The Ten Commanments of Fiction Writing, Part Ten

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Ten: Thou shalt write what thou knowest, and know all thou mayest.

I think I might have gotten the "Olde English" wrong in the title. Wanna fight about it?

ANYWAY...

This last commandment is one you're sick of hearing: write what you know. It means you should share your experiences in your stories. It means you should create characters you understand. It also means that if you're a middle-class white guy like me, you don't try to write from the point of view of a poor black single mother during the civil rights movement. Wittgenstein put it best; "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."

But there's another side to this old adage, and it's this: as a writer, it is your business to learn and experience everything you possibly can.

Direct experience is best. Every experience available to the human mind has its own secrets. People don't always talk about all the emotional subtleties, and as a writer you can make the experience more real for your readers by exposing them. But sometimes direct experience isn't a wise option. You shouldn't try heroin so you can write about being a junkie. You shouldn't murder someone so you can capture the mind of a killer more accurately.

In those cases, the best resource we have is other stories. Books, movies, and quality TV shows have a lot to share, and they have one additional advantage that direct experience doesn't: they're already structured into stories. Art imitates life, but it is not equal to life. Life is messy. Stories, in order to be comprehensible, should be much more orderly. So it behooves the writer to experience as many stories as he or she can.

But as long as you're living, you might as well try to have some life experiences too. They don't necessarily have to be the big, earth-shaking ones. Every day doesn't need to be a passion play. But the world is subtle and complex, despite its humdrum appearance. There is poetry all around you; from regional dialects, to the unique flavor of a particular coffee, to the unexpected struggles of your fellow humans.

If you've taken my advice about taking notes, you know what I'm talking about. Writers should be keen observers of everything around them, particularly human nature. Watch the people who come through your life. Listen to the way they talk. Study their body language. See the face they present to the world, and try to guess what's behind it.

Never turn down an opportunity to learn about something. Be curious about the things you don't see in your everyday life; from the secret pain of a depressed person, to the daily routine of your local garbage man.

Even the most menial things like the floors you walk on contain hundreds of things you never think about. You never know what might spark an idea. Open yourself to the physical world around you. Pay close attention to all five of your senses, and always be on the lookout for details that aren't obvious. 

I remember the exact moment I started doing this myself. I was in a subway station in LA. Other than the years I spent there, I've never lived anywhere with a subway system. I had been on the NY subway when I was younger, but my senses weren't as keen then. This particular day in LA, I happened to notice the rush of air that proceeds the arrival of a train. You can feel it even before you hear the squeal of the train's brakes. This detail isn't particularly life-changing, but it gave me pause. It makes perfect sense why it happens; the air is being displaced by the train just as water is displaced when you slip into the bathtub. But I had never heard anyone mention it before. And its exactly those kind of details that make a setting real.

Details like that exist for all the five senses, and they cover the entire spectrum of human interaction. If you tune in to them, they will begin to populate your writing even without deliberate effort. The mere act of observing them plants them in your subconscious, and they begin to naturally emerge in your work.

Being open to the world around you is one of the most important habits a writer can develop. If we're to write what we know without writing exclusively about ourselves, we'd better know everything we can. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Nine

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Nine: Thou shalt edit thyself, and allow thyself to be edited

This one shouldn't come as a surprise coming from me. But I firmly believe that all writing deserves to be subjected to brutal, merciless editing.

And not just polishing as you re-read. No. I mean tough editing from someone who knows grammar, punctuation, and the principles of fiction. Someone who won't pull any punches. Someone who will tell you flat out that your story sucks, if that is, in fact, the case.

I've met writers and editors that believe that editing should be done with a light touch, in order to preserve the writer's voice. But I don't agree.

For one thing, if a writer's voice is so fragile that it can be undone by suggesting some more sentence variety, or asking them to avoid over-abundant alliteration, then that writer needs to accept that their voice may not be fully developed yet. If you're afraid an editor will strip your voice out of your work, you must not trust your voice. If it's there at all, it will survive even the harshest edits.

