Golly, much like establishing any personal standard, composing one’s own Rules of Writing seems like a humbling and disciplined task.

I can say I’ve never done so, perhaps for just that reason.

The few I have grew like stepping stones from the receding water of my work. Just finishing something was daunting enough that, when I did, I presented it like a proud child–and it was drivel. I learned about editing. I have Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules on the bookshelf above my head. That helped, too.

I guess my biggest rule is “Love the Process, not the Product” meaning that, yes, you should love what you’re working on, but not if that love gets in the way of the process of making that product the best it can be. No matter if that means cutting scenes, characters or the whole bloody concept. Just like love, your 1st love is rarely the one you wed. It’s a process.

K

@K –

Well-said. It is more about process than product. It’s more about process than you as a writer, too.

The runner loves to run. The runner loves the race, the marathon. But the runner who loves only himself — or the *way* he runs — is only self-absorbed. Same with writers, I suspect.

– c.

Heh. Well said back. “The runner who loves only himself, runs in circles.” A proverb for writing by C-diddy Wendig & Co.

“The runner who loves himself should get a tissue and stop masturbating because he’s holding up the whole damn marathon.”

> 6. Start the story as late as you can. The beginning is the most boring part. So fucking skip it and get to the awesome shit.

That’s my favorite. It can also be applied scene to scene, which has an interesting effect. I just read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which uses a similar technique for almost every conflict: The narrator spends the first two pages of each chapter dead-center in the action without explanation, but slowly relates the set-up as the chapter goes on. It creates an interesting dynamic where each chapter instantly grabs the reader’s attention with a hint at the culmination of action previously suggested from earlier chapters, but without immediate resolution. The book also doesn’t strictly follow a linear storyline, so that helps this technique work.

> 10. Think actively. Everything in the work must be active.

I hate the passive voice. So much. Sometimes, it needs must be used, but holy cow does it hurt me to see it on a page.

Noah

@Noah –

Hecks yes. If you have to ramp up each scene from the beginning, every few pages you’re revving up a cold engine. Jump right in. Assume shit is always happening, and people aren’t always in the middle of it. For example: business meeting? Come in at the mid-point, come in at the argument. That’s not universally true, of course — in scenes, sometimes you can get mileage out of the build-up, out of the suspense, but even there you’re starting *right* at the important part. The part of the most dramatic impact for your story.

– c.

> 1. First: finish it. Second: make it good. Third: make it great. In that order only.

This I believe to be, by far, the most most important of the rules. Especially the order. I believe that becomes the big stumbling block; you (like and idiot) glance over something you wrote earlier or the day before, realize it isn’t brilliant, and get all emo about it and ultimately quit. I find that when I see all the blistering errors, it is impossible to spot the kernels of excellence because I am focusing on the crap – something I might be able to if I had completed and some time had passed.

> 1. First: finish it. Second: make it good. Third: make it great. In that order only.

I want to reinforce what Rick said about this one being important. It’s almost worthwhile to ignore what you’re previously written as you write. I mean, keep things like plot points and character development in mind, but in terms of word choice and whatnot, once you’ve got something down you can always go back and change it. Do that after you’ve gone from start to finish.

@Josh, @Rick –

Right. Finishing it is the uttermost priority when you hit the ground. You will always go back over it after it’s done, again and again.

Thing is, you’ll soon grow comfortable. Because the more you do it, the better that first pass will be. And you’ll feel less agita about the work you’re going to have to do in future passes, because you’ll have cranked out a solid B+ on that first *finished* draft.

– c.

In the spirit of the original post, these are the ten things I think are important.

1. Complete it, motherfucker.
2. Passive voice will have killed your work.
3. A happy character is often a boring character.
4. Don’t get bogged down in the minutia of creating your setting. The background is critically important – writing the damn thing is more important.
5. Don’t stop! Starting again is hard! I am going through this right now.
6. Have confidence in yourself. Just because you think it is derivative crap doesn’t mean it is. There is nothing new under the sun, but there are infinitely new ways to look at the sun.
7. When someone criticizes a particular section of your work, believe them! Even if what they are saying misses the mark entirely, it shows that the section in question isn’t as clear as it can be… they wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.
8. Victor Hugo could get away with describing a fence for 50,000 words. You can’t – keep it concise.
9. If you don’t feel comfortable writing a character, chances are you don’t know enough about them.
10. You still haven’t completed it. Do it now.

@Rick –

A good list. Starting again is hard. To reiterate, it’s tough to get a cold engine going.

It occurs to me that I should put together a separate “ten rules” list — some of the stuff I keep noodling about isn’t about writing fiction or writing any one thing. It’s about Being A Writer. The highly effective habits of being a not-completely-fucked penmonkey.

– c.

I still struggle with the planning bit. The concept has evolved a bit, and maybe I’ve started a wee bit of character development. Turning that into something like a plan of any sort, however, eludes me, and I haven’t found anything that really works for me. (This probably explains why everything I’ve done comes out so brief.)

@Kyle:

Lord knows I have plenty of posts here proselytizing The Mighty Outline (just search for “outline”), but I cannot stress it enough. I used to loathe the outline. It burned usssss. Like garlic to a vampire was the outline to me. But soon I came to see its value, as I was forced a few times to provide outlines. And then I realized how much *easier* the writing process is when you have a plan — even a half-ass one — going in.

– c.

