Writing 101: The 10 Rules of Writing, Part 1
Greetings and inklings! ...Wait… that doesn’t even start with an S! Let’s go with Sinklings! Anyway, I may be your favourite Limax from worlds beyond, but today, all belongs to your favourite writer, Anne Winchell! Take it from here!
(Anne:) Thanks, Vivian! As a creative writing teacher, I rely on a lot of guidelines when helping steer students in the right direction, but I’ve never formalized them before. Well, now is the time! I should warn you, I have a lot to say about this. A lot. So much so that Vivian insisted I split this into two posts. What can I say, I just love talking about writing! Anyway, the first five rules focus on the art of storytelling while the second five rules focus on writing as an activity. All are extremely important, but this is a nice way to divide them. They actually were in this order even before we decided to split the post, but hey, it split along a clear line in logic! Clearly my subconsciousness knew this would get split and planned ahead. But enough of that! Words are at a premium, and I don’t want to waste them! On to the rules!
Rule #0: Know the rules before breaking the rules
What’s this? A rule before a rule? Am I breaking the rules of making a list? Well, yeah, I am, actually. And the reason I can do this is because I understand how lists work and what the audience anticipates, and I’m breaking expectations for a specific purpose, namely to get you to really pay attention to this one!
In all writing (and honestly in most of life), it’s very important to learn the rules. The 10 rules that I’m about to give are excellent rules, but there might be times to break them. However, rules should only be broken deliberately and with good cause. (Vivian: Where have I heard this before?) If you go around breaking rules willy nilly, either because you don’t know the rules or because you think you’re better than the rules and are trying to be uNiQuE, people will tune you out. Now, there are of course exceptions and people who will love it.
Heck, Jame Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is a classic that’s studied in colleges all over America, but it breaks virtually every rule of storytelling, writing, spelling, and grammar. Look at this first sentence:
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
Yes, it does start midsentence, and no, those aren’t all real words. This is the second half of the very last sentence in the book, and there’s a whole James Joyce dictionary online with proposed meanings for his words! You know why his story works? Well, at least why many people think it works? It’s because he breaks every single rule in a way that’s consistent(ly weird) and adds to his story.
So basically, pay attention to the rules I’m about to give. Learn them. And once you fully understand why it is that they work, then you can break them in ways that help your story. Not for fun, mind you. In ways that help.
Rule #1: Remember your audience
Audience gets the first rule, because it should be a primary consideration. What is an audience? They’re the people who will consume the media that you create. There are all sorts of types of audience and all sorts of criteria for them. I talk a ton about audience in my post on advertisements.
Why is audience important? Well, if you don’t know who your audience is, then your story will be a jumbled mess. Every choice you make, every word you use is catered to some group, even if it’s just yourself. Every breath you take and every move you make… they'll be watching you… Now that that’s stuck in your head, just think for a second: are children’s books written the same way as adult novels? Is scifi written the same as literary fiction? Obviously not! And it’s because they have different audiences.
So how do you know who your audience is? Well, there are a couple of possibilities. (Vivian: HAVE THEM FILL OUT HUGE FORMS!)
You
You’re going to be reading your story. A lot. Like, a lot a lot. If you’re serious about getting published, then you’re going to be reading the entire thing multiple times to do developmental edits and possibly even line edits. Even if you hire people to do that, you want to send your editors something they can work with, and that means basic editing first.
Sidenote: wondering what development and line editing are? It’s a great distinction to know, especially if you’re hiring an editor! They’re very different! Developmental edits are big picture stuff. Plot holes, narrative structure, character arcs, etc. They’re not going to do spelling or grammar. They’re not even going to do things like helping make sure your characters have consistent eye color. Developmental edits help with the development of your story. Line edits go line by line looking for little details like sentence structure, spelling, grammar, etc. More on that later!
Okay, with that explained, you’re a major audience. Besides, do you really want to write something you don’t enjoy? Just think of Rule #10: Write with Love! Oh wait, we’re not at that rule yet. Whoops! Well, we’ll get there. Until then, just remember: if you’re not one of the audiences for your story, you’re going to be miserable.
