. Sometimes I feel no matter what "advice" I take, it never works for me. Got to find what works for this lil writer on my own I guess. I like the quote btw.

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  10. That's why I so rarely give advice.

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  11. The answers are going to be different for everyone. And the business is in constant flux.

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  12. I know of some writers that switched to writing to formulas and popular genres (mainly romance for women) and it does work. I've seen the proof. But even then that still doesn't mean it will work for everyone. Not everyone wants to write to a formula. In publishing, you can't be sure about anything.

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  13. Advice comes from all over the place. You have to decide whether to follow it or go your own path.

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  14. nicely said, consider the source indeed!

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  15. You're so right that people have confirmation bias. I pretty much never give advice to writers on how to write because I'm not really sure how I do it. The closest I come to it is making specific points like, "I'm not sure that in this scene this character's emotional reaction is real or intense enough." Sometimes a writer is open to an opinion like that, sometimes not. And I've learned the hard way who to trust on giving me advice; I've learned that friends (both real life and blogging ones) are more reliable than relatives, for example. They just seem to be more genuine, more honest, and less likely to have an agenda.

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  16. I love Lord Vetinari. He's one of my 10 favorite characters in the Discworld.

    Advice is a hard one. It's why I try to stay away from giving any.

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  17. What an insightful post. Great food for thought. I like it when writing makes me think. Thank you.

    Juneta at Writer's Gambit

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