All the other writing blogs have lists of mistakes you should avoid making when writing. So here is mine.
1. Never write using a first person point of view
2. Never write in present tense
3. Don’t tell. Show.
4. Don’t write dialogue in dialect.
5. Clichés are old hat.
6. You never write in second person POV. Dear God, I mean, not ever.
7. Don’t use adverbs. Or, if you must, use them sparingly. But never use ‘suddenly’ no matter what.
8. Don’t use prologues.
9. Never use a word other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue. Even ‘says’. If you find you have used ‘says’ as a dialogue tag then you are writing in present tense. See (2).
10. Don’t write what you know. No do. No don’t. Um. It depends what you know really.
11. Using the passive voice is not recommended.
12. If using the third person POV, which obviously you are, avoid use of the omniscient narrator.
13. Make sure you read widely. Also, focus on reading books similar to your own.
14. Network like crazy and build your platform.
15. Don’t procrastinate. Shut up and write.
Once you have rewritten your manuscript according to the above rules it will be ready to blend in with others on the slushpile. Next week we shall discuss how you can make your work stand out by use of the query letter in ’100 things not to do when querying literary agents’.
Very helpful Claire. I think I ticked most of them! I especially need to pay more attention to number 15!!
I should add 16. Don’t follow other people’s rules
Great. I’ve broken almost all of those!
Ha! Speaking as the author of a novel written in present tense, and in future and in conditional, and also in simple past – I am delighted I chose close third/ omniscient for some sections, and first person for others, just to ring the changes.
No second person, although I use that for a lot of short fiction…
Interesting list. Just goeth to show how we all differ. Thank ‘eavens!
I’m so fed up of being told how I shouldn’t write. It’s all so much generalisation. I love the sound of your book. Love it!
Love this, Claire! ‘Network like crazy… Shut up and write.’ Stand up, sit down.
Thanks! Are we feeling dizzy yet?
Ha! Fun read. If someone tried to comply with every writing rule out there, they’d get themselves in an awful mess, so how about #16. Be aware of the rules but don’t be afraid to break them.
Yes, or as Jane Friedman says, ‘There are no rules’.
Or does that mean we’re all writing in The Matrix?
Maybe…it certainly feels like it sometimes!
And don’t write about yourself because you’re boring.
(Seriously, I’m hoping you remember where this “advice” came from, otherwise I’m going to look damn rude! Tell me you do…)
Also… no writing about dogs and do not use the word ‘atop’. No flashbacks. Don’t start a story with a character waking up, and don’t make the story a dream. No animal POV, and everyone writes about a bereaved spouse who killed their hub/wife, it’s NOT a surprise ending. Don’t start with dialogue, it’s amateurish. And don’t write ‘The End’ at the end. Still with me? No, don’t blame you. I’ll shut up and go and write my new story (The End by Yrs Truly, reckon? ‘Cos then THE END would appear at THE TOP! Sorry, I’ll slap my own forehead). It’s written in the 4th person (where the narrator talks to herself).
So am I right in thinking you’ll ignore the rules and do as you want? Please say yes. I got into a snit about the advice avalanche recently and sub’d a story in 2nd person – it was commended but I haven’t shared it as I want to re-sub & publish. If it works, I’ll brandish it. If it doesn’t, I’ll be chomping on humble pie.
I don’t mind. I like pie.
I do remember where that advice came from. I am still grumpy with that person!
God, I love the 4th person. You’re a genius!
Have joined in on the blog. I love this.
Fantastic!
http://www.morenewsfromvg.blogspot.com/
No writing about child wizards nor miserable teenage girls who fall in love with vampires – it just won’t sell.
Oh there’s a whole other blog post on what topics you must never write about. List as long as my arm…
I must not write in first person.
I must not write in first person.
I must not write in first person.
I must not write… oh damn.
makes me want to break all 15 rules (the list that is)…as i frequently do. but it also motivates me to make my own list. as if there were rules…i’d already started a post “the online writer’s manifest” and now i shall have to refer to your post. i suppose if you accept rules depends on what type of literature you want to write and who your ideal reader is.
Please let us know if you do your own – Vanessa’s (above) are brilliant also!
Hahahahahaha! Oh this is so familiar. Well, I can’t wait to read your debut novel written in the first person (shock, horror). Off to polish my too short/long/funny/boring/clever/stupid debut novel. Which is written in third. Oh no, that’s another rule broken, isn’t it?
Would agree to disagree about never writing a novel in first person, and I’ve published short stories in second person…it really depends on what works best for the story.
But this is a great list!
Thanks for coming by and commenting, Eeleen. I’m sorry, I was being rather tongue in cheek about the rules – I really dislike being told how to write and what will and won’t be acceptable. My blog post here about First Person Present Tense may be of interest. http://www.claire-king.com/2010/09/08/first-person-present-tense/
In just four hours, this has become one of my most popular blog posts ever. Did everyone come here seeking rules, or ready to argue about having rules, or…?
people are probably thirsty for rules because there are no obvious rules, really, enforced by nobody. perhaps a prompt to start a “how to” writing blog. or just get on with your own work, of course…
Yes, I suspect a ‘How To’ Writing blog would make me some nice money on Google Ads but lose an awful lot of credibility as a writer!
Just found this post also from the brilliant Emma Darwin – “Not Rules”
http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2010/12/my-ten-tools-not-rules-of-writing.html
Another blogger wondering about writing ‘rules’ today: http://kimcurran.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/rules-schmules/#comments
Oh, I enjoyed this. How to Suck Every Bit of Life and Soul out of Your Writing in 15 Easy Steps!