Primary audience and genre
After yourself, the key consideration is genre. First, think age group. What age are you writing to? That determines things like word choice, complexity of plot and characters, and level of “adult” content. (Vivian: If you are bad at writing, you can always go YA!)
Next, think content. Is this speculative fiction or realism? Imagine where in the bookstore you would place your book (something you’ll absolutely need to know if you publish your books). It’s very possible to blur the lines here and be in multiple categories, but if you publish–both traditionally and self–you need to know your primary category.
Finally, genre conventions. What do people expect? Space opera has planet hopping, romance has a happily ever after (HEA) or happily for now (HFN) ending.
Can you break this? Sure, but be prepared to face the wrath of your audience and get skewered in reviews (although some violations are greater than others). (Vivian: Gib sexy aliens in space opera 🥺)
Assumed audience, aka those other people who might just be reading…
The previous ones are the main people to be concerned with, but other people do read, including people you know… and that might be a problem, depending on what you write. If you’re uncomfortable with friends, family, coworkers, and random people you meet reading your work, consider publishing under a pseudonym. It’s extremely common.
Remember the Alamo! Oh, wait, not quite: Remember the Audience!
Now that you’ve figured out your audience, just, well, remember them. You can do your own thing, definitely, but don’t expect anyone to like it. If you’re just writing for yourself, then forget the primary and assumed audience. Writing under a pseudonym? Forget assumed audience. But always keep in mind who you’re writing for.
Rule #2: Use structure to add conflict
Dramatic structures are my jam, and I could talk about them all day. Actually, I did a while ago! I wrote a huge post about dramatic structure, and you should definitely check it out! I mean, read this list of rules first, but then go there! Open it in a new tab so you don’t forget! I’ll wait!
Some definitions
Okay, now that you’re set, let’s actually look at dramatic structure and how this becomes a rule. Very basically, dramatic structure is the formalized way that tension rises and falls over time, forming the structure of the story and guiding the conflict. There are a bunch of different types of dramatic structures, but at their core, almost all of them are variations of the Three Act Structure, which is essentially beginning, middle, and end.
We’ve got that, so one last definition: what is conflict? Conveniently for you, I’ve also written a blogpost about this! The definition that I give in that post, which I stand by, is taken from a book I use to teach storytelling by Evan Skolnick:
“Someone wants or needs something, but someone or something stands in the way.”
This is obviously catered to storytelling, as conflict can arise without characters involved, but this definition neatly summarizes how it works for our purposes. We’ve got conflict now, and it’s guided by the dramatic structure.
That’s where the rule comes in. Because the structure guides the conflict, you can use it to ratchet up tension and increase the conflict. Stories, or at least Western stories, are driven by conflict, which gets formalized as the Dramatic Question. Shoot, that’s another definition I should give. Well, it is important! And since I edit this document–as you should edit everything you write–I can move the headings here to the appropriate places, thus using the dramatic structure of this blogpost to guide where I place my headings. But enough practical application!
The Dramatic Question is the core conflict that drives everything else and gives rise to dozens or potentially hundreds of smaller questions. Will the hero defeat the villain? Will the hunter find the sacred steer that only appears in the light of the full moon? There can be twists on the question, of course. Maybe the villain isn’t actually so bad, and right when the hunter spots the sacred steer–WEREWOLVES!!!
Using this rule
When you want to move your story along by adding conflict, or if you want to introduce a conflict, you need to use the dramatic structure that you’re following to see where and how. You don’t want to introduce a brand new major conflict in Act II right before the climax! Act II in the Three Act Structure is, loosely, rising tension, and it can be a good place to introduce new conflicts–at the beginning. Once we reach the climax, it needs to be focused, and all of the pieces need to be falling into place. After the climax, the conflict needs to slowly resolve in Act III, the denouement (falling action). If, however, this is a series, you probably want to introduce some sort of hook!
