Fictional Fixation

Every fiction writer has heard the advice.

Show, don’t tell. Never use adverbs. Write every single day. Plan your entire novel before you start. Kill your darlings. Start with action. Never begin a story with a dream.

Some of these rules contain genuinely useful wisdom. Others are oversimplifications of good writing principles. And a few can become downright counterproductive when writers follow them without understanding why they exist in the first place.

The problem isn’t that writing advice is useless. It’s that advice designed to help you become a better writer can sometimes convince you that you’re writing incorrectly simply because your process looks different from someone else’s.

Maybe you’re a discovery writer who prefers to explore a story as it unfolds. Perhaps you love adverbs, write your best scenes out of order, or need to step away from your manuscript for weeks before you can see what it needs.

None of those things automatically makes you a bad writer.

The craft of fiction is complex, and what works beautifully for one author might be disastrous for another. Instead of blindly following every rule you encounter, it’s worth understanding the principles behind them, recognizing their limitations, and learning when breaking them might actually make your story stronger.

Let’s debunk 20 common fiction writing myths that could be holding your story back.

1. Myth: You Must Plan Every Detail Before You Start Writing

This is one of the most persistent debates in the writing community. Some writers insist that a novel needs a detailed outline, complete character biographies, a carefully constructed timeline, and a fully developed world before the first chapter can be written.

The advice comes from a reasonable place. Planning can prevent plot holes, help you maintain consistency, and make a complicated story easier to manage.

But there’s a difference between having a plan and having every answer.

Some writers thrive when they know exactly where their story is going. Others discover their characters, themes, and most exciting plot developments through the act of writing itself. These writers are often called discovery writers or pantsers.

Neither approach is inherently superior.

Imagine outlining a romantic fantasy in which two enemies are destined to fall in love. You carefully plan every argument, revelation, and romantic turning point. Then, halfway through writing, you discover that one character’s motivations are much more complicated than you anticipated.

Suddenly, your carefully planned ending no longer feels emotionally satisfying.

If you treat your outline as an unbreakable contract, you might force your characters into a conclusion that no longer fits the story. If you treat it as a flexible guide, you can follow the more interesting possibility.

What to do instead: Plan enough to feel confident about beginning, but leave room for discovery. You might outline every chapter, write a one-page synopsis, or simply identify your protagonist’s goal and the central conflict.

Adjust your planning process to the complexity of your story and your personal needs.

If you write intricate mysteries with carefully planted clues, detailed planning might be essential. If you write character-driven literary fiction, discovering the story as you go might produce more authentic results.

Your outline should serve your story, not imprison it.

2. Myth: Never Use Adverbs

Few pieces of writing advice have inspired as much anxiety as the instruction to eliminate adverbs.

Writers are warned that adverbs weaken prose, reveal lazy writing, and should be replaced with stronger verbs whenever possible.

There’s a reason this advice exists. Consider the sentence:

She walked quickly toward the door.

Now compare it with:

She hurried toward the door.

The second sentence is more concise and arguably more energetic. The adverb isn’t doing much work because the verb already communicates the action.

However, consider this sentence:

“I suppose you’re right,” she said reluctantly.

Replacing reluctantly with an elaborate description of her hesitation might make the sentence longer without making it better.

Adverbs can communicate uncertainty, intensity, manner, and emotional nuance. They can also help establish a character’s voice, especially in first-person narration.

The problem isn’t adverbs themselves. It’s using them when they add nothing meaningful.

For example, she whispered quietly is usually redundant because whispering already implies quietness. Meanwhile, he smiled sadly might be perfectly appropriate if the contrast between his smile and his emotions matters.

Sometimes a simple adverb is exactly what a sentence needs.

What to do instead: Ask whether the adverb adds information that the verb or surrounding context doesn’t already provide. If it does, consider keeping it.

Don’t replace every adverb with a more complicated construction simply to satisfy an arbitrary rule. Strong writing is about precision, rhythm, and meaning, not achieving the lowest possible adverb count.

3. Myth: You Must Always Show, Never Tell

“Show, don’t tell” is perhaps the most frequently repeated principle in fiction writing.

It encourages writers to immerse readers in the story through sensory details, dialogue, physical actions, and emotionally revealing behavior rather than simply explaining what happens.

And it works.

