I posted the note below in response to
this post by
elfs, in which he wondered aloud whether there's anyone out there writing who doesn't already know the things in
Writing the Breakout Novel (e.g. the story has to be interesting, and that includes both the characters and the setting; the book has to be
about something). This is something I've been thinking about for a while and I thought I'd repost it here for general consumption.
Well, I suspect that most writers do understand at some level that a story has to have all of those things. But when you're up to your elbows in sentences and there are adjectives and adverbs all over the floor, sometimes it's useful to have a nice bulleted list of larger goals that you should be careful not to forget. (I do like the checklists at the end of each chapter of that book... they're useful for evaluating a work in progress.)
I've also found that I've often needed to be told certain basics again and again and again before they really sink in. For example: "life needs to be hard for the character." I can read that in a book, and go "yes, of course." And then I'll hear it from another writer, and say "obviously." And then I'll see it in a comment on someone's LJ, and I'll say "naturally." And then one day I'll read it in a magazine article, when I'm also trying to figure out why the current work in progress is just lying there like a dead slug, and suddenly the light goes on and the chorus of angels sings out and I say "aha! life needs to be hard for the character!" And from that moment on I can move forward confidently on that point, while continuing to screw up someplace else.
Advice doesn't really click, it doesn't really work, until you hear it at the moment you are truly ready to hear it. Which means that there's value in being told the same basic things over and over and over again, because you never can tell when the stars will align. And sometimes you can even get that "aha!" moment twice for the same piece of advice.