The Cardinal Rules
Never be boring, not for one scene, paragraph, sentence or word.
Every writing rule in the book has an exception—except for Cardinal Rule #1
Begin with the end in mind.
If you don’t envision a truly heroic character with heroic goals, on an action-packed journey, encountering obstacles and a worthy opponent and arriving alive and wiser at the end of your novel after having engaged in a titanic struggle, it’s not likely your novel will be seriously considered in the publishing business.
Finish your novel before you make the first attempt to sell it.
At the minimum, you should have three master characters for your novel. At the maximum, you should have three.
Your novel plays out in relation to the world of your heroic character. If an action, setting or other character does not relate to the heroic character—either as a cause or an effect—odds are, that action, setting or character doesn’t belong in the novel.
Think of your novel as a heroic characters’ universe clashing with his adversary’s universe and you will have distilled the business of writing a novel to its essence.
Never get sidetracked on issues such as exhaustive biographical sketches and detailed physical settings. Do all of your important writing in your novel, not in preparation.
A heroic character’s goals and motivations cannot lead to trivial pursuits. Master characters must be giving to furious passions, driving forces, lifetime ambitions and fundamental values. A character must be willing to risk all, even life, for such things.
The central conflict in a novel arises from the powerful, usually violent struggle between the opposing goals and motivations of the heroic character and his adversary.
Even the most heroic character is somehow flawed, often seriously, and the nastiest villain has some saving grace, no matter how small.
Give major characters—and even minor characters—goals and motivations of their own. Permit them to have personal reasons for being in your novel rather than using them as set pieces for your convenience.
Begin your novel by writing the climactic scene first.
No scene in your novel is as important as your climax. Every scene that preceded the climax must logically build toward it, and every scene that follows the climax to the end of the story must be a logical result of it.
When contemplating a scene, if you can’t clearly establish the purpose for a scene, don’t create that scene. Use narration to make your point and convey your readership to the next scene.
What matters is not so much what people say when they pick up your novel as what they say after they put it down.
Anytime in the course of a novel that the story changes direction because of problems introduced or complications resolved between master characters, write it as a master scene.
You elevate the grand-scale pace of your novel by bunching master scenes; likewise, you relax that pace by inserting major scenes, minor scenes and various narrative devices between your master scenes.
A subplot must establish a direct connection to the main story line, advancing and complicating the story. If a subplot is a parallel issue that never affects the outcome of the main story line in a significant way, leave it out.
Write your favorite master scenes first. After you’ve revised that scene, choose your next favorite master scene. And so on, until you’ve written an entire first draft of your novel as master scenes.
No matter what form of concordance you employ, always use fix cards. Fix cards will clear your mind of mechanical trivialities, leaving it free to concentrate on the act of creation.
Use a third-person, past-tense point of view (POV), and limit the novel’s omniscience to your master characters.
Study best-selling writing by copying selected segments of your favorite best-selling authors’ novels word for word.
Always try using verbs and nouns before resorting to adjectives and adverbs. A concrete noun partnered with a precise verb will rock on adjectives and adverbs any day of the week.
Write to suit yourself.
Build action into every scene, every passage of dialogue, every sentence of your novel. When in doubt, use action.
Capitalize on conflict. Assert it in every scene of your novel, never allowing it to fall below a discernible level of tension.
If a line of dialogue doesn’t indicate conflict or isn’t leading up to conflict, don’t bother writing it. Use some other narrative device.
Rather than describe, create powerful images.
Research only as much as necessary to enrich your novel with reality or, even better, a sense of wonder or discovery. Never include data for its own sake or, worse, to show how brilliant you are.
Take a stand. Avoid splitting hairs in images and emotions, especially in master scenes. Dramatize. Exaggerate. Embellish facts. Clarify your fictional truths.
Once you clarify images and emotions, be consistent with the stand you’ve taken. Never change on whimsy or by coincidence. Once established, only the characters influenced by their realistic, competing motivations—and not the author—can reorder images and emotions.
Play fair. Don’t withhold details crucial to understanding the story just so you can spring a surprise later.
Maintain singularity: one idea for each sentence; a single topic for each paragraph; a singular plot point for each scene. And stick to the main story line in writing your novel’s first draft.
Achieve dramatic effect by adding snap—power words, quick pace and high emotion—to the ends of your critical sentences, paragraphs and scenes.
Sell your novel not with the idea that publishers should give you and your agent money for it, but with the notion that buying your manuscript will make money for them.
Don’t waste people’s time.
Sell your novel as fresh, distinctive and radically new—but not radical.
To improve your writing, write.