Are there rules for writers? Some say yes, some say no, while some say rules are meant to be broken. I believe there are rules. Perhaps they are really more like guidelines, to paraphrase Hector Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean, but they are guidelines worth knowing and heeding. If there’s a good reason to break one, especially if it helps the story or unblocks you, by all means break it, but it helps to know the rule (guideline) first.
Today’s Words of Wisdom dives into the TKZ archives to find an intriguing grab bag of rules. Joe Moore lays out the rules of writing, with humor, wit and more than a little wisdom. I share the first fifteen on his list, and it’s worth clicking on the date-link at the bottom of this excerpt to read the other nineteen.
Next, John Gilstrap gives us his “Ten Rules for Manuscript Evaluation,” thoughtful advice on how to approach a manuscript you plan on submitting for feedback at a conference. His first five rules are included in this excerpt, and again it’s worth clicking on the date-link below to read all ten.
Finally, James Scott Bell looks at science fiction grand master Robert A. Heinlein’s “Five Rules for Writers,” and provides commentary on each. Here too it’s worth clicking on the link to read his full commentary.
Who said there are no rules for writers? Of course there are:
- Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid clichés like the plague.
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
Joe Moore—December 17, 2008
Over the years, then, I have developed a list of Gilstrap’s Ten Rules for Manuscript Evaluation:
1. Number your pages and put your name or project title on every page. The reality is that I will lose your paper clip and I will drop your papers on the floor at least once. I don’t do this on purpose; it just always happens. Sometimes the pages get separated in my briefcase. However it happens, jumbled papers are jumbled papers. It helps to know which ones belong to whom, and in what order.
2. Have confidence in Times New Roman 12-point type. Reducing the font size to sneak in more story does not slip past unnoticed. I recently participated in a conference where someone actually gave me 15 pages of double-spaced 8-point type. Ignoring the fact that it pissed me off, I literally could not read the text. While I like to think of myself as young, my eyes are marching toward old age.
3. For me to believe that your story has any hope of success, something must happen in the first two hundred words. That’s the length of my interest fuse. Billowing clouds, pouring rain and beautiful flowers are not action. Characters interacting with each other or with their environment is action.
4. If you insist on walking into the whirling propeller that is a prologue, check first to make sure that your prologue is in fact not your first chapter in disguise. Next check to verify that your prologue is truly for the benefit of the reader, and not a crutch for the writer who needs to dump a bunch of backstory so that the first chapter will make sense.
5. Ten pages are plenty. Actually, five pages are plenty, but I understand that conference organizers can tout the larger number more easily. In my experience, unless dealing with a journeyman writer, the sins committed in the first few pages are replicated throughout. It’s rare that I discover a new issue on page thirteen or fifteen that hasn’t been noted several times previously.
John Gilstrap—July 22, 2011
Robert A. Heinlein’s “Five Rules for Writers.” They are as follows:
Rule One: You must write.
Rule Two: You must finish what you start.
Rule Three: You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
Rule Four: You must put it on the market.
Rule Five: You must keep it on the market until it has sold.
I’d like to offer my commentary on this list.
Rule One: You must write.
Pretty self-evident. You can’t sell what you don’t produce. The writers of Heinlein’s era all had quotas. Pulp writers like W. T. Ballard and Erle Stanley Gardner wrote a million words or more a year. Fred Faust (aka Max Brand) wrote four thousand words a day, every day. They did so because they were getting a penny or two a word, and they needed to put food on the table.
I always advise writers to figure out how many words they can comfortably write in a week, considering their other obligations. Now up that number by 10% and make that the goal. Revise the number every year. Keep track of your words on a spreadsheet. I can tell you how many words I’ve written per day, per week, per year since the year 2000.
Rule Two: You must finish what you start.
I remember when I finished my first (unpublished, and it shall stay unpublished) novel. I was still trying to figure out this craft of ours and knew I had a long way to go. But I learned a whole lot just from the act of finishing. It also felt good, and motivated me to keep going.
Heinlein was primarily thinking about short stories here, so the act of finishing was an easier task. With a novel, there’s always a moment when you think it stinks. When you wonder if you should keep going for another 50k words. Fight through it and finish the dang thing. Nothing is wasted. At the very least you’ll become a stronger writer.
Should a project ever be abandoned? If you’ve done sufficient planning and have the right foundation, I’d say no. If you’re a pantser … well, the temptation to set something aside is more pronounced. But you chose to be a panster, so deal with it.
Rule Three: You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
This is a bad rule if taken at face value. Again, Heinlein was thinking about the short story market. With novel-length fiction, the old saw still applies: Writing is re-writing.
I’ve heard a certain #1 bestselling writer state that he only does one draft and that’s it. Upon closer examination, however, that writer is revising pages daily as he goes, so it comes out to the same thing—re-writing.
As for “editorial order,” Heinlein meant that once a story sold—which meant actual payment—you made the changes the editor wanted (that is, if you wanted him to send you the check!)
