Bad Writing Advice

Shouldn't there be a law against bad writing advice?

I don't mean to pick on Sol Stein, but listen:

There are a lot of ways that a character can get across a room. Walking is the easy, lazy answer... She can promenade, stroll. She can amble, saunter. She can wander aimlessly.. hasten, scurry, scoot, rush, dash, dart, bolt, spring, run, or race...

Whoa! Just reading this puts my teeth on edge. If I read that an actual person promenaded anywhere, I would wonder what the writer was smoking. The fact that I have never seen it is a testament to sharp eye of editors.

His advice on writing love scenes is worse:

With adult lovers in the child-bearing age group, one of the most powerful forces of nature is at work, the drive toward procreation... The human race is perpetuated by drives that are endocrinal in origin. Romantic love... is a cultural invention.

This from a book that constantly exhorts you to "engage the reader's emotions". In other words, fake it, since love doesn't really exist. I'd rather listen to Stephen King's advice from On Writing: paraphrased, he says that even though you're telling a story, you should never, ever lie. The reader always knows.

Some of the best writing advice I've read recently came from Ken Dryden, hockey coach turned politician:

"There's always a way to win; there's always a way to lose. And it's up to you to find that way before the final buzzer goes. And you know that if, in fact, that final buzzer goes and you don't find the answer, it's not that it wasn't there. It's just that you didn't find it. It was there. It was there all the way along."

Substitute the words get published for win, cut this out, and put it over your computer. Hell, substitute any goal you have for win. It's the best advice I've read in a long time.

Abby