Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing. By Maria Popova In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her commandments. After Zadie Smith’s 10 rules of writing, here come 8 from the one and only Neil Gaiman: WritePut one word after another.
Find the right word, put it down.Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. Image by Kimberly Butler. Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing & Daily Creative Routine. After David Ogilvy’s wildly popular 10 tips on writing and a selection of advice from modernity’s greatest writers, here comes some from the prolific writer and painter Henry Miller (December 26, 1891–June 7, 1980) COMMANDMENTSWork on one thing at a time until finished.Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time! When you can’t create you can work.Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.Keep human!
See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Under a part titled Daily Program, his routine also featured the following wonderful blueprint for productivity, inspiration, and mental health: HT Lists of Note. Six Tips on Writing from John Steinbeck. By Maria Popova If this is indeed the year of reading more and writing better, we’ve been right on course with David Ogilvy’s 10 no-nonsense tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, and various invaluable advice from other great writers. Now comes Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968) with six tips on writing, originally set down in a 1962 letter to the actor and writer Robert Wallsten included in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (public library) — the same magnificent volume that gave us Steinbeck’s advice on falling in love.
Steinbeck counsels: Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. If you’re bold enough to defy Steinbeck’s anti-advice advice, you can do so with these nine essential books on more and writing. . ↬ Open Culture. 10 Tips on Writing from David Ogilvy. 1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure... The Writer’s Technique in Thirteen Theses: Walter Benjamin’s Timeless Advice on Writing.
Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want. Avoid prologues.
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” … …he admonished gravely. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
This rule doesn’t require an explanation. Zadie Smith’s 10 Rules of Writing.