Basically, to follow this rule, you want to either choose a dramatic structure or else go back over your story and find the one that matches best. Then you need to figure out your Dramatic Question so that you know the end goal of all of your conflicts. And yes, you can have subconflicts that don’t directly lead to that question, but they should at least advance the conflicts that do lead to it. Finally, you want to make sure all of your conflicts match the structure. Keep in mind that the structures can be very loose! But you want to fit where you are in the overall structure.
Avoiding plot holes
And finally, and I know Vivian wants to emphasize this one, you want to use the dramatic structure to ensure that there aren’t any plot holes. Some of that comes down to smaller details like character eye color (I know I’ve mentioned that, but it’s a pet peeve of mine), but it can also be big, like inconsistencies or just plain old missing elements of logic, problems with worldbuilding, radical and unexplained shifts in character or other parts of the story, etc.
When you edit, edit with your dramatic structure in mind and that will help you find many of the major plot holes. As you edit, pay attention: is the world maintaining the same rules? Are your characters finding out about various elements of plot and world throughout the story in a logical manner, and are those elements consistent? Do the characters evolve naturally, and if it is abrupt, is it explained?
(Vivian: Plot holes will inevitably be a part of your writing because no human is omniscient, but there is a huge difference between “oh shit I missed that” and “nah I don’t care about that stuff anymore”. The latter pisses off fans.)
Advice
So what’s my advice? Keep a journal, document, series of documents, world bible, character bible, whatever works for you. Just have somewhere to note what you’re doing so that you don’t forget.
For my characters, I have files on each of the major characters and a bunch of recurring minor ones (basically anyone who shows up multiple times and is described). In my files, I have the character’s full name, even if it’s never used; their date of birth and current age, even if it never comes up; a few little things like favorite foods and colors, because that might come up as an aside and I want to keep it consistent; unique mannerisms in speech or action, including verbs that I use a lot with them, gestures they use, any language quirks, etc.; and a brief history, basically summarizing everything from their parents to their birth to childhood and eventually where they are. As the story progresses, I’ll add notes. For example, I almost never start with even a quarter of all that information. Sometimes I start with nothing. As I add it in the story, I’ll quickly hop over and add to the document.
I have a similar document for the world, including smaller documents for continents and one for a city that gets developed in detail. I have a document on the different species and types of human I have. I have one on the magic system I use. And of course I have a map of my dramatic structure with the major events charted out with a brief phrase of a summary and how it advances the conflict and story. It’s a lot, I know, especially since I’m constantly adding to them, but when I’m on book four of the series and I need to know some detail that came up in the first book, it’s a lot easier to check my document than read the entire first book looking for it.
If you’ve never tried using journals/documents, at least give it a go! I tend to be a pantser, which means I’m a writer who writes by the seat of my pants, in contrast to a plotter, who plots everything in advance. This method obviously works for plotters, but even we spontaneous people who let the story go wherever it wants can take advantage of this. If it works, or if you know something better, let me know in the comments!
Rule #3: Stay true to who tells your story
Point of view is a vital thing to figure out in your stories, and staying true to it is a huge rule to follow. Luckily for you, this is yet another thing that I’ve written a blogpost about, so please read that to understand why to choose certain points of view and how to maintain them. Now, you can have multiple points of view, and you can mix types of point of view. Basically, they’re first person (I/me), second person (you), and third person (he/she/they/it). You can have multiples within any of those (two characters whose narrative is first person, multiple third person narrators) and you can mix (a first person narrator and a third person narrator), but you MUST signal the change! Slipping from one to another–pov slips–can be deadly. This is also probably the thing that bothers me most in a story.
There is one exception to this, and that’s an omniscient point of view where you shift from character to character because the narrator can see everyone and everything. You can do this as an omnituent narrator like Vivian does where the narrator can only see actions and external cues, or you can do true omniscience where the narrator sees everyone’s thoughts. EVEN THEN you need to clearly indicate when you’re shifting or the reader will have no clue what they’re reading.
Whose story are you telling?
