Timothy's Thoughts

W hat is the most important rule in writing? We hear about the rules all the time—show, don’t just tell; don’t use be verbs; don’t include backstory—but which rule is the most important? For the most part, the rules are nothing more than general rules of thumb. There are plenty of examples where writers have successfully violated each of the ones I listed above and there are times that we will violate them as well. But there is one rule that is an absolute; we must follow it no matter what. Some writers have attempted to violate it. I suppose all of us have violated it at some point, but none have done so successfully. And yet, if we handle this one rule well, the other rules either fall into place or they don’t matter quite as much. So, what is this all important rule? Every story must have conflict. It sounds simple enough, but the thing that kills a story more quickly than anything else is lack of conflict. Do you have a sagging middle? That is caused by lack of conflict. Are yo...

Twain simply listed his last seven rules and I think I will also. An author should: Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it. Use the right word, not its second cousin. Eschew surplusage. Not omit necessary details. Avoid slovenliness of form. Use good grammar. Employ a simple, straightforward style. These rules are closely related. We can summarize them by saying pay attention to details . We know that Twain advised killing most adjectives and adverbs. That is part of what he mean by Eschew surplusage , though he meant more than that. We have many words and phrases that we use in our spoke language that we don’t really need in conveying our message with written language. These words and phrases find their way into our work. Some of the rules we don’t see in Twain’s list are things like maintain a consistent point of view , avoid speaker attributes and avoid “be” verbs . Maybe these are the three that Twain didn’t include in his nineteen rules, but I wouldn’t read too ...

Moving on to Twain’s ninth rule, we see an admonition against dues ex machine . The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausably set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. Twain is telling us that we should obey the rules of the world we have created. Twain used miracles some in his own writing, such as in A Connecticut Yankee in King Author’s Court , so he isn’t against fantasy as much as he is against things that happen without cause. I saw an example of a problem in a television show I was watching the other day. The show was portraying the fall of the City of Troy. The show had a villain who moved between the two camps through a door (painted to look like stone) that someone had put in the wall of the city. I can’t help but wonder why anyone would bother building a horse to roll into the city when all they had to do was walk through the hidden door. We also have to wo...

Today, I’m continuing our talk about Mark Twain’s eighteen rules of writing. We begin with his sixth rule, a rule that is very familiar. When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. Can you see it? This is Twain’s version of the immensely popular show, don’t just tell rule. If we have a character that we have described as a delicate flower and then she comes in cussing like a sailor, we have violated this rule. Perhaps we think it’s funny to have a delicate flower let loose and come out of her shell for no apparent reason, but the reader will not be amused. I saw a little of this problem with Lori Wick’s The Princess . The book begins with us seeing this sweet girl with a great relationship with her parents and other people. It is for this reason that she is selected to marry the prince. Then later in the book we see her explode when her husband changes her schedule without asking. Sh...

Today, I’m continuing our talk about Mark Twain’s eighteen rules of writing. We begin with his third rule. The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. Have you ever had a character that doesn’t stand out? The character has a name, but we might as well have name her, Woman #5 since no one is going to remember her anyway. Maybe we put her in the story to give another character someone to talk to and all Woman #5 does is say, “I agree.” The other character might as well be talking to a corpse. We can fix Woman #5. First, let’s give her a name, like Barbara. Next, let’s make her interesting by giving her a peg leg. Lastly, let’s give her some thoughts and motives of her own. Maybe Barbara secretly hopes the other character’s boyfriend will break up with her and ask Barbara out. That’s a lot better than a corpse. The personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient ...

Authors, agents and editors talk much about the rules of writing . Most of us will agree that these rules are more like guidelines than laws set in stone. What we can’t agree on is what the rules are and what they mean. Oh well, such is life. Mark Twain said there are nineteen rules, though some people say there are twenty-two. He doesn’t say what the nineteenth rule is, though I doubt he knew since he mentions it in a critique of James Fenimore Cooper’s work . I think he chose the number nineteen to bring attention to how poorly written he believed Deerslayer to be. Twain does give us the eighteen he said Jame Fenimore Cooper violated. I see among them some of the same rules we keep spouting today, so I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at Twain’s eighteen rules governing the literary art in the domain of romantic fiction over the next few days. As we do, I will say that knowing the rules and understanding them is a far cry from being able to apply them to our own...

Show, don’t [just] tell . We hear this phrase a lot, but what does is mean? A more important question, does anyone agree? Brandilyn Collins says the rule means to “communicate information to your reader through a character's actions, expressions, words, or perceptions rather than communicating through author narrative.” ( Rules, Rules, Rules—Show, Don’t Tell , 03/13/2008) Monica Wood declares, “showing can be thought of as scene , telling as narrative .” ( Description , pg 21, 1999, Writers Digest Books) D. G. Jerz says that “ Telling communicates facts; showing invites understanding.” ( Show, Don’t (Just) Tell , 05/08/2000) Literary agent Rachelle Gardner says, “The point of showing is to give your reader an experience as opposed to information.” ( Showing vs. Telling , 10/29/2008) Taking these statements alone, you may not see just how different these statements are, but when we look at the examples they provide and the more detailed statements, we see that each has a signific...

As much as novelists talk about the rule Show, Don't Tell , personally, I think it applies more to the film industry than it does with the publishing industry. That doesn't mean it doesn't have application in both places, but take a look at the scene on the left. In a movie, this an example of telling. The audience is supposed to gather from the dialogue that the boy is bitter against his father. If that works, we might as well leave out the image of the two hugging, since the boy has already told us that they are going to. But as movie goers, we don't want characters telling us through dialogue that they are bitter, or worse, having other characters tell them they are bitter. Instead, we want to see it through the actions of the character. Instead of the characters saying, "my father left when I was young and it made me bitter" we want to see the character looking at a picture of his father and scratching away the face with a pair of scissors. We want the ch...