(According to John Dufresne, whose book I am still reading, slowly, slowly.)
- Sit your ass in the chair.
- Thou shalt not bore the reader.
- Remember to keep holy your writing time.
- Honor the lives of your characters.
- Thou shalt not be obscure.
- Thou shalt show and not tell.
- Thou shalt steal.
- Thou shalt rewrite and rewrite again. And again.
- Thou shalt confront the human condition.
- Be sure that every death in a story means something.
Forgive me, John, for I have sinned. Where to begin?
- I often have to trick myself into staying in the chair. I’ll promise myself I only have to write for fifteen minutes, or one paragraph, or until it’s time to pick the kids up from school. I really struggle to fight off distractions, or that nagging feeling that there’s something else I ought to be doing, like unclogging drains.
- I try not to bore myself, at least. I have a dread of melodrama so in order to put some interest in my stories I think of unusual or slightly bizarre characters and situations, or I focus on a detail that strikes me as unique. But I think in my fear of being melodramatic I go too far the other way and underplay emotion and action.
- Speaking of drama, “writing time” is an ongoing personal drama. Should I get up two hours early and write when the house is quiet (and cold, and there’s no coffee, and my bed is so cozy)? Should I lock the office door directly after supper and work for an hour? Right now I’m preferring the mid-afternoon hours. It’s quiet in the house, and I’ve had the morning to goof off and/or get chores done.
- I think I honor the lives of my characters. I’m very interested in them and sympathetic toward them. I want things to turn out all right for them even if they make some dumb mistakes.
- Not being obscure is the part of writing I like. I get a kick out of finding the right word or phrase to express exactly what I mean.
- I probably go overboard on showing sometimes. It’s hard for me to know what scenes or dialogues can be elided or referred to, and which need to be played out.
- Me, steal? Only from life. Or books I’ve read. Or other people’s anecdotes. Or movies.
- Rewriting doesn’t bother me too much. I like seeing the story get better.
- The human condition is what I’m all about!
- I agree, and I have a story in which this commandment is the central theme.
i suggfest you tell john to stick his commandments up his ass… like, who the hell is he? and why does he think someone should pay money… should waste a minute of their life… to listen to what he has to say about anything, seeing as it has been said by a hundred other someone elses… which is the ultimnate and the only sin in writing… do the same old crap all over again… to think what you could be reading… pick up a good book if you want tolearn about writing and throw john’s book into the bin
It is the same thing over and over again, isn’t it? And yet I’m such a big sucker for books like this. It’s like being a self-help junkie. Ah well, it’s a harmless vice.
Seeing as I own a copy of this book, I’m going to say, “Do whatever you think helps.” I’ve read my fair share of these types of books, and as they go this one is a cut above. Plus it’s a lot better than the first creative writing class I ever took which turned out to be a workshop class, which at a time when I was simply trying to learn the basics wasn’t at all what I needed.
Steal, steal, steal, I love to steal. I pull shiny bright bits from everywhere and add them to my fiction. My only fear is that I’m subconsciously stealing great big chunks from all my reading.
Do what works for you. If you don’t know, keep trying different stuff till you figure it out. If reading a book of writing advice works for you, do it. If doesn’t, read something else. There’s nothing new under the sun. Still I never tire of daylight.