Compare these two examples:

Emma was nervous about seeing Ethan again.

Emma checked her reflection for the third time, wiped her damp palms against her jeans, and rehearsed her greeting under her breath.

The second version allows readers to experience Emma’s nervousness rather than simply being informed about it.

But here’s where the advice becomes problematic: showing everything is exhausting.

Imagine writing a 100,000-word novel in which every character’s breakfast, every walk down a corridor, and every minor emotional reaction receives a detailed description.

Your story would quickly become bloated.

Telling is an essential storytelling tool. It allows you to move efficiently through time, establish context, summarize repetitive events, and provide information without forcing readers to experience every moment in real time.

For example:

Over the next three weeks, Emma and Ethan fell into a comfortable routine of late-night conversations and Sunday morning coffee.

That sentence efficiently communicates the passage of time and the development of a relationship. You could dramatize every conversation, but you probably shouldn’t.

What to do instead: Show the moments that deserve emotional investment. Tell the information that helps readers understand the story or move through it efficiently.

A useful rule of thumb is to dramatize pivotal scenes and summarize connective material. However, even this isn’t absolute: a quiet, seemingly insignificant moment can deserve full dramatic treatment if it changes how readers understand a character.

The goal isn’t to eliminate telling. It’s to make deliberate choices about where readers need to experience something and where they simply need to know it happened.

4. Myth: You Must Write Every Day to Be a Real Writer

Writing advice often celebrates daily word counts, strict schedules, and unwavering discipline.

Successful authors describe waking up before sunrise, writing thousands of words before breakfast, or never allowing a single day to pass without working on their manuscripts.

These routines can be valuable. Regular writing helps maintain momentum, strengthens habits, and makes it easier to return to a project before you lose your connection to it.

But not everyone has the same schedule, energy levels, responsibilities, or creative rhythms.

Some writers have demanding jobs, caregiving responsibilities, unpredictable working hours, or limited opportunities to write uninterrupted. Others work best in concentrated bursts, followed by periods of reflection.

A writer who produces 500 words every evening isn’t automatically more committed than one who writes 5,000 words during a productive weekend.

Likewise, a day spent researching historical details, untangling a plot problem, or thinking through a character’s motivation isn’t necessarily a wasted day simply because no new words appear on the page.

The danger comes when you start measuring your legitimacy as a writer by your ability to maintain an arbitrary routine.

What to do instead: Build a sustainable writing habit that fits your life.

You might write for twenty minutes three times a week, dedicate Saturday mornings to your novel, or set a weekly target instead of a daily one.

Consistency is useful, but consistency doesn’t have to mean doing the same thing every day.

The best writing routine is the one that helps you keep returning to your work without making writing feel like an endless test of your worth.

5. Myth: Your First Draft Must Be Good

Somewhere along the way, many writers develop the belief that talented authors produce beautiful prose effortlessly.

They imagine experienced novelists sitting down, writing perfect paragraphs, and moving smoothly from one brilliant scene to the next.

The reality is far less glamorous.

First drafts are often messy. Characters behave inconsistently. Dialogue sounds unnatural. Plot threads disappear. Scenes that seemed exciting in your imagination turn out to be surprisingly dull on the page.

This is normal.

A first draft has a different purpose from a final manuscript. Its primary job is to give you something to work with.

You cannot revise a scene that doesn’t exist. You cannot strengthen a character arc that you’ve never explored. And you cannot discover whether an ambitious plot twist works without giving yourself the opportunity to develop it.

Perfectionism makes this process unnecessarily difficult. If every sentence must be polished before you move forward, you might spend months revising the opening chapter while the rest of your novel remains unwritten.

Of course, this doesn’t mean every first draft must be terrible. Some writers naturally produce clean prose, while others revise heavily as they go.

Both approaches can work.

What to do instead: Give yourself permission to write an imperfect draft, even if you prefer to polish along the way.

If a scene isn’t working, leave yourself a note. If you discover a plot problem, mark it for later. If you don’t know exactly how a conversation should unfold, write a rough version and keep going.

You can improve the writing once you understand the story you’re trying to tell.

Remember: a rough draft isn’t evidence that you lack talent. It’s part of the process through which a story becomes something worth reading.

6. Myth: Good Writers Never Experience Writer’s Block

Writer’s block is frequently treated as a problem that can be solved through discipline alone.

