I've been writing fiction for over ten years, and for the last few, I've been sharing my successes and failures with other writers online. I've built a community, albeit a small one, on writing advice.

I'm doing it, because I've figured out 'the secret'.

There's a world of writing advice out there, as I'm sure you know.

Most of it is the finest quality, twice filtered, pure and bottled at the source snake oil…and some of it's actually honest and worth hearing.

The honest stuff, is the only stuff that matters. I'll get to that.

The rest, to be honest, is lies. 

Ok, maybe I'll wind it back just a little. Maybe it's not outright lies, but there are certainly things being presented as facts, which in fact aren't.

If someone claims to have a secret 'formula' for addictive storytelling…

They don't.

If someone has figured out the paramount story structure that you absolutely must follow if your novel is going to work out…

They haven't.

Some of them probably believe they have those things. They've discovered something that absolutely worked and helped them write their story.

You can understand their excitement to share such a discovery with an audience of eager writers or writers-to-be who will read it and believe it, because they haven't learned 'the secret' that I have yet.

You can almost understand too how a writer might think 'if other writers don't know this…maybe I can put a price on it.'

Like I said, almost.

Those people aren't that much of a problem, though they still haven't figured out 'the secret'.

The real problem comes from the ones who know all about 'the secret' but sell snake-oil anyway.

I've been writing fiction for over ten years, and for the last few, I've been sharing my successes and failures with other writers online. I've built a community, albeit a small one, on writing advice.

I'm doing it, because I've figured out 'the secret'.

There's a world of writing advice out there, as I'm sure you know.

Most of it is the finest quality, twice filtered, pure and bottled at the source snake oil…and some of it's actually honest and worth hearing.

The honest stuff, is the only stuff that matters. I'll get to that.

The rest, to be honest, is lies. 

Ok, maybe I'll wind it back just a little. Maybe it's not outright lies, but there are certainly things being presented as facts, which in fact aren't.

If someone claims to have a secret 'formula' for addictive storytelling…

They don't.

If someone has figured out the paramount story structure that you absolutely must follow if your novel is going to work out…

They haven't.

Some of them probably believe they have those things. They've discovered something that absolutely worked and helped them write their story.

You can understand their excitement to share such a discovery with an audience of eager writers or writers-to-be who will read it and believe it, because they haven't learned 'the secret' that I have yet.

You can almost understand too how a writer might think 'if other writers don't know this…maybe I can put a price on it.'

Like I said, almost.

Those people aren't that much of a problem, though they still haven't figured out 'the secret'.

The real problem comes from the ones who know all about 'the secret' but sell snake-oil anyway.