First of all, ignore writing advice? How do you propose people learn, trial and error? Should we abolish community colleges, art and music schools, writing courses? Writing advice relies on platitudes, to be sure, but that does not inherently devalue their tenets.
That's not what "Write what you know" entails. Strawman one. Knowledge can be researched (something many writers fail to do! See Hollywood and Dan Brown!) Even taken literally, you are conflating knowledge with experience, something everyone from the Average Joe to the most erudite philosopher doesn't ordinarily do. Know that. Then again, I don't work on the arcane dictionary-making board, or whatever it's called, thusly I shouldn't be so limited by what others think my words mean.1. Write what you know.
More like "minimize adverbs", but okay. Strawman two. Adverbs are not knives; they are scalpels. They should be used with surgical precision to sharpen an otherwise vague or plain description.2. Don't use adverbs.
Actually, that IS bad advice. I agree. But where did you hear that was good advice in the first place, seeing I've yet to hear anybody suggest this? (Probable strawman three.) Note that I agree here; "said" should be used about 90% of the time. Even better? Don't add unnecessary bookisms. Let the words speak for themselves. Only use bookisms in the "surgical precision" spirit of tip 2 (see above) and to avert who's-saying-what confusion; there is nothing more frustrating than having to stop reading and go back because you ask yourself "Who said that? Let me count A and B 10 lines up and..." It's a showstopper and a mood-killer. Don't do it.3. Don't use "said" over and over again; use synonyms instead.
Fortunately, this is outside the purview of most VNs, as they are formatted as screenplays so the speaker's name will always be on screen. Truthfully, I don't know why it was brought up.
To be blunt? This thread's existence (the first post) reflects quite badly on the would-be literary merit of VNs. It is, ironically, doling out the bad advice it seeks to crusade against. Normally, this would be inconsequential, but considering the rank of the author, I'd advise on amending the original post.
Now, politely excuse me as I immediately go lovingly, furiously, awesomely bloomingly unleash my purely obscurantist postmodernistically poststructuralistic magnum opus epically.