The deeper issue is that too often (arguably most of the time) authors use this amorphous, ineffable thing we call "Voice" as an excuse to avoid editing. Once you invoke the divine mystery of Voice, all meaningful analysis comes to a screeching halt. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!) After all, Voice is nearly synonymous with a writer's taste in words, and as the old maxim says, "in matters of taste, there can be no disputes." (If I encounter this argument an editor, it usually signifies to me that the writer is in the First Stage of competence, and will not benefit from my participation)

Appealing to voice is the same logical fallacy that occurs when someone invokes the divine to avoid being proven wrong. It's a cop-out. I'm a believer myself, but if you ever catch me saying "because God says so" when you're critiquing my opinions, you have my permission to slap me. Gimme a good rap on the beak, set me straight.

When a good editor critiques a piece of writing, they should be prepared to defend each note with logic (I'd say the same for any time anyone tells another person to change in any way). Every change the editor suggests requires a reason, and I will be the first to admit that if their only reasoning is personal preference, you should feel free to disregard that particular note. That's not to say you should dismiss it out of hand, though. If you respect the editor at all, you should at least consider their opinion, because it's likely based on experience. And if you still disagree, no good editor will insist you take their suggestion anyway.

The thing to remember is that editing is a mostly thankless job. Editors don't get royalties. You don't see famous editors walking red carpets. Nobody gets rich editing books. In the majority of situations, editors don't even get credit. Pick a novel off your bookshelf, and scan the front matter for the editor's name. Unless the author thanks them in a dedication, I'm betting it's not there.

Editors exist to serve writers. Unless the editor is an idiot, every decision they make has the same goal: to make the book easier to read. Any editor who tries to take over another person's story is an idiot, because they're not going to get credit for it. And remember what I say about the path of least resistance. Readers, by and large, only read books that are easy to read.

One final point: writers must learn to self-edit, at least to some extent. You can't just vomit all over your computer screen and expect some superhero to swoop in and make it a bestseller. If you put that much of the burden on your editor, you don't really deserve the credit, do you?

Expecting your editor to just fix everything is the same as a musician who can't sing expecting the recording engineer to just autotune all the wrong notes. The end result feels fake. Cognitive dissonance is built into the final product, and the audience can sense that something is off, even if they can't quite say what. Some of them won't care, but do you really want to bank your whole career and reputation on people not caring that your work is shoddy?

Writing is a creative endeavor, to be sure, but the writers who attain sales and recognition do so by working hard. You can't expect to dance around like a woodland nymph, surviving on inspirational Pinterest quotes, and then suddenly have Peter Pan the literary agent sweep you off your feet and carry you to the land of success.

You better work, bitch.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Eight

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Eight: Thou shalt not meddle with point of view

I've talked a lot about point of view. I've talked about how to edit for point of view. It's pretty obvious that I'm opinionated on the subject, and I've taken the time to express those opinions. So this is going to be a short post.

I've also talked a lot about the fictive dream. The fictive dream is the joy of reading fiction, and anything that meddles with it threatens that joy. And POV is the portal through which we enter the fictive dream (like this quote? Click here to tweet it!).

POV is a delicate thing. In the hands of a master, it can produce startling effects. In the hands of a careless amateur, it can make a story totally opaque.

When you supply too much information, you clog the portal with facts, and the fictive dream disappears. When you shift unexpectedly from one POV to another, you close one portal, and force the reader to search for the new one. When you use a first person narrator to tell a story whose scope goes beyond that character's experiences, you build the portal too narrow. When you use an omniscient narrator to show and tell everything, you build the portal too wide, and the reader is unable to focus.

If you have doubts about your ability to wield POV, err on the side of caution. Don't try to pull any tricks just for the sake of being tricky (as I've said before in this series).

And most importantly, think about what you can and cannot know, given a certain point of view. If your detective story is written in first person, your detective can't know what the murderer is doing while he's walking the beat. If you're writing in an intimate third person, you can't see what's going on behind walls or across vast distances. If your narrator is retelling stories from her past, remember that she is going to have a different perspective on those events than she did at the time.

In short, don't fiddle. POV is a tool, not a toy. Pick the right tool for the job, and don't mess around with it, or you'll hurt yourself.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Seven

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Seven: Thou shalt know thy characters and settings as thyself

We've all been told to write what we know (and if you keep reading this series, you'll be told again), but that axiom works in reverse too: know what you write.

