No I do not take anything Chuck Wendig has to say about writing seriously, and here is why:
Look, I don’t hate Chuck Wendig, I don’t know him, I’m not jealous of him, I mainly don’t care about him. But almost every day lately, on another blogsite, I run into helpfully posted articles by other writers, reblogging and reposting and repeating Stuff Chuck Wendig has written about writing, and I’m here to tell all y’all, just stop, now.
See, Chuck Wendig is eternal. His advice is eternal, and exactly the same since the 1980s, when I first started seriously writing and reading about writing, and honestly Chuck Wendig predates the eighties because back then you read your writing advice in books and magazines, not online, and often you were reading Chuck Wendig circa 1953. But see, I have been writing for thirty five years, and stopped seriously reading advice about writing fifteen years ago, and still Chuck Wendig shows up on my blog and there it all is again, the exact same advice from thirty years ago.
No, it wasn’t Literal Chuck Wendig who wrote that advice back in the 1980s, or 50s, but it was a white guy writer exactly like him, maybe a little less “edgy” or whatever, certainly for a different type of industry, but it was the Exact Same Shit. It never changes. It is always exactly the same. The bits about getting basic grammar right are the only useful bits — the rest is the same self gratification on the part of the Advice Writer, whoever he may be. All writing advice is essentially a type of mental masturbation on the part of the author, because, and here’s the crucial point: once you are published, somewhat successful, and have name recognition, your advice is sought after, and EVERYONE LOVES THAT. It’s a real ego booster.
I should know, I have been published in long dead, long gone magazines, long ago, and had other writers wanting to know what I did, and of course I didn’t know any better, and my ego was absolutely flattered when someone asked me. How did you do it? I told them what I thought I had done. I took credit for my own success, I thought, and generously shared what I thought I had learned from experiences that in the long run proved utterly unreplicatable, if that’s a word. Did I know what the fuck I was talking about? No. Does Chuck Wendig? No. We just got published, that’s all. How did we do it? We didn’t. It was a confluence of events. Our confluences no doubt radically differed from each other, mine and Chuck’s, but still, we didn’t actually do shit. It’s like rich people taking credit for their own wealth by saying it takes hard work. Technically, sure. But whose?
I’m not suggesting for a second that writers not work on their craft, make their stories great, get that grammar and punctuation right, etc. What I’m suggesting is there are fabulous writers out there who are not going to get published because they twisted themselves into knots ignoring their own instincts about their storytelling by trying to follow the advice of yet another in a Long Long List of White Guy Writers Writing Advice. I’ve forgotten the names of all those other writers, and someday some new Chuck Wendig will come along and I will forget Chuck Wendig’s name too.