1. You will never have enough time to chase after your kids, do all your housework, manage to eat something, pay all your bills and write 3000 words a day if you don’t learn how to properly schedule and organize your life.
2. Fuck wasting 20 minutes looking for that “perfect” word that’s “on the tip of your brain”. Use a word that isn’t going to bog you down.
3. Disconnect your computer from the internet. Turn off Twitter and Facebook for a couple of hours. Unplug the cable. The “Power” button on your cell phone? Yeah, kill that too.
4. Reference books will only get you so far. Stop buying them, stop reading them over and over, and start putting into practice the things they’re advising you to do.
5. Self-editing is not as helpful or as vital as you think it is.
6. Look at your progress as something manageable to you. Instead of “Shit, I only have X out of 50k words”, look at it as “I only have X out of my daily goal of 2000″. Or “I have one scene out of my goal of two written for the day”.
7. Constructive criticism rarely feels helpful when you’re hearing it for the first time. Get over yourself. There might be something
8. You are not an artiste. You’re a writer. Learn the difference and drop the pretension.
9. Dreams will not come true until you get off your ass to make them. Telling people “I want to quit my job and write something real” is only going to get you laughed at. Write something, then get it published. Do not quit your job, you jackass.
10. Find a style and a rhythm that work for you, and don’t waste too much time agonizing over “so-and-so does it this way, so I should too”. You are not so-and-so, so don’t think that you should be.

“Active sentences are more compelling than passive ones.”

That’s a passive sentence.

My personal rule is never tell what the character is feeling, emotionally. If I do my job right as a writer, dialogue and action will let the reader know – and it’s more high-falutin’ literary that way. Think Nick Adams.

Of course, I break my own rules all the time.

@Twendig: Awesome, found several that really went to the heart of what I need. I’ve long loved mind maps for all sorts of purposes, but I also love Filamena’s idea of index cards.

@Kyle: Try John August’s tips on using index cards — http://johnaugust.com/archives/2010/10-hints-for-index-cards

@John: I disagree that it’s a passive sentence. I don’t think it’s the most active way of stating it, though, but I wouldn’t qualify that as passive.

[...] thing. This article got writers thinking about it, and some others – most notably the Magic Talking Beardhead – have taken it upon themselves to write up their own. Which leaves me feeling compelled to [...]

Purely a technical, but a passive sentence is a BE verb (am, is, are, was, were), in this case “are”, coupled with a regular verb, “compelling.”

So, in this case, your sentence is passive.

I’ve just become the guy I despise. Excuse me while I go shoot myself.

I’m still going to go ahead and disagree. I’m about to walk out the door to have lunch with my wife, so excuse me for my lack of justification.

That said, I’m going to politely ask that this line of commentary go no further.

My bad. I couldn’t help myself. Won’t happen again.

Doh. There I was, rushing out the door, and I obviously put on my “bristly dickhead” hat instead of the Guinness baseball cap. My bad.

I certainly don’t want to discourage discussion or say that disagreements here are a no-no.

I’ll say that, while I don’t consider that passive, I will concede that it is perhaps *passive-scented,* like a candle that stinks overmuch with chemical lavender.

My wife, ever the wise woman, recommends possibly: “Use active voice. Passive voice sucks.”

I offer a countersuggestion: “Passive voice sucks donkey balls. Active voice does not.”

Or perhaps, “Active voice lovingly strokes the donkey’s balls,” if you’re seeking something a hair more evocative.

– c.

Didn’t I tell you to put your “bristly dickhead” hat in the wash? It’s starting to smell like cheese and wet dog. One can only guess what you’re up to while I’m away at work.

Eating cheese and having sex with the dog, maybe. I dunno. I drink a lot.

Wendig smelling like wet dog? The devil you say. That man smells like nothing more than awesome and beard – at least that’s all I get from the bushes I stalk him from.

Wait a minute… Wendig… wet dog… wendig… wet dog.

It is suddenly all starting to make sense.

I’m a werewolf.

Truth is out.

It’s kind of freeing, actually.

Time to eat some motherfuckers.

– c.

[...] in there, and it’s just all full of interesting food for thought. My homeboy Chuck Wendig did a similar list. Then my other homeboy Josh did one. A friend of mine bitched that I don’t blog enough. So I [...]

1. Ass in chair, fingers on keyboard. Pen in hand. Write.

2. Write, use a pen, ass in chair, fingers on keyboard etc.

3. Just do it. Write the damn thing.

4. Did I mention writing?

5. Oops, ass moved. Back in chair.

6. Drifting. Ass back in chair.

7. What are you doing sitting here? Get your ass in that chair and write.

8. Write.

9. Butt in chair. Are you writing yet?

10. Ass in chair, fingers on keyboard. Pen in hand. Go write. NOW.

I often wonder why children are taught in school to use every word other than “said”. It’s like the school system wants more purple prose.

@Danielle — heh. I expect it has something to do with learning new words. It’s a good way to expand your vocabulary, but you have to know when to use those new words, which — more to the point — is where the teaching falls down, I think.

@Linda — Your list should be spraypainted on every writer’s wall. Right about the damn computer monitor.

– c.

Or over the damn computer monitor so I can’t get distracted by the little buttons telling me I have more email or cool little twitter feeds to read.

I should resurrect one of my old Sun workstations that can no longer access the network, fire up vi, and get going.

Not entirely sure how I’d get the resulting document off of there, but one step at a time!

[...] like this: remember the Ten Rules For Writing Fiction meme that went around? (I did my own list here at the site, in case you missed it.)  Being on the Twitters and the web in general, I have [...]