Just sit down. Write something. Stop making excuses.

Sometimes, pushing through resistance is exactly what you need. Waiting for inspiration can become a convenient way to avoid difficult scenes or the uncertainty of beginning.

But not every creative obstacle is caused by laziness.

You might be stuck because your protagonist has no meaningful goal in the current scene. Perhaps your antagonist’s motivation isn’t convincing, or your planned ending no longer follows naturally from the events you’ve written.

You could also be mentally exhausted, overwhelmed by the scale of your project, or struggling with the pressure to make every chapter exceptional.

Forcing yourself to produce words without addressing the underlying problem may only create more material you’ll eventually need to discard.

What to do instead: Treat writer’s block as information rather than proof that you’ve failed.

Ask yourself what is actually preventing you from moving forward.

• If you’re afraid the writing won’t be good enough, try drafting a deliberately imperfect scene.
• If you don’t know what happens next, brainstorm several possible directions.
• If a character feels flat, explore what they want, what they fear, and what they refuse to admit.
• If you’re exhausted, take a genuine break instead of demanding more from yourself.

Sometimes the answer is to write through the discomfort. Sometimes it’s to stop, identify the problem, and approach the story differently.

The important thing is to distinguish between resistance that can be overcome by starting and a genuine creative problem that needs solving.

7. Myth: Every Story Needs a Likable Protagonist

Readers need someone to root for, right?

Not necessarily.

They need a reason to remain interested in the protagonist, but that reason doesn’t always have to be affection.

Some of fiction’s most compelling protagonists are selfish, cruel, manipulative, arrogant, or morally compromised. Others make decisions that frustrate readers or behave in ways that are difficult to forgive.

What makes these characters fascinating is not necessarily their likability, but their complexity.

A morally questionable protagonist might be driven by an understandable fear. A selfish character might be forced to confront the consequences of their actions. An unreliable narrator might reveal uncomfortable truths about human nature precisely because readers cannot entirely trust them.

Think about the difference between a character who is unpleasant but fascinating and one who is simply boring.

The first has motivations, contradictions, desires, and flaws that invite readers to keep turning pages. The second may lack a compelling internal or external struggle.

Likability can be useful, especially in genres where readers expect to emotionally invest in a central relationship. But even romance protagonists don’t have to be universally charming. They need to be compelling enough for readers to care about what happens to them and their relationships.

What to do instead: Give your protagonist something that creates reader investment.

Perhaps readers admire their courage, understand their desperation, recognize their vulnerability, or desperately want to see whether they can change.

You can also deliberately create tension between a character’s admirable qualities and their destructive behavior.

Don’t ask only, “Would I want to be friends with this character?”

Ask, “What makes this character worth following for an entire novel?”

8. Myth: Your Main Character Must Be Exceptional

Chosen ones. Secret heirs. Prophesied heroes. Brilliant detectives. Teenagers with extraordinary powers.

Fiction is full of protagonists who are special in ways that distinguish them from everyone around them.

These characters can be wonderful. An extraordinary ability, unusual background, or unique destiny can generate exciting conflicts and create a strong foundation for a plot.

However, readers don’t need every protagonist to possess a rare talent or an unprecedented destiny.

Ordinary characters can support extraordinary stories.

A quiet shop assistant who becomes entangled in a dangerous conspiracy might be more interesting than a legendary warrior who has never experienced meaningful uncertainty. A tired parent struggling to rebuild their life can anchor a deeply moving novel without discovering that they’re secretly descended from royalty.

The appeal often lies in watching someone respond to circumstances they never expected to face.

An ordinary character also provides opportunities to explore universal emotions: grief, ambition, loneliness, jealousy, love, and the desire to belong.

What matters is not whether the character is objectively special, but whether their particular perspective, choices, and conflicts make the story worth reading.

What to do instead: Focus on specificity rather than exceptionalism.

Give your protagonist distinctive desires, contradictions, relationships, and ways of interpreting the world.

If they need extraordinary abilities for your plot, make those abilities meaningful. Give them limitations, consequences, and situations in which they aren’t enough.

If they have no special powers or remarkable status, don’t assume they’re lacking something.

Sometimes the most interesting thing about a character is what they do when nobody believes they’re capable of anything extraordinary.

