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Old 11-20-2013, 07:52 AM   #4
gmw
cacoethes scribendi
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I started writing without looking for advice. But when I did start looking around, what I found early on was a collection of "10 most important rules" (or something equivalent) from a dozen or more writers. I found them educational as a collection. It confirmed that every writer is different, and there is perhaps only one absolute rule: write.

It was Neil Gaiman's phrasing that hit home best with me - they're all over the place now, you can find them via Google as his "8 rules" (I remember he didn't complete the request for 10 in the original articles I read). His first rule is simple: Write. His second reiterates that in longer form. This third agrees with Heinlein's second (finish it), but I'll have more to say on this in a moment. It's his fifth which I found most interesting, and seems to bear out as true more often that otherwise:
Quote:
Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
I don't agree that "Refrain from rewriting" should be stated so boldly. It also overlaps with the "finish it" rule, for example, Neil Gaiman's rule six is:
Quote:
Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
This is not a contradiction to the "finish it" and "refrain from rewriting" rules, but it is a clarification/elaboration. You need to be careful of overworking things - or you lose the feeling of life in the story - but sometimes you have the right idea executed badly. Sometimes rewriting is exactly what something needs. There may be people that get it right first time every time, I don't believe they are in the majority.

On the "finish it" rule I have further reservations. At the very least the "finish" definition needs to include "I'm finished with it" - as opposed to the story is finished. If you can see the thing is going nowhere, and you can't find another direction to take it, and you have other things you could be working on, then cut your losses and consider yourself finished with it - at least, that's my take on it. I think the "finish it" recommendation is important to the extent that there are things you learn by finishing something that you would miss if you keep giving up. So, like most of the "rules" about writing, it's not a hard and fast thing. You mustn't let yourself get sidetracked by every new shiny idea that drifts into your head and so never get anything finished, but nor should you waste months on something that is offering nothing in return.

So I guess the best writing advice I've read is that one rule they all have in common: write. The rule is profound in ways you will not understand until you actually do it.

Defining writers I might leave for another post, and maybe another night. refrain from rewriting
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