Advice for Fun and Profit

[vanity-lost.livejournal.com]

I know we have a ton of writers and writerly types in this group. Almost all of whom are talented like whoah. Plus just lots of intelligent, snarky peoples. So, I was wondering... 

If you could give LKH one piece of advice (literary or even otherwise I guess) what would it be? 

Or alterately... what's the best piece of writing advice you've ever gotten and how does Mad Ms. Hamilton violate it? 

Because seriously I sometimes wonder what her series would look like if someone was standing next to her with a 2x4 of Literary Wisdom. You know, someone to go "Peachy, darling, now just what the hell does X have to do with the main plot?" or "That's redundant. Delete and rephrase." 

There are some things that just seem so elementary going wrong- like time and characters popping into scenes they weren't in a moment before, but how to fix it?

Okay. I am stepping away from the keyboard now before the Nyquil takes further control.

Comments

Re: They say it better than I do, honestly.

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine says often that fanfiction has spoiled me. Because fanfic writers write a lot of sex and write it often; meaning they've had far more practice than professional writers. Moreover they're involved in a community that dissects what works and what doesn't and is honest about personal kinks, personal squicks and how those can be translated via characters.

More and more I find myself skipping over love scenes / sex scenes in published books because there's just no heat. Or when there is heat and I don't skip over, I end up frustrated because that's the time the author chose to fade to black.

Ahh fade to black. Would that LKH would embrace it. It'd leave a good 100 pages left for plot.

Re: They say it better than I do, honestly.

[klmorgan.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine says often that fanfiction has spoiled me.

Hmmmm... veeeery interesting...

Yet another reason to look forward to a generation of writers who cut their eyeteeth on fanfic.

VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Oh dude, I've seen more eloquent SPAM emails.