Part of my problem with pantsing is that when you begin with a blank page, you begin with flat, undeveloped characters (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). You might put them into a dramatic situation, but you don't really know how they'll act, and without some kind of plan for character development, you're bound to miss a few opportunities. They might surprise you, which is good, but chances are they won't start surprising you right off the bat.

Characters are the core of your story, and they are the part that readers are most likely to remember. When I read Foxfire as a lonely teenage boy, I fell in love with Maddy and Legs. I missed them when the book ended. I missed them so badly that I actually wasted the time to see the god-awful 1996 adaptation. I don't know if Joyce Carol Oates is a plotter or a pantser, but she damn sure spent some time on the characters in Foxfire. They felt more alive and real than a lot of actual people I've met.

The issue is the same for settings. If you create a setting on the fly, chances are it's going to be pretty drab on the first pass. If you describe anything, it'll probably be the most obvious stuff, and that isn't what brings settings to life. Readers are savvy enough to fill in the obvious details on their own. The key is to provide the details that aren't obvious, and just enough of them to get the reader's imagination going. To do that, you have to get your imagination going.

Settings aren't always the most important element of a story, but they can be powerful if you develop them well. Anyone who's read Lord of the Rings probably wanted to live in Middle Earth, orcs and all. I remember reading those books and vividly imagining all the food, drink, and pipe-weed the characters consumed--heck, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't part of the reason I'm a pipe smoker to this day. Little details like that made the world so real that a part of me never left. Tolkien definitely overdid it when it came to exposition, there's no question, but his setting became part of his reader's lives forever.

While I strongly advise restraint when it comes to including details about characters and settings, it never hurts to generate those details. The only way you can know too much about your characters and setting is if taking notes becomes an addiction, and keeps you from actually writing. And as a borderline OCD case, I can see where that would happen. But when you're plotting, it's worthwhile to research or create as much detail as you can. You never know when you'll see an opportunity for intrigue. It's the Pantry Method again; gather all the information you can, and only show readers the really interesting bits. The rest will be there if you need it, and if you don't so what?

For me, a well-defined task is essential. That's why I took the time to build templates to help me in this process. I've tried to ask myself every possible question, and when I'm plotting a story, I answer as many as I can. If that sounds helpful to you, Check out my Plotting Resources page, where you can download all of my plotting templates.

Even if you're not a plotter, you need to find a way to get into your characters and explore your settings. Without them, your book is a synopsis at best.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Six

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Six: Words are sacred, thou shalt not abuse them

We've already touched on this, but it's one of the most important things to realize when you become a writer: Words are powerful. Like anything powerful, they must be wielded responsibly.

Take a moment and try to imagine the world before written language. Try to imagine how much harder everything would be. These days, our thoughts exist almost exclusively in written language, much to the chagrin of previous generations. We text and email more than we talk. We post on Facebook instead of calling to catch up with friends. (Some people bemoan this state of affairs. I, on the other hand, am a huge fan of it, for reasons I won't go into now)

Try to imagine your typical day without writing. I'll give you a hint: it's impossible. You can't even wake up on time, because there's no such thing as numerals to put on a clock. You can't order breakfast off a drive-through menu. You can't do any work, because there are no computers, and no books from which to learn skills.

Writing is the foundation of all knowledge. It is the beginning of progress. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!) Speech predates writing, possibly by millennia, but without the ability to transmit ideas beyond one's immediate space and time, progress was effectively nonexistent. The ability to cast ideas in a lasting medium makes the transmission and growth of knowledge possible.

Even when we write to entertain, we wield this awesome power. Anything that blasphemes against or abuses the power of words is at odds with the choice to write. If you deny the power of written words, why on Earth would you want to be a writer?

So what does this mean in practical terms? On the most basic level, it means you owe it to yourself and your potential readers to learn everything you can about words. Learn your parts of speech. Learn grammar. Learn linguistics, if you can. LEARN. Don't assume that just because you write a mean memo, or occasionally say something eloquent over cocktails, you know everything you need to know about words. You can never know too much.

One of the most overlooked crimes against words is the careless use of punctuation. Don't get me wrong, nobody is perfect, least of all myself. But readers can tell the difference between a small misstep like an unnecessary comma and a writer who just doesn't care. Punctuation marks are the accessories that ornament your words. They are the boundaries that divide them. Their use or misuse supplies meaning and subtlety. At least try to use them right.

