Rules of Writing meme
Dec. 5th, 2007 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenI'm not sure if this "writing rules meme" is supposed to be rules for oneself, or rules for others (people seem to have taken it both ways). I already have written a few articles about writing fanfic:
http://www.katspace.org/Fiction-Essays/Fanfic
http://www.katspace.org/Fiction-Essays/TenCommandments
No point in just cutting and pasting them here! And since they were Rules For Other People (as well as rules for me), I'll concentrate here on the ones that I hold dear, and ones I use for me.
1. Character is Plot. If I want something to happen, I have to figure out why someone would make it happen. Conversely, if it turns out that a plot point requires that someone act out of character, then the plot has to change.
2. PoV. Never change PoV in the middle of a scene. I tend to write tight third-person, which means I have to choose whose PoV a scene is written from. I also tend to make it one-person-per-story, or two people, but not always.
3. PoV and Knowledge (aka "Remember what your characters don't know"). One of the limitations of tight third-person is that you can't tell your readers things that that person hasn't witnessed themselves. This can sometimes cause plot problems, as I the Author know what happened, but the characters don't, and thus the readers don't either. But I hold to that discipline, that you can't give characters knowledge that they shouldn't have any way of knowing.
4. Know the end from the beginning. I can't write until I know how the story ends, because I need to know what I'm working towards. That isn't to say that I need to know the details, or that the end won't change, but I still need to have some idea.
5. Transcripts are your friend. I love it when a fandom has transcripts. Canon is your friend generally, source material is your friend, re-watching episodes is fun, but transcripts are usually quicker. Quicker for what, you ask? Not just checking on particular canon points, but also I delight in finding the precise details, the exact phrases, so that I can bend canon to my will. And sometimes that can be a question of not only what was said, but who said it, to whom, who wasn't there, and what characters don't know.
6. Every scene should have a goal. When that goal is achieved, then you can wrap up the scene. Whether that goal is to convey information, or to have dramatic action, that's still a goal. Maybe it's because I'm a J, but to launch into a scene or a story with no idea where I'm going is like leaping off a cliff -- I can't do it. That being said, I don't tend to write out outlines, though. I think I've only done that once.
7. Just write. If I have an idea for a scene, I write it down, even if I'm not "up to" that scene yet. I can polish it later.
http://www.katspace.org/Fiction-Essays/Fanfic
http://www.katspace.org/Fiction-Essays/TenCommandments
No point in just cutting and pasting them here! And since they were Rules For Other People (as well as rules for me), I'll concentrate here on the ones that I hold dear, and ones I use for me.
1. Character is Plot. If I want something to happen, I have to figure out why someone would make it happen. Conversely, if it turns out that a plot point requires that someone act out of character, then the plot has to change.
2. PoV. Never change PoV in the middle of a scene. I tend to write tight third-person, which means I have to choose whose PoV a scene is written from. I also tend to make it one-person-per-story, or two people, but not always.
3. PoV and Knowledge (aka "Remember what your characters don't know"). One of the limitations of tight third-person is that you can't tell your readers things that that person hasn't witnessed themselves. This can sometimes cause plot problems, as I the Author know what happened, but the characters don't, and thus the readers don't either. But I hold to that discipline, that you can't give characters knowledge that they shouldn't have any way of knowing.
4. Know the end from the beginning. I can't write until I know how the story ends, because I need to know what I'm working towards. That isn't to say that I need to know the details, or that the end won't change, but I still need to have some idea.
5. Transcripts are your friend. I love it when a fandom has transcripts. Canon is your friend generally, source material is your friend, re-watching episodes is fun, but transcripts are usually quicker. Quicker for what, you ask? Not just checking on particular canon points, but also I delight in finding the precise details, the exact phrases, so that I can bend canon to my will. And sometimes that can be a question of not only what was said, but who said it, to whom, who wasn't there, and what characters don't know.
6. Every scene should have a goal. When that goal is achieved, then you can wrap up the scene. Whether that goal is to convey information, or to have dramatic action, that's still a goal. Maybe it's because I'm a J, but to launch into a scene or a story with no idea where I'm going is like leaping off a cliff -- I can't do it. That being said, I don't tend to write out outlines, though. I think I've only done that once.
7. Just write. If I have an idea for a scene, I write it down, even if I'm not "up to" that scene yet. I can polish it later.
