For a variety of reasons, I thought today I’d do a rant on writing rules. OK, mostly it was because I haven’t done one for a while and I was in the mood for ranting. I started off by googling “fiction writing rules,” just to see what a few other people had to say on the subject.
I got over six hundred million hits.
That’s one heck of a lot of articles about the rules for writing fiction, and I’ll probably get to posting about that next time. This time, though, I’m going to talk about something else. Specifically, when I started looking at some of the “rules,” I found useful stuff like this:
Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the plane, because you can’t take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.
Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.–Margaret Atwood
This is the kind of writing advice I’ve loved ever since I read Ursula le Guin’s advice to would-be writers (“Learn to type”) back when I was a wannabe. (Fortunately for me, my mother made me take the secretarial typing class for one of my electives in high school; I doubt that I’d ever have taught myself to touch-type on my own. But Mom was a writer herself, and she made sure I had the tools I was going to need, even if I wasn’t really interested in learning to type when I was sixteen.)
It’s also the kind of writing advice that is a) unexpected and/or unwanted by a lot of folks (judging from the tone of some of the web sites I buzzed through) and b) undervalued by even more folks.
The undervalued part comes, I think, because of the unexpected/unwanted part. Looking at the interviews and FAQs and questions in general, it’s pretty obvious that when most people ask a published writer for advice, they want advice either about creativity or about craft. Not just any old advice, either: the Secrets of the Craft. Preferably in a list of five to ten pithy statements that can be applied cookbook fashion, like “never use adverbs” or “never use a dialog tag other than ‘said’” or “don’t use more than three exclamation points per book.”
Some writers, faced with the obvious expectations of the interviewer, give in and provide their personal list of pet peeves or bad habits, usually without appearing to realize that the peeves are a matter of opinion or that other folks have different “bad habits.”
Other writers try to fulfill the interviewer’s expectations while still telling the truth about what writing is like. So you get a few true-but-not-specific recommendations, like “Read a lot and write a lot” (Stephen King for that specific phrasing; the sentiment is common), and various contradictory and not-very-useful comments about the particular writer’s process, like the one writer who recommends going to cafés with a notebook and the other one who claims writing should only ever be done in total privacy.
(My non-favorite example of that last was the gentleman who stated very firmly that every writer should always have at least two stories in the first-draft stage at all times, so as to be able to switch from one to the other whenever the writer became stuck. It obviously works for him, but I’ve tried it, and for me it is beyond counter-productive except during the very, very early thrashing-around-in-search-of-a-plot stage. Past that point, having a second story in the works is, for me, like trying to make forward progress while towing a black hole. It generally ends in disaster for all concerned.)
And then there are the folks who, like le Guin and Atwood, confound the interviewer and the would-be writer’s expectations by telling them what they need to know, rather than what they think they want to know. Things like “Get an accountant” (Hilary Mantel), “Don’t wait for inspiration” (Esther Freud), “Create your own (rules), suitable for what you want to say” (Michael Moorcock), “Don’t let Google tempt you away (from your writing)” (A.M. Harte), “Don’t drink and write at the same time” (Richard Ford). And the things that nearly everyone says: Read. Write. Revise. Carry a writing implement and something to write on. Practice. Write. Make time, don’t wait for it. Work hard. Edit. Discipline. Write. Read. Learn to type. Write.
I’ve been happily throwing out most of the “rules” that have crept into my psyche and started hobbling my writing – but I’m going to copy down and hang up the last part of that Margaret Attwood quote. Pain IS distracting, and no amount of published books will ever be able to rid one of that dowager’s hump (a genetic predisposition in my family, and the main threat my mother always used when my sister and I slumped – “Stand up straight! Do you want a dowager’s hump like Gram Straw’s?”).
Back exercises. A rule I can happily embrace.
“Past that point, having a second story in the works is, for me, like trying to make forward progress while towing a black hole.”
Your point is well-taken, but I’m currently dragging two black holes (i.e. unpublished) while trying to move forward on a third novel. As I learn more, I occasionally take a break and revise one or the other of the earlier works, still hoping to find an agent. Any advise on that?
P.S. I’ve loved all your stories, and consider THE THIRTEENTH CHILD trilogy especially masterful in the way it moves along.
