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Now lend me your ears. Here is Creative Writing 101:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things--reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them--in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that.
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It's my guess that rules for writing are somewhat like rules for grammar. Once you know the rules, you can break them. Margaret Atwood is famous for independent clause after independent clause after independent clause, all joined by commas. I know some of you are asking, "Yeah, and so what's wrong with that?" Well, nothing--if you're Margaret Atwood. My point? If you break the rules, you probably should have a good reason for doing so, or at least know that you're breaking them!
I think I'll go review and revise my story.
Thanks for sharing the rules. Very interesting tidbits. I like them.
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