We just spent a couple of weeks with Kurt Vonnegut and an irascible Elmore Leonard. I was going to keep the series going with lists of rules from other writers, but I couldn’t quite find a list that had enough grit to feel substantial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So instead of a one-author list, here are some suggested rules or bits of advice from a Hotch-Potch of Writing Genius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DON’T FORGET!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The deadline for applications to the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme<\/u><\/a> \/ Novel Writing Course<\/u><\/a> is 7 September. If you have even a part-interest in doing one of these courses, then get your application in now and book a call<\/a> so you can chat to one of our team about your writing and whether it’s the right next step for you. We won\u2019t pressure you to buy anything. That call is just an opportunity to de-mystify the course and figure out if it will work for you. Getting your application in before the deadline means you won’t miss out, if it is <\/em>your best option.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I admire RC hugely: I think he\u2019s one of the great American writers who (as I like to point out) was also a great English one \u2013 he was educated at the same public school as PG Wodehouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, on the one hand, Chandler wasn\u2019t being serious. He was talking about the pulp fiction industry in America, where he cut his teeth, and which did not greatly concern itself with seriousness of purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, action matters<\/em>. Decisive plot twists matter. They propel a story. That\u2019s obviously true of genre, but it\u2019s true of decent literary fiction, too (though a plot twist here may be less obviously material than a man with a gun.) And if a story is stalling, then throwing in a major plot development? Good advice, always.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think this is really good advice. I do think that authors need to know the terrain of their genre pretty well, but I think that limiting yourself to that genre is a mistake. The more widely you read \u2013 across genres, across time and across nations \u2013 the more your head will fill with possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That also says that it\u2019s more important to read lots of authors than it is to read lots of books. If you read one Patricia Cornwell novel, you\u2019ll probably learn almost as much from it as if you read 20. Read twenty different authors instead, and make sure that one is French, and one Japanese, and one Egyptian, and one has been dead for 200 years, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That sounds like a good wholemeal-loaf type rule. Not exciting, but you know it\u2019s good for you. But \u2013 I don\u2019t really agree with it. I think you know enough words. But do you use them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n When did you last use any of the following words in your writing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Honeysuckle | friable | acolyte | steeple | vertiginous | ammonite | curio | trepidation<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n You know all of those words. But it\u2019s easy when talking about lovely summer scented flowers to say just \u201clovely summer scented flowers\u201d, or perhaps to get as far as thinking about roses and lavender. It\u2019s easy when thinking about something with a flat spiral structure to use the term \u201ca flat spiral\u201d. But wouldn\u2019t those thoughts be better extended by using the terms honeysuckle<\/em> and ammonite<\/em>? Not every time, of course, but sometimes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So: you don\u2019t need to add to your word hoard. Just use the damn hoard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Damn right. Don\u2019t be precious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don\u2019t need to write with a fountain pen in a notebook covered in black silk. You don\u2019t need to wear a kimono. It doesn\u2019t matter if your upstairs neighbour plays horrible music. I don\u2019t care if you don\u2019t have the table you wanted in your local coffee shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Put down sentences, as mediocre as you like, then shape them up so they work. Then move on to the next one. Make sure your book holds the reader\u2019s interest. Then go again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes! Let the audience do the work. If you do summarise something, do so after the reader has already figured it out, so you\u2019re consolidating an understanding, not creating it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And obviously, we don\u2019t have voice-overs exactly in novels, but we do sort of, when an interior monologue comments on the action just described. So be additive always.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRaymond Chandler: <\/strong>“When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.”<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Michael Moorcock: <\/strong>“My first rule was given to me by T.H. White, author of The Sword in the Stone and other Arthurian fantasies, and was: Read. Read everything you can lay hands on. I always advise people who want to write a fantasy or science fiction or romance to stop reading everything in those genres and start reading everything else, from Bunyan to Byatt.”<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
P.D. James: <\/strong>“Increase your word power. Words are the raw material of our craft. The greater your vocabulary, the more effective your writing. We who write in English are fortunate to have the richest and most versatile language in the world. Respect it.”<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Zadie Smith:<\/strong> “Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.”<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Billy Wilder (screenwriter): “A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever.” And another rule: “In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they’re seeing.”<\/h4>\n\n\n\n