The Rules -- Yet Again

I keep swearing I'll never mention politics (especially Scottish politics) again and then fall off the wagon. So visualize me climbing back on the wagon and getting back to the topic of writing.

I was going on a bit about Heinlein's Rules and his first two were pretty straightforward. You write and you finish what you're writing. But his rule three tends to make a lot of people choke. The one where he said to only revise to editorial order.

I suspect that he meant that pretty literally considering what I've heard about Heinlein. I once was told that when another well-known author complained about having to edit, Heinlein remarked, "Why didn't you do it right the first time?" I'm not sure if the story is true--but it seems right for Mr. Heinlein.

However, most of us don't get it right the first time. At the least, we have to do some clean-up, and I assume that he wasn't referring to that. I try to get it down in a fairly coherent manner the first time though and I think that may have been what he was getting at. We don't improve our writing, I suspect, without working hard at that first draft to get it as close to a final as we can. I've known writers who can send out a first draft and I'm aiming at that, not that I'm there.

That, I suspect, is the only way to really improve. Then look for the faults, get it as clean as you can and go on from there because picking over the same manuscript for years isn't going to improve your writing or get something new written.

So that's my theory on that.

What Was That Heinlein Said?

I posted a few days ago (ok... ok... it was a couple of weeks) about how to succeed in writing and mentioned that you actually have to write.

Afterwards, I realized that, of course, I was merely echoing the great Robert Heinlein in his Heinlein's Rules from his classic essay On the Writing of Speculative Fiction, published in Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy. The master was being less than honest, however, in that much of what he says applies to all fiction, most especially his "rules". The essay is available in Google Books and I recommend reading it. But I'll quote one particularly salient paragraph. He said about his rules:

...they are amazingly hard to follow--which is why there are so few professional writers and so many aspirants, and which is why I am not afraid to give away the racket! But if you follow them, it matters not how you write, you will find some editor, somewhere, sometime, so unwary or so desperate for copy as to buy the worst old dog you or I, or anyone else, can throw at him.

Times have changed a bit with most slush piles about ten feet deep what with word processors and email submissions, but most of that is still true, in that you will sell if you follow his rules and that very few people will.

So I said the first rule: Write.

What's the second? FINISH. A hundred half-written stories aren't going to either improve your writing or get published. But that one is a hard one. Right this second I'm procrastinating on a novel. I'm 35,000 words in and the thing has turned into pure drudgery. But I have to finish it. I WILL finish it. (*gives self kick in the rear*)

Will you finish that piece you've started? Because if you don't... Well, I think Mr. Heinlein said it.

Rules of Writing

Some say that there are no rules for writing. Someone recently told me that. It happened that Mark Twain disagreed and he gave an interesting list. On my "if you're going to steal, steal from someone great" theory, I'm stealing the good Mr. Clement's rules, which are:

Twain's Rules of Writing

(from Mark Twain's essay The Literary Offenses of James Fenimore Cooper)

1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.

3. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

4. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there.

5. When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

6. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.

7. When a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel at the end of it.

8. Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.

9. The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausably set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

10. The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones.

11. The characters in tale be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.

An author should

12. _Say_ what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple, straightforward style.

(I've always been particularly fond of Rule #3)

What writing advice has helped most?

I ran into a blog with comments from a lot of famous writers on this subject the other day. I'd point you toward it IF I could remember where I saw it!

But I thought it was an interesting topic and thought I'd throw in my own experience--not that I'm a famous writer, but I can hope. I've received some great advice from some very experienced authors, but truthfully the best advice I ever got was published and is available to every writer out there. It was Heinlein's famous "Five Rules," originally published in his essay that appeared in "Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing."

They are pretty simple:

Rule One: You Must Write

Pretty simple -- but, amazingly, many people who claim to be authors don't write.

Rule Two: Finish What Your Start

Here it really gets tough. Maybe you think the first pages are weak or the characterization isn't that good. It's easy to give up, but if you don't finish then you don't grow. Half finished stories don't do a thing for you.

Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order

Now this one gives people fits. Almost everyone modifies it since none of my first drafts come out ready for an editor to read and I doubt that yours do either. But the fact is, beyond a limited point, editing and re-writing is a lost cause.

Let me ask you this: Do you really know what will improve your work? Do your first readers or your critique group really know? Sure. Fix plot holes and obvious errors. But once you have that piece finished, the plot holes filled in, and reading reasonably smoothly -- STOP! Don't work on it for years. (Sadly, I know writers who do.) You're as likely to make it worse as you are to make it better, unless you deliberately wrote it poorly, and I don't believe that.

Instead of working and sweating over that piece, try to make your NEXT one better than the last.

Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market

Obvious, but most of us fall down on the job here. I admit it. I have a couple of stories I need to get out. Sometimes rejections or even the fear that you will get a reject makes you stop. So reward yourself -- have a piece of candy or whatever works, but get that work in front of editors who can buy it.

Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

Tough! Tough! Five rejections. Ten rejections. You start thinking that the piece must be crap and you should trunk it. But keep putting it out there. I don't think Heinlein's remark that there is a publisher somewhere who is "so desperate that he'll buy the worst old dog you or I or anyone put out" is true any more. But I do know authors who have sold stories on the 70th submission. So just keep trying.

So that's the best advice I ever received and to be honest just about the only writing advice (besides Stephen King's in On Writing and a couple of other books I mention on my website) that I ever bother to follow.