Several GITS readers emailed me about a great series The Guardian ran recently: Ten Rules For Writing Fiction. Today we feature Ian Rankin:
1 Read lots.
2 Write lots.
3 Learn to be self-critical.
4 Learn what criticism to accept.
5 Be persistent.
6 Have a story worth telling.
7 Don’t give up.
8 Know the market.
9 Get lucky.
10 Stay lucky.
Anything on the list here today that catches your eye, gives you inspiration, or causes you to rethink your approach to writing?
Tomorrow I’ll feature a different writer from The Guardian series and their rules on writing.
This particular list is the lamest list in the history of lists, lame or otherwise.
The writer obviously didn't give a crap about the question.
I didn't find anything particularly lame here.
I know wannabe writers who don't do #1. Barely do #2. Wouldn't know #6 if it slapped them. And really should consider ignoring #7.
Have to agree with Meg. It's simple, straight-to-the-point advice and I think there's probably a lot of truth to it.
I guess everything's subjective. (Except bubblewrap. Everyone loves bubblewrap.)
I didn't mean to imply that everything he said wasn't true. My point was, everything on his list was ridiculously obvious.
If the list was 12 items long instead of 10, I'm sure he would've added, "spell words correctly" and "use punctuation."