9. Myth: Every Chapter Must End on a Cliffhanger

Cliffhangers are excellent tools for encouraging readers to continue.

A revelation, sudden threat, unexpected arrival, or unanswered question can make it almost impossible to put a book down.

This is particularly useful in serialized fiction, where the ending of each chapter can influence whether readers return for the next installment.

But when every chapter ends with a dramatic interruption, the technique quickly loses its power.

If every conversation is interrupted by a mysterious phone call, every romantic moment is interrupted by danger, and every revelation introduces an even bigger mystery, readers may begin to feel manipulated rather than engaged.

Stories need variation.

Some chapters should end with uncertainty. Others should end with emotional resolution, quiet realization, a meaningful decision, or a subtle shift in a relationship.

Consider a chapter in which two characters finally admit their feelings for one another. Ending it with an immediate explosion might create suspense, but allowing the emotional moment to breathe could be far more satisfying.

The reader’s desire to continue doesn’t always come from fearing what will happen next. Sometimes it comes from wanting to spend more time with characters they love.

What to do instead: Match your chapter endings to the emotional and narrative purpose of the scene.

Use cliffhangers when a major unanswered question or imminent consequence makes them appropriate. Use quieter endings when the reader needs time to absorb a development or appreciate a moment of change.

A powerful chapter ending doesn’t have to make readers gasp.

Sometimes it simply makes them think, I need to know where this relationship goes.

10. Myth: You Must Start Your Novel With Action

Writers are often told that readers have short attention spans and that a novel must begin with immediate action to capture their interest.

Consequently, opening chapters become crowded with explosions, arguments, murders, chases, dramatic confrontations, and mysterious incidents.

Action can certainly create momentum. Beginning with a character in danger or a situation already in motion can immediately establish stakes.

But action without context isn’t automatically engaging.

Imagine opening a fantasy novel with a character running through a burning city while enemies pursue them. The scene is energetic, but if readers know nothing about the character, the danger, or why the situation matters, the excitement may remain superficial.

Now imagine beginning with a woman sitting across from her estranged sister at a family dinner, realizing that neither of them has mentioned their dead mother all evening.

Very little physical action occurs, yet the scene might contain enormous emotional tension.

A compelling opening gives readers a reason to care about what happens next. That reason can be danger, curiosity, atmosphere, conflict, a fascinating voice, or a question that demands an answer.

What to do instead: Start as close as possible to the moment when something meaningful begins to change.

Your opening should establish an intriguing situation, introduce a compelling perspective, or create a question readers want answered.

You don’t need a car chase. You need a reason for the reader to keep reading.

11. Myth: You Must Follow a Three-Act Structure

The three-act structure is one of the most widely taught approaches to storytelling.

Broadly speaking, it divides a narrative into a setup, a confrontation, and a resolution. It can help writers organize major turning points, develop escalating conflict, and ensure that a story has a satisfying progression.

The problem arises when writers mistake a useful model for a universal law.

Not every novel unfolds according to the same rhythm. Some stories use nonlinear timelines. Others feature multiple protagonists, episodic structures, nested narratives, or deliberately ambiguous endings.

Literary fiction may prioritize thematic development over conventional plot escalation. A mystery might reveal crucial information early and derive its tension from the consequences. A romance might spend more time exploring emotional intimacy than external conflict.

Even stories that broadly follow three-act principles can differ significantly in pacing, chapter length, and the placement of turning points.

If you force your novel into a rigid template, you may end up distorting its natural progression to satisfy a formula.

What to do instead: Learn structural models so you understand the possibilities they offer, then choose the approach that best serves your story.

If your middle feels aimless, a structural framework can help you identify missing escalation or an unclear protagonist goal. If your ending feels rushed, examining the relationship between the climax and the preceding events can reveal what needs attention.

Use structure as a diagnostic tool, not a cage.

The purpose of a framework is to help you tell a better story, not to make every story resemble every other story.

12. Myth: Every Scene Must Advance the Plot

This advice is closely related to the idea that every scene must serve a clear narrative purpose.

It encourages writers to eliminate unnecessary material, maintain momentum, and avoid scenes that exist solely because the author enjoys writing them.

Those are worthwhile goals.

However, plot advancement isn’t the only legitimate purpose of a scene.