Part of the reason I feel entitled to speak as forcefully as I do is because I'm guilty of every crime I condemn. When I started out as a writer, I couldn't tell you the difference between a preposition and a pronoun. I didn't know what a parallelism was. Worst of all, I didn't think I needed to learn these things; I thought I could get by on my innate facilities.

I still have plenty to learn. I'm still a little shaky on semicolons; I tend to use them when I probably shouldn't. But learning is a part of my regular routine now, and my knowledge base is always expanding.

Another part of revering words is not using them cavalierly. Purple prose is among the worst crimes an author can commit, because it saps words of their power.

If you are alive in the twenty-first century, you probably come across words that have lost their meaning every day. "Free" doesn't mean what it used to. Neither do words like "vintage", "sale", or "literally".

How about profanity? When you were little, the word "fuck" probably seemed like the gravest transgression you could ever commit. Unless you're a sheltered little lamb who doesn't use the internet, you probably don't even bat an eye at the word "fuck" anymore. I sure as shit don't. I fucking use it all day long.

Or how about exaggeration? Was that really the best hamburger you've ever eaten? Did that slice of cheesecake really change your life? Of course not. In speech, these kind of exaggerations are acceptable, because they disappear the moment they're spoken, or at least the moment they're forgotten by whoever hears them. And if they're being used for comic effect, exaggerations are fine in speech or writing. Megadeth's new album didn't literally shred my face off, but it's amusing to talk that way about heavy metal.

Purple prose is what happens when writers strain for effect. It's what happens when writers become too self-assured, too impressed with their ability to wield complex words. Words may not cost you anything to use, but when you write overwrought, flowery sentences like "The sun hid behind ivory clouds that gave its light the texture of a rippled curtain draped over the infinite window of the sky" when you could have said "It was cloudy", you harm those words. Every unnecessary over-extension is another step in a word's gradual descent into meaninglessness.

You might get away with disrespecting words. People do. But you can't expect to. And even though you can, that doesn't mean you should.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Five

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Five: Thou shalt not bear false witness unto the reader

This one is bound to stir up some controversy, but I'm pretty convinced of this rule. In short, you should never mislead the reader.

The operative word there is "you". You, the author, have a responsibility to the reader. Whether you want them to or not, they assume whatever you say is true, within the context of the story. Assuming you've written it clearly, they imagine things just the way you say them. If you then pull a switch on them, you break that trust. For the remainder of your story (and possibly your career) readers will be eyeing every word with suspicion, and that knocks them out of the story. Instead of focusing on your plot and characters, they're focused on figuring out what sort of tricks you're playing.

One of the most cited examples of this mistake is the technique of beginning with a false awakening. On one hand, false awakenings are a real part of human experience, so writing about them is justified in that sense. But on the other hand, they break a story's momentum right at the beginning. It's not fair to open on a dramatic situation, get readers into it, and suddenly tell them it's not real. (That said, I have been guilty of the false awakening beginning. But I had a reason: my story centered on a character who suffered from nightmares, which in turn fueled his chronic hypnophobia. Without a glimpse of his nightmares, I felt the hypnophobia would have been less believable.)

Similarly, the "twist-for-twist's-sake" ending (employed most famously in the works of M. Night Shyamalan) is almost always a poor choice. In most situations, a gigantic twist at the end of a story simply negates everything that came before it. It signifies that everything we've just read or watched didn't really matter. Who wouldn't feel betrayed by that?

If you're writing a mystery, misdirection can be good. In fact, some degree of it is expected. Mystery as a genre challenges the reader to figure out the truth before the protagonist does. But really, that's not the type of misleading I'm talking about here. In a mystery, a clue is presented as possibly true. The detective eyes every piece of information with suspicion, and so does the reader. And more importantly, the detective and the reader are aware of the same things. The detective does not hide anything from the reader.

What I'm against is unreliable narrators--unless they are a character in their own right. Let me explain. (If you've read my articles about Narrative Mood and Point of View, you might be able to guess where I'm going with this.)

If your narrator is going to lie to the reader, they have to have a motive. If the narrator is simply you, the author, then your only possible motive is to seem clever to the reader. True, readers do like surprises, but not when they arise out of an effort to be cute. It's the literary equivalent of a pun. Readers get it, but it makes them groan internally.