If you don’t know who is telling your story, you’ll miss out on so much! The big reason for a consistent point of view is reader engagement. You want your audience to care about your characters, whether love or hate, and maintaining a point of view accomplishes this. There are many benefits, but the main one is that it signals to the reader who the characters to care about are. These don’t always have to be your main characters.
In one of my favorite trilogies, the Coldfire trilogy by C.S. Friedman, the story is mainly told by a single third person narrator, but it’ll occasionally give other points of view that supplement the story. This might be a spoiler, but I’ll try to leave out anything that would really give it away. One point of view I always remember is a woman who has entered into a pact to feed a main character’s hunger for human fear with the understanding that she can leave at any time… through death. She’s a minor character, barely mentioned, until she gets her own chilling section when she chooses death. Even though she really only appears there, that little section gives the audience someone to care about and shows how ruthless the other character really is.
Point of view slips
Sometimes it’s incredibly easy to make a pov slip because it’s something that you as the author know, so it seems like the character would know, too.
I stared fixedly out the window. Behind me, the clock silently advanced until dawn spread over the horizon.
Fine, right? WRONG. How do I know the clock is advancing if it’s out of my line of sight and silent? It’s completely out of my awareness. You would need to fix this to put the clock in my awareness if you wanted to keep it.
I stared fixedly out the window. Behind me, the clock ticked loudly, counting the seconds until dawn spread over the horizon.
Or
I stared fixedly out the window. My unwavering gaze broke every few minutes to check the clock until dawn spread over the horizon.
Now the clock is in my awareness. See how small a thing that is? But it’s major. Now, again, if your point of view is distant enough, this can work. An omniscient narrator would know what the clock is doing. If this were third person, a very distant third person narrator would know as well.
Sometimes the slip can be a single word. When I was editing my friend Birgit Sarrimanolis’s work, she had a single word. Normally she’s excellent at maintaining a tight point of view, and her memoir Transplanted is superb, but even the best writers make occasional mistakes, especially if it’s something we want the audience to know. Birgit hopes to publish this story, by the way, so keep an eye out and consider signing up for her newsletter on her website! (Friend promo accomplished!)
In this section, Elpida is surreptitiously watching her new husband playing poker. He doesn’t know she’s there, and he’s just asked someone about the trustworthiness of the man’s bookies.
Elpida shifted uncomfortably. Shady “bookmakers” placed illegal bets on horse races and fights and sports, then paid out winnings. Had the drink clouded Dimitri’s mind? Since when did he have an interest in gaming and betting?
Dimitri’s face remained impassive as he laid down one of his cards on the table.
“Just curious,” he bluffed. “I’m not the gambling type.”
Can you spot the point of view slip? First, let’s establish the point of view. Elpida is telling this story, which we can tell from the insight into her thoughts in the first paragraph (that’s the reason I included that paragraph). If you’d been reading the book, you’d obviously know it’s her story. The next line on Dimitri’s face and laying down cards is fine, as it’s all things she can see. The dialogue is fine–she can hear it. But that little dialogue tag, bluffed, is where the problem lies. How does she know he’s bluffing if she doesn’t know his cards?
There are some simple ways to fix this. You can add on a little, for example.
“Just curious,” he said with that smile that said he was bluffing.
Or maybe
“Just curious,” he said with a deceitful gleam in his eye.
Both accomplish the same thing. They turn bluffing, which involves Dimitri’s internal thoughts and awareness, neither of which she has access to, into something she can access.
This is the easiest way to fix something like this. Just add or adjust the errant word or phrase so that it becomes something within the point of view character’s awareness.
Marking point of view shifts
The best and most common way to signal a point of view shift is to start a new chapter. If you have more than one point of view character divided by chapter, you need to establish which character it is within the first two sentences, unless your goal is to confuse the audience (which usually backfires). Give identifying information immediately. In third person, the first name given should be the point of view character. If you say “Ari sat in front of Jana on the dragon,” then Ari better be your point of view character, not Jana.
