10 rules of writing meme, take 2
Oct. 24th, 2011 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanate(take one, pass it on!)
1) A writer is one who writes. (not who wants to write, or who talks about writing, or who flosses cats instead...I suspect this is the eternal #1)
2) Write *your* stories; don't try to write someone else's. I had one of those dreaded conversations with a lady in my pottery class just before leaving for VP, where I had admitted to writing fantasy & she was trying to think of something that was fantasy or science fiction, and came up with Game of Thrones (the title of which she couldn't remember) and then went on to, "Oh, Harry Potter, that's fantasy, right? I'll bet you wish you'd thought of that." To which I had an instinctive reaction of, "Oh God, no!" First off, I couldn't have written those books if I'd wanted to, and secondly, I wouldn't want to be the person who could have; it would come at the expense of too much being me.
3) A bored author makes a for a bored reader. If you don't want to write that scene, see if there's something cooler you could do instead. Or kill somebody off. Or skip it and mention in passing what you needed to convey later on.
4) Know your voice, your narrator's voice, and your characters' voices. These may all be different, and they are almost certainly all different from either what you've just been reading on facebook or that cool novel you're in the middle of, both of which are probably now trying to creep into your backbrain.
5) Pay attention. Pay attention to how people act, how they interact, and the weird little details that different people notice. Also, the more weird little details you notice, the more different sets of them you can recombine to create different character perspectives.
6) Know yourself and your process. Just because someone else swears by a technique doesn't mean it'll work for you. But don't hesitate to try something you've never tried before and see if that works, too.
7) Write what you love. My mother recommends this for picking out a story to tell (off-book performance storytelling, rather than the typing into a computer sort.) On the whole, I think this goes for writing, too. Unless you're writing flash, the amount of time you spend on writing and revising and all that has the potential to sour you completely on something you just kind of thought was a neat idea.
8) You can only control what you put on the page, not what other people get off of it. This is part of the natural life cycle of story, and nothing to get upset about. If other people are getting something you're really upset about out of your story, roll that into what you've got in your head for the next story-- but don't let it take over, either.
9) Write the best thing you can write. Then write something better next time. It's all a learning process, but I'd say that about life, too.
10) Your rules will be different from mine. They'll also change. This is perfectly normal.
Ok, actually I think I might prefer the one I did last time. But anyway, there's a little new stuff here.
What's *your* latest set? Anybody?
Xposty from dreamwidth, but yes, I'm still here.
1) A writer is one who writes. (not who wants to write, or who talks about writing, or who flosses cats instead...I suspect this is the eternal #1)
2) Write *your* stories; don't try to write someone else's. I had one of those dreaded conversations with a lady in my pottery class just before leaving for VP, where I had admitted to writing fantasy & she was trying to think of something that was fantasy or science fiction, and came up with Game of Thrones (the title of which she couldn't remember) and then went on to, "Oh, Harry Potter, that's fantasy, right? I'll bet you wish you'd thought of that." To which I had an instinctive reaction of, "Oh God, no!" First off, I couldn't have written those books if I'd wanted to, and secondly, I wouldn't want to be the person who could have; it would come at the expense of too much being me.
3) A bored author makes a for a bored reader. If you don't want to write that scene, see if there's something cooler you could do instead. Or kill somebody off. Or skip it and mention in passing what you needed to convey later on.
4) Know your voice, your narrator's voice, and your characters' voices. These may all be different, and they are almost certainly all different from either what you've just been reading on facebook or that cool novel you're in the middle of, both of which are probably now trying to creep into your backbrain.
5) Pay attention. Pay attention to how people act, how they interact, and the weird little details that different people notice. Also, the more weird little details you notice, the more different sets of them you can recombine to create different character perspectives.
6) Know yourself and your process. Just because someone else swears by a technique doesn't mean it'll work for you. But don't hesitate to try something you've never tried before and see if that works, too.
7) Write what you love. My mother recommends this for picking out a story to tell (off-book performance storytelling, rather than the typing into a computer sort.) On the whole, I think this goes for writing, too. Unless you're writing flash, the amount of time you spend on writing and revising and all that has the potential to sour you completely on something you just kind of thought was a neat idea.
8) You can only control what you put on the page, not what other people get off of it. This is part of the natural life cycle of story, and nothing to get upset about. If other people are getting something you're really upset about out of your story, roll that into what you've got in your head for the next story-- but don't let it take over, either.
9) Write the best thing you can write. Then write something better next time. It's all a learning process, but I'd say that about life, too.
10) Your rules will be different from mine. They'll also change. This is perfectly normal.
Ok, actually I think I might prefer the one I did last time. But anyway, there's a little new stuff here.
What's *your* latest set? Anybody?
Xposty from dreamwidth, but yes, I'm still here.