For those interested, I recently wrote a guest blog article regarding my own approach: http://tiny.cc/fkd9n
Talk about timely. I’ve also published a recent post on this subject in advance of leading a workshop at York on Breaking the Rules. I’ll have to name check both you and Vanessa.
Hi Debi,
Thanks for coming by. I just read your blog post, so pleased to see how you’re approaching the subject. I feel much more comfortable with someone saying ‘These are some of the things writers do that can sabotage their manuscript…and here’s why, and what to do about it.’ Than someone saying ‘first time novelists should stick to a 3rd person POV’ http://debialper.blogspot.com/2011/02/rule-breaker.html
Have a great time at York!
Well that will teach me to read your blog before my first coffee has been absorbed. Points 1 and 2 combined sent me off in a head spin… and then five minutes later I read the rest. Great post. Just, not before you’re properly awake!!
Sorry!
Oh don’t be, it gave me a good giggle. Once I realised that I didn’t have to scrap my second novel after all. LOL.
Guilty x 15 and then some! Great post, Claire x
Excellent news!
In the words of the late, great Private Frazer….We’re doomed!!
Doomed!
i don’t think anybody has yet posted my own favorite “rules” by the late kurt vonnegut: http://bit.ly/ez2Hax – now, these i’ve always found incredibly useful.
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
– Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons 1999), 9-10.
Ah yes, Marcus, thanks for posting these – Kurt Vonnegut’s advice still so relevant. 3 & 4 my absolute favourites.
The Guardian ran a 3 page feature on ‘rules for writers’ last year.
Colm Toibin’s were:
1. Finish everything you start.
2. Get on with it.
3. Stay in your mental pyjamas all day.
4. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
I like these apart from no. 3 which worries me as my pyjamas are from Marks and Spencer and not even vaguely peculiar, let alone mental.
As I say…doomed.
after grappling with “suddenly” and “said” a few years back, the light bulb turned on, blinding me, and I am now a huge proponent of those two rules. Great list. Thanks!
Number 12 and 15 made me laugh!
Don’t write dialogue in dialect.
I love this one. I can’t stand reading someone’s version of a written foreign accent either.
believe it or not, i found another set of rules that i hadn’t heard before – by jonathan franzen (in the guardian) – odd mixture between description and prescription…i concur with a number of these though, especially 7,10, while 8 gives me personal pain…
1. The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.
2. Fiction that isn’t an author’s personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn’t worth writing for anything but money.
3. Never use the word “then” as a conjunction – we have “and” for this purpose. Substituting “then” is the lazy or tone-deaf writer’s non-solution to the problem of too many “ands” on the page.
4. Write in the third person unless a really distinctive first-person voice offers itself irresistibly.
5. When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.
6. The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than “The Metamorphosis”.
7. You see more sitting still than chasing after.
8. It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction (the TIME magazine cover story detailed how Franzen physically disables the Net portal on his writing laptop).
9. Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.
10. You have to love before you can be relentless.
Hmmm, still not keen…but number 1 is interesting because we (Vonnegut excepted) often forget about the reader! Margaret Atwood said something interesting last night – that a book doesn’t exist until it is paired with the reader’s imagination. I do love that concept and of course it’s the big differentiator of written fiction from television and film. (I know that’s a generalisation…)
beigbeder, houellebecq, orhan pamuk. they ar all writing in I’s.
the list is absolutely ridiculous. present it to a writer and he will smile at y. who ever does not.. if you write document fiction you will for sure not write in present, take Yourcenar.
of course show, that should not be said, i mean.. i have to ask: is imagination listed somewhere, like the lists umberto eko was talking about?, is there a formula for the attention/libido?, the psychic mind and the black subconsciousness that drive us?, or take for example: “body without organs”. or, procrastinate around interpersonal neurobiology.
lists are imaginative non-sens.
i must be out of my mind.
take care..
You are not out of your mind, Kiril, just perhaps my English sarcasm is a bit hard to detect
[...] However, I was most intrigued by the fifteen rules of writing that featured in another post: http://www.claire-king.com/2011/02/23/15-rules-for-writing-novels/ [...]
I love the contrast between Marcus’s list (I think Vonnegut makes some valid points), and I love your sarcasm with your list, Claire.
I usually experiment with POV early on in longer stories to make sure I’m seeing the story from a place that pleases me. Sometimes it’s first, sometimes third, and once even the nasty, evil omniscient narrator. I once wrote an entire novel in the second person but then trashed the idea in the end. It was too cutesy.
The only rule I’d take quite seriously is “never use the word suddenly”. I’d also add “immediately” in action scenes. These polysyllabic words actually slow the action down when the reader should be speeding up.
[...] Not everyone is a fan of present tense writing in fiction. Indeed, many might feel that it’s like reading screen directions in a movie script. Renowned critics of the present tense will tell you that it narrows the range of expressiveness, whilst other writers outright forbid you to use present tense. [...]
Thanks for this link Sean/David, although in this case I think the context is mistaken… I’m a big fan of present tense
[...] Not everyone is a fan of present tense writing in fiction. Indeed, many might feel that it’s like reading screen directions in a movie script. Renowned critics of the present tense will tell you that it narrows the range of expressiveness, whilst other writers outright forbid you to use present tense. [...]
Here are a few more:
1. never write in third person, present tense because that does sound like screen directions – not so much when you have a strong first person narrator.
2. Never start a sentence with an ‘ing’ (really NEVER unless your character is a superhero contortionist).
3. ‘As’ is a little flea that should be sprayed with Inorex. As is just as bad as ‘ing.
4.Unless you are Stephen King watch out for disembodied body parts – eyes that roam around a room and feet that pad along corridors.
Rules rule!