Another clear and easily understood way to signal a shift is to give section breaks. This is what I use in my Imperial Saga. In mine, I have extra spacing and decorative symbols between the two sections. For rough drafts, the commonly accepted marking is ###. Some people just use an extra blank line or two, but the huge problem with this is that if the break comes at the beginning or end of a page, the reader won’t notice.
Finally, if you’re using an omniscient point of view–and only if you’re using omniscient point of view–you can do a different character per sentence as long as it’s very very clearly marked. Sometimes you can get away with multiple characters in the same sentence, but it’s extremely hard to do and usually feels like a mistake. Really, all omniscient narrators feel like a mistake at this point in our writing history. Early 20th century, yes, omniscient narrators were all the rage. Late 20th and now in the 21st, not so much. People today want close narrators and lots of engagement.
Finding the slips
This rule is really all about understanding your point of view thoroughly and then maintaining it. You can do all sorts of crazy things with point of view, but you have to be consistent and you have to stay within certain boundaries to keep your audience on track. Remember the very first rule of writing: Remember your audience! If they’re struggling to figure out who your main character is and who they’re supposed to care about, there’s a real chance they’ll give up, and at the very least, they won't be as engaged and interested as they would be with a tight, consistent point of view.
Rule #4: If your story stalls, disrupt the status quo
If you know anything about me, you know there’s one thing I like above all else: REVOLUTION!!! It’s just always the right answer! (Vivian: Seriously we have family gatherings and she tries to revolutionize everything!) You laugh, but sometimes families need a little revolution! And in stories, that need for revolution is especially true. Not necessarily a military revolution, but something that “revolves” the action and disrupts the status quo.
The saggy middle
In writing, there’s an extremely common phenomenon known as the saggy middle. Basically, beginnings are fun and exciting because everything is new to you, the author, and also to the audience. It’s easy to create excitement. Similarly, endings are fun and exciting because we get the big climax that everything has been building towards, then everything is wrapping up and you can show how everything you did matters and makes sense.
But then there’s the middle. The dreaded middle where you have to get from the beginning to the end and connect all of the threads, plant the seeds, advance the conflict, develop the characters… There's so much to do, but you have to pace it out, and it’s easy to mess up or get bored. And if you’re bored as the author, you can bet your audience is, too!
So how do you keep the story moving without getting bored and without the middle getting bogged down by bad pacing? Well, first read my blogpost on dramatic structure where I address pacing. 😀 Then, and here’s where the rule comes in, you want to find some way to disrupt the status quo.
The status quo
I say disrupt the status quo, but what is the status quo? Some of you may be saying that your entire book is about disrupting the status quo (as it should be in some way) or that you already do things to disrupt it throughout the book. That’s probably all very true, but you still have a status quo in each scene that can be disrupted.
To find the status quo, look at what is being accepted by the characters. If it’s covering a larger span of time or pages, it might be something like your party of characters has reliable patterns of interactions. Or maybe the antagonist is exerting their power in similar ways or even the same way. Maybe it’s just that the protagonist is in the same setting or location for an extended period of time.
On a scene level, look at the same things. Character interactions. Antagonist influence. Location. There are so many other things to look for in order to find a status quo, but these are three big ones.
REVOLUTION!
Now that you’ve established the status quo of your section or scene, it’s time for my favorite thing: ANNE SMASH!
Yes, it’s time to break everything in sight and destroy everything you’ve built! Well, maybe not to that extent. You don’t want to completely upend your book every time things get a little slow. But once, maybe twice? Go for it!
One great piece of advice I once received was “anytime you’re at a loss for how to continue, add a character.” Seems like it wouldn’t work, right? You’d have characters all over the place! But having put this into practice, it’s actually really useful. Surprisingly so. The characters don’t have to be major, after all. And they don’t necessarily need to be right at that point. You can go back and introduce or plant the character earlier, or you can start building towards one. But adding a character will change your existing character interaction dynamics and can also add conflict and complexity.
If you don’t want to add a character, think of things you can add. A new setting is a great one, especially if setting is your status quo but even if your characters are already traveling a lot. If it’s important to your story that you stay in the same place, think of different spots within that place. Are your characters confined to a city? Find a building they haven’t been to. Is your character imprisoned in a jail cell? Find a corner they haven’t been to, and oh look, what’s that! Something exciting that changes everything! New locations are always good for spicing things up.
