Tip 1:
"My first rule was given to me by TH White, author of
The Sword in the Stone and other Arthurian fantasies and was: Read. Read
everything you can lay hands on. I always advise people who want to write a
fantasy or science fiction or romance to stop reading everything in those
genres and start reading everything else from Bunyan to Byatt." — Michael
Moorcock
Tip 2: "Protect
the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the
people who are most important to you." — Zadie Smith
Tip 3:
"Introduce your main characters and themes in the first
third of your novel. If you are writing a plot-driven genre novel make sure all
your major themes/plot elements are introduced in the first third, which you
can call the introduction. Develop your themes and characters in your second
third, the development. Resolve your themes, mysteries and so on in the final
third, the resolution." — Michael Moorcock
Tip 4: "In the
planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all
that will go before it." — Rose Tremain
Tip 5:
"Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The
short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is
committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever." — Will Self
Tip 6: "It's
doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing
good fiction." — Jonathan Franzen"Work on a computer that is
disconnected from the internet." — Zadie Smith
Tip 7: "Interesting
verbs are seldom very interesting." — Jonathan Franzen
Tip 8: "Read
it aloud to yourself because that's the only way to be sure the rhythms of the
sentences are OK (prose rhythms are too complex and subtle to be thought
out—they can be got right only by ear)." — Diana Athill
Tip 9: "Don’t
tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
– Anton Chekhov
Tip 10: "Listen
to the criticisms and preferences of your trusted 'first readers.'" — Rose
Tremain
Tip 11: "Fiction
that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown
isn't worth writing for anything but money." — Jonathan Franzen
Tip 12:
"Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have
regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the
drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the
derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling
income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through
crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk
for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was
trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets
me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails,
there's prayer. St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often
helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you
could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too." — Sarah
Waters
Tip 13: "The
writing life is essentially one of solitary confinement – if you can't deal
with this you needn't apply." — Will Self
Tip 14: "Be your
own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!" — Joyce Carol Oates
Tip 15: "The
reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator." — Jonathan Franzen
Tip 16: "Keep
your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or
three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with
exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful."
— Elmore Leonard
Tip 17: "Remember:
when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are
almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and
how to fix it, they are almost always wrong." — Neil Gaiman
Tip 18: "You
know that sickening feeling of inadequacy and over-exposure you feel when you
look upon your own empurpled prose? Relax into the awareness that this ghastly
sensation will never, ever leave you, no matter how successful and publicly
lauded you become. It is intrinsic to the real business of writing and should
be cherished." — Will Self
Tip 19: "The
main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence,
you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as
for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it
needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not
sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter." — Neil Gaiman
Tip 20: "The
nearest I have to a rule is a Post-it on the wall in front of my desk saying
‘Faire et se taire’ (Flaubert), which I translate for myself as ‘Shut up and
get on with it.’" — Helen Simpson
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