A quiet conversation might deepen a friendship. A shared meal might reveal an unspoken family tension. A character’s solitary walk might expose the gap between what they tell themselves and what they actually feel.

These moments may not directly change the external situation, but they can transform the reader’s understanding of the characters.

Consider a romance in which the main couple has already survived several dramatic conflicts. A chapter showing them shopping for groceries, teasing one another, and negotiating a ridiculous disagreement over dinner might seem irrelevant to the central plot.

Yet that ordinary interaction could be precisely what makes their relationship believable.

Without moments of everyday intimacy, a romance can feel like a sequence of crises rather than a connection between two people.

What to do instead: Think more broadly about what a scene contributes.

Does it advance the external plot, deepen characterization, develop a relationship, establish atmosphere, reinforce a theme, or change the reader’s understanding of something important?

A scene doesn’t need to accomplish all these things. But if it accomplishes none of them, it may need revision.

Quiet scenes aren’t automatically filler. They become filler when they don’t create a meaningful experience for the reader.

13. Myth: Every Character Needs a Detailed Backstory

Character development advice frequently encourages writers to understand their characters’ histories.

You might create timelines of childhood events, family trees, personality profiles, lists of favorite foods, and detailed explanations of every significant relationship your protagonist has ever experienced.

This preparation can be extremely useful.

A character’s history influences their beliefs, fears, desires, habits, and responses to conflict. Knowing that history helps you write behavior that feels consistent and psychologically convincing.

But knowing everything about a character doesn’t mean the reader needs to know everything.

You might spend hours developing the history of a supporting character who appears in three scenes. You may know precisely why your protagonist dislikes thunderstorms, even though that detail never becomes relevant to the story.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this background work. It can help you understand the people you’re writing.

The problem emerges when backstory overwhelms the present narrative.

Readers generally want to understand why a character behaves as they do, but they don’t necessarily need an exhaustive explanation before they can become invested.

Sometimes a small detail is more powerful than a paragraph of exposition.

A character who instinctively moves away when someone raises a hand might communicate a painful history without immediately explaining it.

What to do instead: Develop enough backstory to understand your characters, then reveal the parts that matter when they become relevant.

Ask yourself whether a particular detail helps readers interpret a decision, understand a relationship, anticipate a conflict, or reconsider something they previously believed.

You can know far more about your characters than you ever put on the page.

That hidden knowledge can make them feel real without turning your novel into a collection of character biographies.

14. Myth: Your Dialogue Must Sound Exactly Like Real Conversation

Many writers try to make their dialogue realistic by reproducing the way people speak in everyday life.

They include pauses, repetitions, filler words, unfinished sentences, interruptions, and lengthy exchanges about seemingly insignificant subjects.

Realistic dialogue can make characters feel authentic, especially when their voices reflect their backgrounds, personalities, and relationships.

However, real conversation is often surprisingly dull when reproduced word for word.

People repeat themselves. They discuss logistics. They lose track of their point. They spend several minutes explaining something that could be communicated in a sentence.

Fictional dialogue serves a different purpose.

It needs to sound believable while also contributing to the reading experience. It might reveal character, introduce conflict, communicate information, establish tension, or expose the difference between what someone says and what they mean.

A character who answers every question directly may be realistic in some situations, but they can also make a scene feel flat. A character who avoids a question, changes the subject, or responds with an unexpected joke can create a much more interesting interaction.

What to do instead: Aim for convincing dialogue rather than a verbatim imitation of everyday speech.

Listen to how people talk, but pay particular attention to what makes their conversations distinctive. Notice how they avoid uncomfortable subjects, misunderstand one another, use humor defensively, or change their tone depending on the company they’re keeping.

Then edit those observations into dialogue that feels natural while remaining purposeful.

Your characters don’t need to speak exactly like real people. They need to speak like believable people in a story worth following.

15. Myth: If Your Characters Are Interesting, Your Plot Doesn’t Matter

Character-driven fiction has an undeniable appeal.

Readers become attached to complex personalities, emotionally complicated relationships, and characters whose inner lives are as compelling as their external circumstances.

This has led some writers to believe that an interesting cast can compensate for almost any weakness in the plot.

Sometimes it can. Readers may happily spend hundreds of pages with an engaging narrator whose observations make even ordinary events fascinating.

But characters need something to respond to.

