Not All Writing Tips are Created Equal...

Not all writing advice channels are created equal. That's not true. Most of them are garbage. Like this one.

bruh, you got me good on that single frame text. Shit was so annoying and i ain't even mad lmaoo

You know what's hillarious?

Being told to do the research or go learn while doing both those things, just with people who you want to have an intellgient back and forth with.

Autism: It makes it hard to exist sometimes.

Oh you better believe it, it took me 3 tries (hehe third times the charm), I wouldn't say I was "pissing in anticipation" more like "Oo, piece of candy" (o.o')

took me like 10 mins smh

Beauty of modern writing is to include contextual details of the theme. Yes change the setting, but don't over skeletonize. I think poverty is a much more real experience than alien sklorbism, and it will feel much better reading

Parasocial relationships are confusing and can be stressful.

We don't know you, only the image you've put up, and while they may be some degree of authentic it also puts you at a disadvantage not knowing us.

Its confusing, and difficult to navigate so you're all good taking your time to figure it out.

I trust your writing advice even more since I noticed you like Barry

This video is actively trying to give me brain aneurysm by being deliberately devoid of a flow and plot, and I love it

I hate show don't tell ALLOT lmao. as showing and telling is a fine balance of does the circumstances require telling or showing. if it was showing the whole time it means characters are doing fucking sign language

The freeze-frame message is a lot less punchy when you can use [,] and [.] to go back and forth in the video frame by frame, so there's no "tries" or even any effort at all XD

I keep rewatching this and it keeps giving me more. It's insane.

One thing to keep in mind, efficiency is different from effectiveness. Something is effective if it produces the desirable effect, and efficient if the effects are produced with less resources. To achieve efficiency, it's very straightforward, you attempt to remove stuff keeping the output the same. But effectiveness? Not easy, not easy at all. You see, anyone can make stuff efficient, it's a very well-known process, for all creative, scientific and engineering endeavors. To make things effective, you have to find a way to produce the effect in the first place. I would argue, be effective first, then you can invest in efficiency. And don't go all the way with efficiency too soon because efficient things are fragile and don't respond well to change. To achieve efficiency, you remove stuff that doesn't help with the effect you want at first, but having less also removes the serendipitous findings you could have later. Redundant stuff is not that bad because it enables you to explore different ramifications of the same idea if it is interesting enough. Focusing on efficiency and beauty should be the last thing, when you decide to seal your thing, when you mark that from that moment onwards, there will be no change. Sequences are bad if unplanned from the start.

Most writers: *tries to create likable characters.
Flannery O'Connor: we don't do that here.

Only one minute in and this guy has already got me rolling. Have a feeling this one is going to be good

oh I've had this kind of critiques "your character is not likable" well the other characters in world don't like him and he doesn't even really likes himself either. If I had to deal with someone like him in real life he'd get on my nerves really quickly. "yeah but he's not relatable and really manipulative and he's the main character." well because he's the best vehicle to get across what's happening in the story, and he's entertaining, that's why he's main not because he's a nice person and you're supposed to imagine yourself as him.

hah, jokes on him! i got that frame in only 3 tries

PLEASE REVIEW THE BARBIE MOVIE I loved your avatar videos but please do the barbie plot/subplot and your thoughts. Also an Oppenheimer review would be mega cool! I'm having trouble understanding if a three hour movie means Christopher Nolan is a decent director or not. Sorry I understand you have limited time but if you get around to it, it would be awesome to hear your thoughts in depth! But quality over quantity always <3

dang. straight up got me with that text frame.
i cant even be mad

When someone approaches me in public with their iPhone camera recording, I'll tell them i watch this channel before they even ask.

-Someone who sounds like a bot

Do you have a tiktok?

Not the BLOINGUS

😭😭😭😭😭😭it took me at least 20 tries had to go to .25x speed with full dedication and anticipation for what you had to say and u didn’t disappoint 😂

a tip is ... put as much deatials as possible

I've always interpreted "show don't tell" as a guideline for writers to have everything stay in-universe. It could be said better though and the fact that I have to interpret it that way DOES mean the advice is vague. The "tell" part was never meant to say exposition = bad, it was meant to say "don't tell the audience your themes/purpose, SHOW it". Take Interstellar for example, and the one character (Anne Hathaway) that said "Love is the only thing that can transcend all of space and time" (I'm paraphrasing). I certainly didn't like this line because it told me the whole fuckin main theme of the movie rather using that moment that show us instead how they're going to cope leaving behind family and loved ones. She could've been shown that she kept a picture with her maybe, or maybe she tried to help everyone by saying "they'll still be thinking of you", or SOMETHING like that. But instead that character does this things that almost feels fourth wall breaking and completely out of character and that's because we weren't shown, we were told.

Sidenote, the way Breaking Bad handles exposition through the fun and well-delivered lines of Saul Goodman explaining everything to Jesse because he's only like 21 is top notch (technically, not exactly exposition because these are all things that exist in real life but it was clearly explained so all the viewers could be on the same page, I sure as hell did not know what money laundering was before this show). Breaking Bad has the best exposition I've seen in years because they actually make a genuine character interaction out of it every time, and when we've already heard his explanation, he actually TRIES to explain it again because Saul Goodman WOULD do that except he's trying to mansplain it to Skyler who KNOWS what money laundering is because she's a bookkeeper and I'm just!!!! So fucking good. I had to catch myself a couple times because it was put in so smoothly despite it being so potentially obvious that I didn't even realize it was exposition. Anyways I fucking love Breaking Bad stellar scenes all the way through.