Readers expect a disembodied, non-character narrator to be impartial. Whether that narrator is omniscient or not, they exist merely to recount events as they happen. When they disregard that task, their reason for existing is called into question, and the fourth wall breaks down.

However, if your narrator is a character in their own right, they might have any number of motives to lie. As a character--even if they're not directly involved in the story--they are behind the fourth wall, and thus their disingenuous narration does not break the fictive dream.

As with so many of these commandments, this boils down to avoiding any practice which makes the reader aware of you instead of the story. The joy of reading fiction is that you become immersed in another world, and anything that threatens that threatens the joy of reading.

So don't lie to your readers. By all means, have your characters lie to them, but don't do it yourself. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Four

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Four: Thou shalt honor the reader as thyself

We've already touched on this issue in Commandments One and Three, but in case it's not obvious, all these commandments are connected. In fact, I could probably have boiled them down to fewer than ten, but then I wouldn't be able to use all these dank Ten Commandments memes I made.

In any case, there's still plenty to say about respecting the reader. It's essential to be the path of least resistance and give your readers what they want--a story. And it's important to assume the reader is intelligent, and able to pick up nuances on their own. But that's not all there is to it.

Whether to write for one's self or for potential readers is a question many authors ask themselves. And unfortunately, the debate usually takes the shape of artistic integrity (writing to please yourself), versus commercialism (writing to please audiences). Of course, it isn't that simple, and like many things, you can and must have it both ways.

Yes, write for yourself. Write what you know, and what you like. Write something you would like to read. If you don't like what you're writing, it's going to turn out bad, period. Readers sense disdain for the material, even if they can't put their finger on it.

But you can't just write for yourself, at least not if you're trying to make a living off your art. Heck, even if writing is something you do in your spare time, you surely do it because you aspire to have your work read by someone who other than yourself. If you write for yourself only, chances are you don't spend much time on writing advice websites like this one.

If you want the attention of readers, you have to create something worth paying attention to, and you have to make it easy to pay attention to, or nobody will. That means writing simply and clearly. That means being as original as you can. That means not intruding on your story, or doing any of a dozen other things that drive readers away. Remember, people are looking for reasons to put your book down. Don't give them any (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

Writing for the reader does not mean pandering to trends. It does not mean aping whatever is on the best-sellers list that week. It does not mean trying to copy the style of an already successful author. These things might get you a few sales from readers who are so addicted to a particular genre, style, or author that they'll buy anything that fits the mold. But they won't get you the recognition you're really after. And they'll brand you for life as a copycat. Even if you go on to create something startling and worthy, people's low expectations of you will be a big hurdle to get over.

So when I say "honor the reader", I don't just mean you should write clearly and avoid intrusions. I mean you should remember what you're doing when you write a story. You're creating something that has the power to induce lifelike experiences in others. Make sure you're giving them an experience worth having. And remember that writing lasts more or less forever. That's the sacred power of the written word. A thing said is gone the minute it escapes your lips. A thing written can withstand the test of time. Make sure you want it to.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Three

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Three: Thou shalt not intrude upon the story

Author intrusion is one of the most common and irritating mistakes made by writers. And it's not limited to amateurs, or even to writing; if you've ever watched a movie and been annoyed by an incessant voice over explaining every little nuance of what's going on, you've been a victim of author (filmmaker?) intrusion.

Dave King and Renni Browne deal with this issue in Self-Editing, when they give the editor's maxim R.U.E - "Resist the Urge to Explain!" When an author intrudes on her story to explain something, she commits three crimes: a) she underestimates her own ability to show what's going on, b) she assumes her readers aren't attentive or intelligent enough to get what's going, and c) she assumes that the readers need or want to know every little nuance of what's going on. Let's look at each crime in turn.

First, if you're over-explaining because you lack confidence, either you aren't a very good writer, and you should take some time to hone your craft, or what you're writing is too complex. If you're falling all over yourself trying to explain it, maybe you should pull back and look at what that event's job is in your story. Can that job be done by a simpler event? If several things are happening at once, can you find a way to spread them out so you can write them more simply? Don't go beyond what's absolutely necessary unless you have a very good reason. And if you must, it's worth taking the time to break scenes down into their essential parts, and figure out the most direct way of putting them across.