New actions and interactions are great. Maybe your antagonist starts doing something different. Why? Well, do you need to know right now? Or can you figure it out and reveal it later? Maybe one of your characters changes how they interact with someone else. Add a miscommunication. Did that character really just insult another? How dare they! Argument initiated! In reality, they just misinterpreted or misheard, but wars have been fought over miscommunications, so adding them is realistic and can have a major impact! Or have your character be reminded of a traumatic experience by someone’s words, and now they’re snippy with that person and withdrawn with everyone else.
Vivian shared a similar piece of advice that zhi heard: “When you don’t know what to do, make things as bad as they can possibly become.” This is also excellent advice. If you’ve hit the saggy middle, think of the worst possible things you can do to your characters. What are their darkest fears? Their most haunting nightmares? Now’s a great time to fling those straight at your characters and relish the chaos that results. (Vivian: Everything is going well! NOW BURN IT ALL DOWN!)
What if you hate chaos?
I tend to be an “add now, worry later” writer, but the thought of adding something brand new to a carefully plotted story might horrify some. Even the most carefully plotted story needs some wiggle room, though. And if your careful plotting has led to a saggy middle, then it might be time to seriously rethink that plotting.
This rule is meant to improve the times when your story slows in ways you don’t want, and it’s a great tool to have at your disposal. And just remember: no matter what, the answer is always revolution!
Rule #5: Embrace your characters
Characters often form the heart of a story, especially in speculative fiction. While some stories emphasize setting or the adventure itself, everything is told through the lens of character. Even an omniscient narrator is still a character. Even in memoir, which is about your own life, you’re creating a version of yourself that’s a character. You can’t tell a story without a character, even if that character is you.
Do you taste delicious?
Since stories rely on characters, it’s important to have good ones! Vivian and I wrote a blogpost where we created an analogy comparing character traits to flavors, which was a lot of fun to make and works extremely well. There are five flavors that correlate to five categories that character traits loosely fit into. These tend to be story dependent. With characters, you want to have all five flavors represented, though each character will have a slightly different balance. Think of your characters like a five course meal. You want to taste everything if you want to be satisfied by that fancy a feast, and your audience (Rule #1: Remember the Audience!) needs to be satisfied as well.
In our analogy, a sweet trait is a trait that is good in all or almost all circumstances, like physical strength (again, these are story dependent). A bitter trait is the opposite and just plain bad or negative in all or almost all circumstances, like, perhaps, an inability to think on your feet. A sour trait is either good or bad depending on the circumstances, maybe like honesty, which can help a character sometimes and really backfire at others. A salty trait enhances the other traits, making sweet traits sweeter, for example, or exaggerating the negative qualities of a sour trait. For example, the ability to speak eloquently will make a trait of charisma, which I would consider sweet but might be sour in some worlds, even better.
And finally, umami, which in terms of flavor would be considered savory, represents traits that are stable and unchanging in a character, like a strong survival instinct that can overcome all of the other traits. For example, if a character is driven to survive at all costs, they may lie when they’re normally honest, showing how their unchanging umami trait overshadows everything else.
This analogy works well in developing characters or analyzing existing characters, and works for other things as well! When looking at a group of characters, you can balance the flavors, with some characters being sweeter, saltier, etc. The balance is important. Heck, you can even analyze the story and plot in these terms! It’s highly applicable.
What did you say?
While a balance of flavors gives your character depth and turns them into the always desired three dimensional character, you need little details in the writing itself, little quirks of the characters, little ways they’re absolutely unique in their world. There are all sorts of ways to do this, but developing an interesting backstory, showing unusual reactions to events and people, and using dialogue to create a unique voice are three big ones.
