15 rules for writing fiction gleaned from workshops

It’s true. I’ve been neglecting this blog and taking the easy way out by posting book reviews.  I’ve been reading a lot this year, kid in a candy story lot. So it seems fair that I at least review the books someone sent me gratis, and that’s what my focus has been.  Sadly, I’ve not reviewed the books I actually bought and loved, at least not yet, and I’m promising myself that indulgence soon.  I do feel lucky to have received ARC’s of books I’d have anyway… and a little guilty for it. Ah, that protestant guilt….

While I don’t have many words on paper to show for it, I’ve been working a lot on my writing. Research, discussions, workshop and yes, reading.  I realized yesterday that I’ve become a workshop junkie, attending more than 20 in the last ten years.   I spent some time with a couple of my “notebooks” from workshop earlier this year and gleaned a few tidbits that I’d written down so I would remember them as I wrote.  Because I’m generous, and because once I post them I’ll never have to remember what I titled that document again, I decided to share the list. Some of them will sound like platitudes and they are.  None of them are credited, simply because they are just class notes and probably paraphrased, and possibly the words of someone great whom I didn’t realize was being quoted.  Feel like discussing? Comments or hit me on twitter. @rosespringvale.

1. Reader needs a map of the world.  Landing in an airport where you don’t speak the language.  The world and time frame established in the first paragraph

2.  Absence is the best form of presence. Intentional presence—absence ---shall have a presence. Not a void.

3.  Essence of all marriages:  we each occupy our own building. We pretend that we are coordinated.

4. The story knows more than you do.

5.  Don’t piss on your characters.

6.  End on a strong note.

7.  “Furniture is a bad investment.”  Fiction means “to arrange.”

8.  The best way to get the moment across is dramatic enactment. The danger of a highly dramatic scene is melodrama.

9. Try when writing description to limit to three sentences. “Rule of 3’s”

10.  Never start a short story with a character waking up.

11. You can use familiar language, cliché, but you must make it fresh.

12.  Try not to steal from other writers.

13.  Write with all five senses.

14. Aspire to create a situation where there are no right answers.

15. When writing character lives, you must know everything about the character.