#WritersCoffeeClub Sep 3: Is there one piece of well-known writing advice you ignore?
All of it, really. Most is given from amateurs to other amateurs based on something their Grade 11 English teacher told them. Did your Grade 11 English teacher write a book?
But my particular bugbear at the moment is hard magic vs, soft magic systems, magic systems being an idea that needs to be nuked from orbit in #fantasy .
@youseeatortoise@cstross I had a perfect 66% average in English for all of high school. It turns out I hate creative writing, and I’m not very good at it, but it also turns out that technical writing is my jam and how I make a living now. The good news is schools have slipped more technical writing in to the curriculum, at least locally.
@youseeatortoise@cstross I’m not that worried. We’ve had creative writing and art since people started painting on cave walls. There are people that simply need to express themselves, be it through creative writing, creative arts, music cooking you name it. One of the beauties of writing is that the barrier to entry isn’t even basic literacy. You can have oral storytelling.
But yes, standardized testing is literally one of the worst things to happen to education on so many levels.
@kurtseifried@youseeatortoise@cstross Had lowest grade in English in ‘64. Won the most creative writing award, a book “Modern English Usage” by H. W. Folwer. It may be a 1927 1st ed, no copyright date.
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