If you're over-explaining because you're afraid readers can't figure it out on their own, complexity may still be an issue. But it might just be that you're not giving the average reader enough credit. Remember, readers are smart. Reading makes you smart. Writing down to your audience is a sure way to alienate them. To paraphrase Browne and King, resisting the urge to explain pays readers the compliment of assuming they're intelligent.

If you're over-explaining because you assume the reader wants all this information, I've got some news for you: they don't. By and large, readers (and movie audiences) prefer to have just what they need to understand what's going on. Deeper understanding usually comes only with repeated readings, which is a sign of commitment to a particular story. You can't expect everyone who picks up your book to commit to it in this way. Not everyone is going to turn into a fanboy of your work. By force-feeding the reader more detail than they want or need, you force them to become a fanboy just to understand the basics. It's like asking someone to marry you on a first date. (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!)

Over-explanation is just one form that author intrusion takes. Purple prose, tangential narrative, excessive description, and ham-handed characterization and exposition can all be forms of author intrusion. In fact, anything that distracts from the story in order to serve the author's whims is intrusion. Any time you get in the way of your story, you are unwelcome.

So don't write fancier than you have to, just write clearly. Don't take detours just to show us some neat idea you cooked up; make the idea matter, or don't include it. When describing things, provide just enough detail to get the reader's imagination going, then get out of the way (my Inverse Coco Chanel Principle will help you achieve this). Don't dump mounds of backstory on your readers, let them get to know your characters and settings gradually, they way they do with real people and places. It isn't just easier to read, it makes your world seem more realistic. And for God's sake, don't base a character on yourself and then expend huge amounts of time on that character, it makes you look desperate.

That's what it all comes down to: author intrusion makes you look desperate. Which is understandable, to some degree. We write because we want to be known. If we didn't want attention, we wouldn't write. But overdoing it will drive readers away just like overdoing it in social situations drives potential friends away. Remember that you are part of everything in your story, and everything in your story is part of you (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). There's no need to put on a silly costume and dance for your readers. If they are reading your book, they are reading you.

Let them!

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part Two

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment Two: Thou shalt show, not tell

You've heard it before. If you've read my article on Scenes and Narration, you know what it means. Stated as succinctly as possible, showing is like watching a movie, and telling is like reading the Wikipedia synopsis.

You know showing is important, but are you willing to commit to it?

One thing I never read in articles about writing is how hard it can be to force yourself to show, when telling is so easy. It can be tempting to just brush through a series of events with narrative summary. But if you truly believe that story is the highest goal, you put your own concerns behind those of the story, and soldier on.

Showing means more time at the keyboard. And that should be good, right? I mean, we're writers. We like writing, don't we?

The truth is, not all of us love writing every day. Sometimes it can be hard work. Sometimes the muse won't show up. Sometimes our attention is elsewhere. These are moments when the temptation to tell is greatest.

When you're on fire, it's easy to write scene after scene, Hell, it's harder to stop than it is to keep going. When you're having a good day, scenes, images, and actions seem to flow through you. They may even feel like they're not coming from you at all. During these times, showing is easy.

"Show, don't tell" is more than a technique, it's a lifestyle (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). It's about finding the right combination of elements that keep you in that productive mindset. And when it's not working, shake things up a bit. A change of location can work wonders; even if its from one side of the couch to the other. Breaks are important too; you want the Archimedes effect working for you when you're not actually at the keys.

It's hard sometimes, but it's worth it. The fictive dream is a powerful, magical thing, and you can't get a reader into it by telling. You put a lot of information across when you tell, and readers will know the story. But if you want them to experience it, you have to show them.

The Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing, Part One

As a student of the art of fiction, there are several axioms and pieces of advice that I come across again and again; "show, don't tell", "write what you know", "don't trick the reader", etc. These aren't items from a single book, they're everywhere. Some of them surely originate with specific authors, but as ideas they've taken on a life of their own, becoming more than something one person said.

In this series, I will try to gather all those admonitions, encouragements, and adages into a single, definitive list; the Ten Commandments of Fiction Writing. Hopefully this will be as fun and educational for you as it is for me.

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Commandment One: The Story is thy highest goal, thou shalt not have any goals before it

When I first decided to pursue writing seriously, I had a lot of reasons and goals motivating me, but honestly it boiled down to one of each: 

• Reason: I thought I was pretty good at writing. 
• Goal: To achieve some level of recognition beyond my friends and family.