I'm still mad that sci-fi wrighters hasn't given the rest of us the means to ride those awesome spaceships that they clearly been on themselves.

I didn't move the slider back and forth. I clicked play and then pause really really fast.

your little epilogue is a good example of the kind of thinking that makes seeing story this way easier. you already have a personal engagement with yourself and your motivations and feelings the way that a writer needs to engage with characters. you sort of step back and look at how this moment of thought came to be in order to responsibly take the next step in your thoughts, which is a great practice I think for creating genuine human reactions on paper.

I'am just so proud I found this before it blew up, I can feel you going places, man

Congrats on almost 100k man

The part about making the audience care reminded me of am Interview with one of my fav Autors

"Cuttlefish explains that he does not want to be a creator who directly imposes his own thoughts on readers, but hopes to reach the reader's innermost feelings through descriptive stories. "When we were young and in schools, we didn't like teachers preaching to us, and we might even develop a rebellious mentality because of it. As authors, we need to make readers understand a certain truth, that is, while I hope that the thoughts and emotions I want to express can resonate with readers through my stories, I don't need to go on and on telling them about how good or touching something is."

among the few books ive read, my favorite aspect is how they control when you know finer details when you need to. Something can be vague in depictive detail but im still flowing with the storyline all the same and Im able to fill in the details mentally based on reader knowledge. Like a dev giving their players an open sandbox and turning on mod support, but its a story book being mentally colored in and props conjured for the scene when the writer doesn't need to. The writers give me the stock assets of the world to kick off my sandbox with and help me stay mentally-visually on theme, flowing with what the characters are saying to each other in the scene at the pace I imagine actors would.

Gotta love big thick boxes of dialogue every so often. Its not all the time, but it happens in gusts of wind. Stories have weather and climate to their atmosphere. Sometimes you can even predict the weather and see it unfold later in the story.

I think Show Don't Tell is not about plot, but about emotions and character development.

Events happening can perfectly be spelled out in short and simple summary. But the narration telling the audience how characters feel, without the characters displaying those alleged emotions does not work.

I only had to pause once, and then I used the < and > keys to find the exact right frame. Was very easy. xoxo

i really like your videos. i don't like essays and analysis based on the subjective opinion of the author. i mean, they can certainly be entertaining, but a lot of the times i feel like the authors of those videos are just ranting and not actually analysing the work from an objective point of view. as much as it has entertainment value, it doesn't help teach people critical thinking. and that's very concerning because i'm in college for creative writing and most of my colleagues are completely incapable of critical thinking, even when we have entire classes dedicated to it. my point is, i appreciate your videos for being objective when analysing works and giving advice. i don't see a lot of channels like that.

Watching your video is like watching a race with words

I agree on every single point. The beauty of writing is that it can be a tool to learn more, to push yourself, bring new experiences to the table. Take "write what you know." I'm not autistic. Why can I not write an autistic character? Because I would inherently misrepresent them? The fallacy there is the belief that I wouldn't do my research on it, that I wouldn't speak to people with autism to double-check my work. I have chronic depression, does that mean every single character I write must suffer from depression? Of course not. I'm also not straight, so I can't write straight people? It's an endless spiral downwards into an unending rabbit hole that stifles learning and creativity.

And show, don't tell... While I'm a huge proclaimer of show, don't tell with my authors, it's usually because they've just word-vomited the entire lore and backstory and world-building of their novel onto the first chapter. Usually trying to excuse it as a "prologue." That kind of word-vomit bores the reader. That is the fastest way to get someone to put down your book and be like, "Welp, this isn't the one for me." One should always entice their audience with the world, slowly teach them about it and the characters. Don't sit there and say "This is Peggy, she's a sassy girl who can hang with the guys." Show me that in a scene of Peggy being a sassy character by having her hanging with the guys and exchanging jabs with them. And if it's needed to explain something--and often it is necessary to explain finer details of something--make it natural. Have it fit with the story. If you want it in the form of narration, okay. Make it make sense though. Billie's dad is okay with beating on women UNLESS you're married to the women and you want to get that across to the audience? Have a character bring up something referencing it then further explain it in the narration.

And always, ALWAYS have an objective, non-biased, PROFESSIONAL second opinion. I stress the importance of professional here because I've actually had an author who put the opinions of his beta-readers (Who don't have any degree in English or work in the industry and they just "read a lot") over the opinion of me, the person he was paying for their opinion. If you can't afford professional, that's okay. But understand that you're gonna have to dig deeper with their reasoning for things.

Okay I’m going to be honest, I scarcely dabble in writing, but just love your videos and your style and…

You’re amazing and you’re brilliant.

Also I love you.

Okay that’s all I’m leaving now.

Oh the irony of writing advice from someone who babbles in run-on sentences.

Yes, anticipation is the correct word, op.