Kate
I found people always told me “write every day without fail.” For some people, that works. For me, not so much because I found I was writing total crap on some days where I really didn’t feel like it. Then I’d have *more* work later on when I needed to revise (or totally rewrite) those sections. Some people need to write every day. I just need to push myself to write more than twice a week. It’s always about finding what works for you. Though, you are right, some advice is always good – read a lot. Write a lot. Revise a lot. That’s solid, and the only way to really get better.
Learn to type. Yes. My mother coaxed me into writing all my stories on the computer when I was eleven, which required me to learn to type and learn to use Word Perfect (and now Word) to their full potential. I’ve always been grateful that I took her advice.
My favorite advice that everyone ignores is learn proper grammar. Not necessarily English-class-perfect grammar, but I’m amazed at the number of people who want to be writers but can’t be bothered to perfect the art of written communication. It’s like saying you want to be a carpenter but not bothering to learn the different types of saws or chisels. How can you build anything if you don’t know which tool to apply to the job at hand?
I know there’s a difference between people who struggle with grammar and people who just can’t be bothered. It’s the second type that drives me crazy.
Write every day without fail because failure, like falling off the water wagon, tends to feed on itself.
Excellent post. Quick note, though — the author’s name you quoted is spelled “Atwood.” I assume the initial site you Googled had a typo/misspelling.
Elizabeth – Thank you; you’re right, and I fixed the spelling.
Lol, Shannon! I’m enrolled in a grammar course on Wednesday morning! I just needed a brush up, because I’ve been reading so many things lately where the grammar is all over the planet.
I do tend to have several things on the go at a time, but once one of them makes it to some critical mass, the rest of them politely step aside while I finish the first one. I wish I had known that about myself many years ago–so many unnecessary trunkings of innocent stories that could have been avoided. Recognizing that I write like someone filling in a puddle, dropping in rocks here and there and adding more in between until the whole thing is done, was also important.
I would say, find what works for you, stick with it, and anyone who tells you it’s wrong, put them in a red shirt and let fly!
I actually do that thing of keeping a couple stories that I write on a sort of rotation basis. They’re not all at the same stages though. I always figured it was a sign of poor attention-span. 🙂
Carry a writing implement and something to write on
Ha! Just this morning at the gym, while swimming no less, I flashed on the beginning words for the story after WIP. Naturally, I wanted to get it down ASAP before I forgot! Those lines were perfect!
No can do in the pool, but I kept reviewing those sentences while I swam, while I did stretches in the warm water pool, and while I showered. And I did remember.
BUT! No paper! Yes, pen. No, paper. Luckily, the front desk had scrap paper and I accepted 2 pieces to note down the opening sentences along with a brief outline of plot points before I got in my car.
Lesson learned!
My favorite list of writing advice for the “give me a magic writing wand” moments is Neil Gaiman’s. He’s such a cutie . . . .
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/28/neil-gaiman-8-rules-of-writing/
And the most intriguing advice I’ve seen is to write from a recliner. I’ve seen three writers say it’s a great way to write . . . . (I don’t seem to be able to write from my lap, though. The computer tends to slide off. I must be missing something, or have a very oddly shaped lap.)
Love this post. (-: Especially the Atwood quote. (I think you can smuggle little pencil sharpeners on planes, though. But two pencils are always good, because what if one rolls away and you can’t find it?)
I’d forgotten le Guin’s “learn to type”. That was the advice I received from a college teacher (high school summer enrichment program) back when I was 15 and dinosaurs still walked the earth. Not only did it make college papers much easier, but it brought in a lot of my spending money. Still, whenever I really have to think something through I rely on pencil and paper (or marker and whiteboard).
There’s also Edsger Dijkstra’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsger_W._Dijkstra) rant about wysiwyg word processors–you get so caught up in the formatting that you mistake it for actual writing. It can be as seductive as Google.
I only got 38.8 million hits. Obviously, Google thinks you need the help more than I do. (Wow! What a wonderful piece of fiction I have just written.)
I share J.M. Ney-Grimm’s problem too often in the area of computer programming. I get a great idea at 4 AM, do not write it down, and torture myself later that morning about what I was thinking.
YMMD with that asnewr! TX