Without meaningful choices, consequences, or changes, even a fascinating protagonist can begin to feel static. Readers may understand the character deeply yet struggle to see why the story continues.

The opposite problem is equally common: a fast-paced plot filled with dramatic events but populated by characters who feel interchangeable.

The strongest stories often create a productive relationship between character and plot.

A character’s flaws influence their decisions. Those decisions create consequences. The consequences force them to confront their flaws, reconsider their beliefs, or make increasingly difficult choices.

For example, a detective who refuses to trust anyone might repeatedly sabotage investigations by rejecting help. The plot becomes interesting precisely because the character’s internal conflict shapes the external events.

What to do instead: Let your characters generate the story through their desires, choices, and mistakes.

Ask what your protagonist wants, what stands in the way, and what they are willing to risk to get it.

Then consider how their personality makes the situation more complicated.

Your plot doesn’t have to be explosive, but it should create movement. Your characters don’t have to be likable, but they should have meaningful reasons to act.

When the internal and external stories influence one another, both become more compelling.

16. Myth: You Should Never Use Dreams in Fiction

Opening a novel with a dream is often considered a writing mistake.

Readers may feel cheated if an exciting sequence turns out not to have happened. Dream sequences can also become convenient shortcuts for delivering exposition, introducing symbolism, or revealing a character’s fears without developing those ideas naturally.

These criticisms have merit.

A dream that exists solely to trick readers into believing a character is in danger can undermine trust. A lengthy dream full of vague symbolism may also slow the story without providing anything meaningful.

But the conclusion that dreams should never appear in fiction goes too far.

Dreams can reveal a character’s emotional state, introduce supernatural elements, blur the boundary between reality and fantasy, or establish a motif that gains significance later.

In psychological horror, surreal fiction, and some forms of fantasy, dreams may be integral to the narrative.

Even in a realistic novel, a recurring dream might become meaningful if it reflects something the protagonist refuses to confront while awake.

The question is not whether dream sequences are allowed. It’s whether they serve a purpose that justifies their presence.

What to do instead: Give a dream narrative significance beyond simply being a dream.

Does it reveal something the character has been avoiding? Does it introduce a genuine mystery? Does it contribute to the atmosphere or establish a recurring theme?

Also consider how readers will experience the transition between dreaming and waking. If the dream is intended to mislead them, make sure the eventual revelation feels purposeful rather than like an arbitrary trick.

A dream sequence isn’t automatically lazy writing. An unmotivated dream sequence is.

17. Myth: You Must Avoid Clichés at All Costs

Writers are often encouraged to avoid clichés because familiar ideas can make stories predictable.

The mysterious stranger with a dark past. The reluctant hero who discovers their destiny. The enemies who fall in love. The villain who explains their entire plan before attempting to defeat the protagonist.

We’ve encountered these patterns countless times, and their familiarity can make them feel stale.

But there’s an important distinction between a recognizable trope and a poorly executed cliché.

Tropes are recurring storytelling patterns. They help readers understand the kind of experience a story offers.

Enemies-to-lovers promises romantic tension. A found-family narrative offers the possibility of belonging. A redemption arc invites readers to consider whether someone can become better than their past.

These patterns remain popular because they can explore compelling emotional conflicts.

Problems arise when writers rely on familiar elements without adding anything distinctive, or when a story uses a trope without understanding the expectations it creates.

An enemies-to-lovers romance becomes unconvincing if the characters never have believable reasons to oppose one another or if their romantic feelings appear without meaningful development.

But the trope itself isn’t the problem.

What to do instead: Understand the expectations associated with your chosen tropes and decide how you want to fulfill, complicate, or subvert them.

You might give a familiar character archetype an unexpected motivation, explore the consequences of a popular trope more realistically, or combine two established ideas in a fresh way.

You don’t need to invent an entirely unprecedented story. You need to bring your own perspective to the material.

Originality often comes not from avoiding familiar ideas, but from exploring them with greater specificity, emotional honesty, or an unexpected point of view.

18. Myth: Every Plot Hole Must Be Explained Immediately

Writers understandably want their stories to make sense.

They worry about inconsistent timelines, unexplained abilities, contradictory character behavior, and unanswered questions that might frustrate readers.

Continuity matters. A story that repeatedly contradicts its own rules can undermine immersion and make readers question whether they should trust the narrative.

