: Re: How much heed should we pay to writing advice In replying to this question I thought this would make a good question... This entire site is devoted to giving people advice on their writing,

@Jamie945

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You can learn a lot from an expert. You can learn a lot by doing. More likely, however, you can have your time wasted.

I've found that when my writing actually improves it's when I get in front of readers and they react. If an expert tells you to use technique A or always have Writing Ethic B in mind, it might guide your writing to the better. Or it might not. How do you get a sense of reality and test the assertions of the experts?

Robert McKee recommends reducing any story, early in its development, into the oral tradition and telling it to a person as if you were around a campfire. If a simple version of your story doesn't work in that setting, it's a huge red flag that the story structure isn't there (I have actually followed this advice and realized my story was garbage). Writing goes up and away from there, but all the writing books in the world are just kindling if no one can muster mere attention for your story.

Workshopping is another way to get audience feedback, but in my experience they are skewed by a set of expectations that do not represent an "everyman" audience. Workshop participants sometimes give you feedback that makes the speaker sound smart, instead of insight into the story's problems (I include myself as guilty of this time wasting posturing). What, specifically, do you do with "your characters could use more dimension?"

Whenever I hear workshop feedback, I always ask the speaker "despite that, would you keep reading? Do you want to know what happens?" I find that question focuses the discussion back onto what I can fix in re-writing.

I combine both campfire tellings and workshops to vet my stories. Audiences are the true "expert."

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