https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/
Rules,
Rules, Rules.
Ever
since I began writing I have been told how to do it. There are rules on how to
begin the story, what to have in the story, how to end the story. So I have
listed some of the rules I have found and not necessarily followed.
Here are a few Don’ts.
Don’t
assume there is any single path or playbook writers need to follow.
Don’t
try to write like your favorite writer.
Don’t
worry about whether you should outline or not, whether you should write what you know, whether you
should edit as you go along or at the end.
Don’t
ever get complacent about the basics: good
spelling, healthy mechanics, sound grammar.
Don’t
ever write to satisfy a market trend or make a quick buck. By the time such a book is ready to go, the trend
will likely have passed.
Don't try to follow some
set plot formula.
Don't
put in a lot of fluffy, unimportant stuff that the reader is going to skip.
Don’t
ever assume it will be easy.
Don’t
ever stop reading.
Don’t
be afraid to give up … on your present manuscript. Sometimes, a story just doesn’t work. But, don’t ever give up writing. Writers write. It’s what we do.
It’s what we have to do.
Here are some Do's.
Do grab the reader's
attention at the beginning by establishing the protagonist, the setting, and the
mood.
Do have everything in a
story caused by the action or event that precedes it.
Do have the story about a
person who wants something but cannot get it.
Do have a vulnerable
character, the right setting, and meaningful choices. Tension is at the heart
of story and unmet desire is at the heart of tension.
Do create more and more
tension as the story continues by having setbacks, crises, and antagonism. You
won't have a story until something goes wrong.
Do have the protagonist
making a discovery that will change his life by the end of the story.
Do the writing first then
worry about inserting breaks and chapters.
Here are some rules on the personal side.
Don’t
spend your time waiting to hear back from an agent or publisher. Get to work on your next book or idea while you’re querying.
Don’t
get mad at someone for the feedback they give you. No piece of writing is perfect.
Don’t
forget to get out once in a while and enjoy the other parts of your life.
Here are a few dubious rules, which I have seen
broken in many best sellers.
Don't open your book with
weather.
Don’t have a prologue.
Don’t use any other word
other than said to carry dialogue. (I
personally find it very boring to read said
all the time. How does the reader know if the character is angry if he says
'said' instead of 'shouted'? "Get out of here." can be said softly,
said through clenched teeth, said angrily, shouted). You need to show emotion.
Don’t use an adverb to
modify the word said. (see last
statement) Keep exclamation points to a minimum. (Again see above).
Avoid detailed description
of characters, settings and objects.
And now some quotes about writing from famous
writers.
“The road to
hell is paved with works-in-progress.”—Philip Roth
“Writing a
book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful
illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by
some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” —George Orwell
“We are all
apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”—Ernest Hemingway
“Every secret
of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is
written large in his works.”—Virginia Woolf
“The greatest
part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn
over half a library to make one book.”—Samuel Johnson
“If it sounds
like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to
go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound
and rhythm of the narrative.”—Elmore Leonard
“Write.
Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”—Larry L.
King
“There are no
laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.”—Doris Lessing
“Style means
the right word. The rest matters little.”—Jules Renard
“Style is to
forget all styles.”—Jules Renard
“I do not
over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the
damned story.”—Tom Clancy
“Don’t expect
the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not
realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink and paper
that will turn wooden figures into flesh and blood.”—Leslie Gordon Barnard
“Plot is
people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at
cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other
until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot.”—Leigh Brackett, WD
“The first
sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written.”—Joyce Carol
Oates
“When your
story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of
excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials
is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.”—Stephen King
“You do not
have to explain every single drop of water contained in a rain barrel. You have
to explain one drop—H2O. The reader will get it.”—George Singleton
“When I say
work I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.”—Margaret Laurence
“The
difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference
between the lightning bug and the lightning.”—Mark Twain
“People say,
‘What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?’ I say, they don’t really
need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they’re gonna do it. Those
people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they
know it.”—R.L. Stine
“Beware of
advice—even this.”—Carl Sandburg
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