However, some writers respond by explaining everything as soon as it appears.

A character discovers a mysterious object, and the next three paragraphs explain its entire history. Someone displays an unusual ability, and another character immediately provides a detailed explanation of its origin. Every apparent inconsistency triggers another conversation designed to clarify the rules.

The result can be an overexplained story that leaves little room for curiosity.

Not every unanswered question is a plot hole.

A plot hole is a significant inconsistency or missing piece of logic that damages the story’s credibility. A mystery, unresolved question, or deliberate ambiguity can be an intentional part of the narrative.

In fact, readers often enjoy trying to understand how a story’s pieces fit together.

A fantasy novel doesn’t need to explain every aspect of its magic system before the first magical event occurs. A mystery doesn’t need to reveal the culprit immediately. A character’s contradictory behavior might be a clue that their apparent motives are incomplete.

What to do instead: Distinguish between information readers need now and information they can discover later.

Establish enough rules for readers to understand the stakes and recognize meaningful consequences. Then allow questions to accumulate when doing so strengthens suspense or encourages interpretation.

During revision, check whether the unanswered questions are intentional and whether the eventual payoff satisfies the expectations you’ve created.

Mystery is an asset. Confusion without purpose is a problem.

19. Myth: You Must Kill Your Darlings

“Kill your darlings” is a famous piece of writing advice that encourages authors to remove material they love when it doesn’t serve the story.

Perhaps you’ve written a beautiful paragraph that interrupts the pacing, a hilarious conversation that adds nothing to the chapter, or an elaborate subplot that distracts from the protagonist’s central conflict.

Learning to cut beloved material is an important part of revision.

But the phrase can also encourage writers to become unnecessarily ruthless with their work.

Sometimes the problem isn’t that a scene should be removed. It’s that the scene hasn’t yet found its proper place.

A beautifully written conversation might reveal something essential about a relationship, but its impact could be weakened by appearing too early. A fascinating subplot might work perfectly if its connection to the central narrative becomes clearer. A lyrical description might be valuable in a novel whose style deliberately emphasizes atmosphere.

Removing material simply because it isn’t immediately necessary can strip a story of its personality.

Revision should involve judgment, not indiscriminate destruction.

What to do instead: Before cutting something you love, ask why it isn’t working and whether the problem can be solved.

Could the scene be shortened? Could it move to a different chapter? Could a seemingly decorative detail become more meaningful if it were connected to a character’s emotional journey?

If the material genuinely distracts from the story, cutting it may be the right decision.

But don’t assume that every passage that requires revision must disappear.

Sometimes you don’t need to kill your darlings. You need to help them earn their place.

20. Myth: Successful Writers Never Break the Rules

This final myth sits beneath many of the others.

Writers study grammar, narrative structure, point of view, characterization, pacing, and countless other aspects of the craft. They learn what tends to work and what frequently causes problems.

Over time, it’s easy to begin treating these lessons as absolute laws.

Never use sentence fragments. Never switch point of view. Never begin with exposition. Never write a prologue. Never use a passive construction. Never break grammatical conventions.

Yet fiction is an art form, and effective storytelling doesn’t always follow the most conventional approach.

Sentence fragments can create urgency or reflect a character’s fragmented thoughts. A carefully controlled point-of-view shift can provide a perspective unavailable through a single narrator. A prologue can establish a mystery that gains meaning much later.

Even grammatical conventions can be bent for voice, rhythm, and effect.

Of course, breaking a rule doesn’t automatically make your writing innovative. Sometimes a sentence fragment is simply awkward. Sometimes an unconventional structure confuses readers. Sometimes a prologue exists because the author hasn’t figured out how to integrate the necessary information into the story.

The important distinction is whether a choice is deliberate and effective.

Experienced writers don’t necessarily ignore conventions. They understand the principles behind them well enough to recognize when a different approach might work better.

What to do instead: Learn the rules before deciding which ones to break.

If you want to experiment with a technique, understand what it usually accomplishes and what readers might expect. Then consider whether your alternative produces the effect you want.

Read widely, analyze stories that take risks, and pay attention to how unconventional choices influence your experience as a reader.

You don’t need permission to experiment with your own fiction.

But you should be able to explain, at least to yourself, why the choice serves the story.