Vivian and I talk a lot about backstory in the second post in our Character series, Setting the Foundation. We even have a list of a bunch of potential backgrounds plus what traits are associated with them and how those backgrounds play into the story. I highly recommend it. The whole Character series is great! But giving your character unique circumstances can help them develop into unique characters. Your characters might be attached to certain things that most people don’t care about, or they might be skilled at something no one else is. If you have a character that you’re struggling to define, look back: what might have happened to make them who they are today, and what other traits and habits can we extrapolate from that background?
Say your character is a bit of an ass, and someone else has just about had enough and lands a punch right in their face. What do they do? If they’re a tough character, or trying to look tough at least, they might grin, possibly spitting out a tooth in the process. If they’re weaker, they might start crying or run away. If they have good relationships with other characters, those characters might come to their aid. Those are some common reactions, and each of them reveals some interesting dimension. But what if their head flies off? There’s a shocking twist. And what if the reason for that is because the character is actually undead and posing as one of the living to infiltrate a government agency? They might collect their head and call down the wrath of hell upon the whole place! Now we’re talking! This is a character I would want to learn more about, and as a writer, this is a character I would love to write!
Basically, a character’s reactions to things matter, and you can really have fun with them! And then we get to voice. Every character should sound slightly different, and I give a lot of advice on this in my post on dialogue. Now, I recommend against accents. Yu’s needs no catspeak fur unnerstanding meow lang- langu- meow words. If I’s speaks like dis fur long enuf, yu’s get angy! Pretty annoying, right? If you frequent cat subreddits, you’re probably familiar with catspeak, and most people can figure out what that means. For a phrase or two, it can work. If you have a main character speak like that, or any accent that gets written phonetically, your readers will hate you.
So don’t have thick accents all the time. A few words here and there help, however. And even if you keep to straight English (or the language of your choice), you can still add variety. I don’t write accents, but I will indicate them in descriptions, such as a character with rolling vowels or someone with a drawl. I also have characters use certain words or phrases that no one else uses, or that only a specific group uses. In my Imperial Saga, the young people of Tamarud are a fairly distinct group, and they use slang that no one else does. Word choice and descriptions of language are really good ways to give your characters identity.
Do you love me?
(Vivian: No) Vivian’s hatred of characters is a major problem that I’ve seen before, and it’s the reason for this rule. It’s fine to hate a character as a character sometimes. There are some antagonists that I absolutely despise because the choices they make are just so darn evil! But there’s a difference between hating a character as a character and hating how they’re written. It’s all about engagement, and I’ll write a future post about how to write engaging characters who are also immoral and the worst of the worst (also good characters! The post will cover everyone!).
This rule involves embracing your characters and relishing in what makes them who they are. You should enjoy writing your characters, and they should leap off the page into your audience’s mind as interesting, unique, and above all else, engaging people. You want your audience to care, even if all they care about is seeing that bastard get their just desserts.
If you don’t fully embrace your characters and bring them to life, your audience will tune out. That’s why this rule is so important. Characters are vital to the story. In many ways, they are the story, since the story is told through them. So love your characters, embrace what makes them who they are, and give them depth and idiosyncrasies so that your audience remembers them long after your story is over.
Summa Summarum Primis
(Vivian: WILL THIS NEVER END!?) Oh, it looks like Vivian is inviting me to write even more! Thanks! I think I will! So let’s go to the next rule–Oh wait, look at the time, gotta go, so sad! Hopefully these first five rules have given you some concrete things to do in your stories. The second five will expand from the story itself to the writing and to you, the author! You’ll have to wait for the next post, however. Until next week and the exciting conclusion of the 10 Winchell Rules of Writing, adios!
(Vivian: 0,1,2,3,4,5, anyone count how many that is for Anne?)
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Copyright ©️ 2024 Anne Winchell. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. These rules and the concepts behind them are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. We encourage you to refer to these rules and use them in your own writing with attribution under Creative Commons! However, specific ideas such as the Imperial Saga and all of the characters and events within the series, the specific examples given, plus all language or exact phrasing of this article are individually copyrighted by the respective authors. The example about Elpida is copyrighted to Birgit Sarrimanolis. Contact the specific author for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
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