just went through one of the writing books I read recently and listed all of the operative lessons of each chapter (which are, very helpfully, succinctly stated at the end of each) as well as what I think about them as rules. some of these are kind of vague thoughts because I'm sleepy right now but, here's a bunch of writing advice and some notes on if i think it's good or bad, as you asked:
1, kill your darlings - everyone knows this one and i suppose the fully elaborated thing is true yeah
2, heavily cut any unecessary words from your work - technically true but applying this to myself too literally blocked me a lot and i had to stop doing it to get better at writing meaningful words in the first place. worded unhelpfully i think because for me it just made me severely question over what counted as 'unecessary', maybe something to apply once you already have more writer confidence than i do, idk
3, think specifically about words and their exact meanings and sound and construction - yes this one is based, using very specific words intead of their synonyms can lend really specific meaning connotations which work great in layers, i aim for this a lot
4, sentences which put their subject noun early sound more conversational while sentences which put the subject at the end draw attention to themselves; use the latter only occasionally for extra effect - i dunno i forgot i read this one until now so i dont think ive ever consciously considered it, no idea how it'd hold up if i did
5, write an outline - we've already talked about this various places
6, follow the stylebook of your genre but break out from it if it'll suit your own stylistic preferences - no shit?
7, vary sentence rhythm, put periods and commas consciously for emphasis and flow - yeah? one of those really elementary ones i think but i think aiming for a good flow is something i do a lot
8, use diagrams and index cards to represent your project visually - i have never done this and never will
9, experiment with different media formats since we have the internet now so you can do that - sure. this is pretty vague though i'm pretty sure the author of this book has never done this and thus the chapter is written like they're theorycrafting on if you could publish things on the internet despite this book being from 2021
10, read your work aloud to check for flow - never done this never will
11, find material, brainstorm, write an outline, write a draft, and then revise - well sure if that works for you, feels both too elementary and too specific
12, keep writing and don't give up - this surely doesn't constitute as actual advice
13, freewrite to get ideas - yeah this was a good thing to suggest i like freewriting and i wouldn't have considered doing that until i was suggested to
14, say "i am a writer" out loud to motivate yourself - might be the most unserious thing by far on this list
15, write as a habit and often - sure, elementary though
16, write with a moral and include cultural truths in your writing to help people identify who they should be for and who they should be opposed to - FUCK THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! worst entry in this book maybe except for 14 but this one might be worse even if it's less blatantly unserious
17, imbue your narration with the bias of the focal character - yep, although pretty elementary but for sure people need to hear this for the first time so not as elementary as like 'you should write to write'
18, keep in mind the level of focus and granularity your story has and write with a theme - useful to explain to people, explained specifically here as "theme lets you know what too put in and what to leave out" which is. true.
19, write a three or five word premise to articulate what your story is Really About - i dobt think you need to do this actually
20, characters can be flat or well-rounded, use the flat ones to express a specific virtue or archetype and use the round ones to be your main focal characters for goals outside this - sure
21, research what you write - sure
22, anticipate your audience and acknowledge the rhetorical differences between genres and formats - sure
23, use rhetoric, use your best words at the beginning or end of your sentences or paragraphs - i feel like this is repeating the previous point about this exact thing
24, seek to move your audience to emotion - not Always true but generally sure yeah this is a good thing to strive towards
25, don't lie when writing nonfiction - irrelevant to this
26, write to the level of your readers, make your text comprehensible to its expected audience - probably true although i dont' think i write widely enough to have needed to consider this before
27, check your bias and only read verifiable sources - sure although this applies more to nonfiction in terms of advice you can actually meaningfully apply
28, use writing to purge your own suffering, have bad things happen to your characters so when good things happen it's meaningful - i think this applies limmitedly to certain types of stories but i'd caution against it as general writing advice
29, write to be interesting - no shit?
30, consider all five senses when writing and describing things - sure yeah, i might need to do this more myself
31, don't write with a marked bias or virtue signal - i do prefer less didatic texts yeah
32, use all of the resources you have available to you - I Would Hope So