Ultimately, the goal isn’t to write a novel that obeys every rule. It’s to write a novel that works.

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So, Which Fiction Writing Myths Should You Ignore?

After exploring all twenty myths, one thing becomes clear: most writing advice isn’t entirely wrong. It becomes limiting when writers mistake a useful principle for an unbreakable rule.

Planning is valuable, but excessive planning can prevent discovery. Strong verbs are useful, but eliminating every adverb can make prose unnecessarily complicated. Daily writing can build momentum, but an inflexible routine can become unsustainable.

The same principle applies to nearly every aspect of fiction writing.

Rather than asking whether a particular rule is right or wrong, consider what problem it was designed to solve.

Does the advice help you create clearer prose? Develop more convincing characters? Maintain narrative momentum? Build emotional investment?

If so, understand how it works and use it when appropriate.

If following it makes your story weaker, your process miserable, or your writing less authentic, reconsider whether the advice is right for you.

Five Questions to Ask Before Following Any Writing Rule

When you encounter a new piece of writing advice, try asking yourself these five questions:

1. What problem is this rule trying to solve?

Understanding the original problem helps you recognize when the advice is relevant to your manuscript.

2. Does that problem actually exist in my story?

You don’t need to eliminate every adverb if your prose is already precise. You don’t need a complicated outline if a simpler approach helps you write confidently.

3. What would happen if I broke the rule?

Experiment with different approaches. Rewrite a scene, change your opening, or remove a supposedly essential technique and compare the results.

4. Does this advice fit my genre and intended audience?

A technique that works beautifully in literary fiction might not produce the same effect in a fast-paced thriller. Likewise, expectations in serialized romance may differ from those in a standalone historical novel.

5. Is the advice improving my story, or am I following it because I’m afraid of getting something wrong?

This might be the most important question of all.

Writing is difficult enough without turning every decision into a test of whether you’re a legitimate author. Learning the craft should give you more tools and confidence, not convince you that there is only one acceptable way to tell a story.

The Real Secret to Becoming a Better Fiction Writer

There is no universal formula for writing a compelling novel.

Some successful writers outline extensively. Others discover their stories as they go. Some revise every chapter before moving forward, while others refuse to edit a single sentence until they reach the end.

Some write every day. Others work in bursts. Some love elaborate descriptions, while others prefer lean prose. Some build stories around intricate plots, and others focus primarily on the emotional lives of their characters.

Their processes differ because stories differ, writers differ, and creative work rarely fits into a single prescribed method.

That doesn’t mean you should dismiss writing advice altogether. Quite the opposite.

The more you understand the craft, the more freedom you have to make informed decisions about your own work.

Study narrative structure. Learn how to write effective dialogue. Understand why point of view matters. Practice building tension, developing characters, and creating satisfying endings.

Then use that knowledge to make deliberate choices rather than following rules automatically.

Your favorite writing technique might be another author’s worst nightmare. A method that feels effortless to one writer might completely derail another. Neither difference needs to be a problem.

The question isn’t whether you’re writing the way someone else thinks you should.

The question is whether you’re learning, experimenting, revising, and creating the strongest story you can.

And sometimes, that means breaking a rule.

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Your Turn: Which Fiction Writing Myth Do You Disagree With Most?

Now that we’ve challenged twenty common pieces of writing advice, I’d love to hear your perspective.

Perhaps you swear by detailed outlines and can’t imagine writing without one. Maybe you’ve spent years using adverbs without apology. Or perhaps you believe a particular rule is misunderstood and deserves more respect than it gets.

Which writing myth do you think does the most damage to aspiring authors?

Here are a few questions to get the discussion started:

• Do you outline your novels, discover them as you write, or use a combination of both?
• Do you deliberately avoid adverbs, or do you use them whenever they feel right?
• Is “show, don’t tell” genuinely useful advice, or has it been taken too far?
• Do you think writers should follow established storytelling structures, or should they experiment freely?
• What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

Share your thoughts in the comments. You might even help another writer discover a more effective way to approach their next story.

And if you know a writer who’s struggling because they believe they’re doing everything wrong, share this article with them. Sometimes the most valuable writing advice isn’t another rule to follow. It’s the reminder that there is more than one way to write a good story.

Happy writing, and remember: your story deserves to be told in the way that serves it best.