Just read this posted on another forum( ) and thought it would be useful archived where I (and others) could get it easily. Some very good advice in this list. Not always easy to follow, but worth trying.
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time wasted.
2. Give every 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 two things – reveal character or advance action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters,makeawful 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 hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
“Flannery O’Connor broke all these rules except the first, but then great writers tend to do that.” -- K. V.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
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