For all writers, a skilled editor or reliable beta readers give us an all-important extra set of eyes. Don’t skip this step. There’s always something you need to fix!
James Scott Bell—December 11, 2018
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There you have it, three different sets of rules for writers. Do you believe that there are rules for writers? Do any of these resonate with you? What rules have you broken, and if so, why?
“6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.”
Technically, in the US, that’s assonance, the repetition of identical vowels or similar phonemes in words or syllables that occur close together,
I have but one rule for writing: Don’t be boring.
Don’t be boring is an excellent rule, JG.
If you’re writing for yourself, ignore all the rules as if they don’t exist. Write what you like, the way you like it.
On the other hand, if you’re writing for publication and (hopefully) profit, write what the reader wants to read and is willing to buy. Consequently, almost all of these rules are to be followed.
It’s your choice!
That’s a good point about writers having a choice, Henry. I like the approach James Scott Bell offered when your considering the market: find where your own interests and passions as a writer overlap with “commercial viability”: https://killzoneblog.com/2023/07/5-timeless-tips-for-career-novelists.html
Dale, as you say, know the “rules” before you break them. If you’re gonna break them, know why they need to be broken.
I disagree with Heinlein’s #3. Thinking you don’t need to edit is arrogance. Writing can always be improved.
Jim added Robert Sawyer’s rule: Start Working on Something Else. Too many writers I’ve known get stuck on one project, waiting for acceptance that may never come. If acceptance does come, the agent/editor will likely ask, “What else do you have?” Good idea to have lots of other work in the hopper you can pull out to show them.
My mentor Dennis Foley’s advice:
1. Don’t bore the reader.
2. You can’t fail at writing unless you quit.
I agree about the need to edit, Debbie. It’s essential to my process. I also agree with Robert Sawyer’s rule.
Excellent advice from Dennis Foley, thanks for sharing it here.
I say unload the baggage and just use Robert A. Heinlein’s “Five Rules for Writers” as a guide to start out with.
There’s good reason for all the touted rules, but they are also quicksand for less experienced writers, particularly if they get bogged down in all that while drafting a story. The ‘rules’ get in the way of creativity.
One rule that particularly annoys me is the hatred of prologues. While I agree that after you write your manuscript you should evaluate whether the prologue is truly necessary, what I find is that people who critique your work like to pop off with the “NO PROLOGUES!” admonition by rote, rather than sincerely evaluating it’s worth to the story. As a reader I happen to like prologues, and I have rarely read one that wasn’t interesting or valuable to the story.
The ‘rules’ of writing need to be considered, but shouldn’t choke out your creativity.
Great point, BK, about considering the rules but not letting them “choke out your creativity.” Your example of prologues is a good one which can be applied to other rules—if you want, they can be considerations after the first draft.
I’ve never met a prologue or epilogue I didn’t like. Done right, they work…
They certainly can, Deb. I give reasons below why they often don’t work for me, but as you note, done right, they can be effective.
One author I’m reading right now is good at prologues/epilogues in his series’–Andrew Turpin.
Thanks for the recommendation, Deb!
As a newer acquisitions editor, I abhor prologues. they are usually full of back story that gives away the entire plot.
Personally, I’m not a fan of prologues either, Jane. I’d rather that backstory be salted in as the novel progresses. There’s also the fact that by including a prologue, you have two starts to your novel, and need to ensure that chapter one still opens in a way that holds the reader’s attention.
Sometimes with prologues there’s a tendency to follow with a quiet start to chapter one, I suspect to seemingly counterbalance the intensity of the prologues ending, but I think that’s a mistake, and more than one book has lost my interest in that contrast.
That said, I’ve certainly read ones which were effective, engagingly setting up something for later in the narrative, and followed by “hooky” chapter ones.
Joe’s list was hilarious. God, I miss him. Thanks for pulling these, Dale! I clicked all three to the original post and all three are worth printing out and keeping by your computer.
You’re very welcome, Patricia. I was very happy to have once more struck gold in the TKZ archives.
I have two unbreakable rules. (And I know when I’ve failed if they don’t hold true for the piece I’m working on)
1. Have something worth saying and say it as subtext,
2. Be interesting.
Both are good rules, Brian. “Be interesting” will keep the reader going and “have something worth saying” is a terrific payoff.
Ooh! Yes, subtext is powerful.
I like prologues, but not every book needs one. They can:
(1) be events outside the timeline or the story setting. (E.g., a murder in Egypt 20 years earlier than the time frame of the story;
(2) introduce a character we don’t see again until much later (e.g., a narrator); (3) set the overall tone or mood of the book;
(4) foreshadow events;
(5) introduce theme or motif;
(6) establish the greater setting (e.g., WWII);
(7) provide absolutely necessary backstory that doesn’t fit anywhere else;
(8) flash forward to action.
(9) Prologues are best kept to 1/2 page or a page at most. Epilogues can be a bit longer and, with the prologue, can “bookend” the novel.