Both of those are still true (otherwise what the hell would I be doing this for?), but as I've studied my craft, a more important goal became my driving force, and that was simply to tell stories. 

When it comes down to it, the desire to tell a story is the only pure motivation to set yourself to the task of writing. It's the only pure goal you can strive for. Any other driving force inevitably clouds the story, and the story is what the readers come for. 

It's important to be humble, and not let your ego cloud your judgement. Ego is the driving force behind purple prose, confusing narrative, condescending tone, and a whole host of other problems that drive people away from books. It's important to remember why people read. 

People read books because they like stories. 

Sure, there are a host of subtler reasons augmenting that, but at the heart, that's all people want. If a story makes them think, or takes them on flights of poetic fancy, that's just a bonus. They come for the story, they stay for the rest.

So in writing, you have to put the story first. Every decision should be made by asking "Does it make the story easier or harder to experience?" (it's the Path of Least Resistance again). Anything that creates more work between the reader and the story leads them to put the book down. Even dedicated bookworms are subconsciously looking for reasons to put a book down. 

You can't expect readers to make excuses for you (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). You can't expect readers to assume that slogging through your overwrought, byzantine prose will somehow prove worthwhile. You can't expect readers to follow a haphazard, confusing narrative because it means something to you. Of course it means something to you. But have you ever read a book because the author deserved it? I sure haven't. I only read books because I want to. 

There are exceptions, sure. After all, people read David Foster Wallace, and he's the most arrogant, condescending writer to ever walk the Earth. But don't be so naive as to think that a book must be challenging in order to make people think, or garner critical praise. It's just not true. If you're involved with the reading community, you'll find that popular fiction has provoked more thoughts in more people than any piece of literary fiction ever has. Sure, they're not teaching The Hunger Games in college literature classes (not yet, anyway), and Suzanne Collins may not be James Joyce, but when you measure the effect on the world, it's hard to argue that The Hunger Games didn't matter, or didn't affect the way people feel and think. 

Let me illustrate this with an analogy. People don't listen to music to be impressed. People listen to music because they like they way it makes them feel. If the artist is technically accomplished, that's great. If not, it doesn't really matter, so long as the music makes people feel the way they want to feel. If music listeners were driven primarily by technical ability, artists like Yngwie Malmsteen would be the best-selling and most critically praised in the world: 

Did any of you watch that video past the one minute mark? I'm betting you didn't. You heard him start wailing, and you were like "okay, I get it", and then you hit pause. Or you let it play, but resumed reading this article. Doesn't that prove my point?

Luckily, it's possible to be technically accomplished and keep the focus on the story. In fact, if you want to be widely read and highly regarded, you've got to have it both ways. You have to find a way to craft a story that people don't have to fight their way into, and you have to let the story do the teaching, not you. 

Don't stand in the way of your story by stopping it in its tracks to deliver a lecture about how 19th-century English society is organized. Don't lecture to readers about the genealogy of every character's horses. Don't indulge your poetic side describing a sunset while we're waiting to see what someone will do. Because in the end, readers don't remember that stuff. Readers remember characters doing things.

Don't write a book just to make some political or philosophical argument. While its true that narrative is an excellent way to put ideas across (because it shows those ideas in action, rather than just telling them), if your whole story is just an excuse to get on the soap box, readers are going to feel lied to. Readers open a book because they think you want to tell them a story. But if all you really want to do is influence their thoughts, they'll know it. Stories can change the way people think, but you have to let the story do the teaching, not you.

And this last bit should go without saying, but don't write a book to get rich and famous. Don't write a book out of some vain hope that it will get made into a movie. That's working backwards from an imaginary future. Sound like a healthy M.O.? 

If wealth and fame is all you're after, you're in the wrong business. There are maybe a dozen people who get rich and famous off of writing in a given decade (actually, I think that figure is pretty generous). The odds are hilariously stacked against you, so making that your main goal is a recipe for bitterness. But that doesn't mean the trade isn't worthwhile for other reasons. Writing should be its own reward, just as experiencing a story should. Anything that gets in the way of that is unfair to the reader, and torturous to the writer. 

So just tell a story, and let the chips fall where they may. You'll be happier for it.