Authors Electric

Here’s a tip for new writers.  When, in a creative writing workshop or author talk, a bright-eyed, successfully published author assures you -‘There are no rules in writing! Write whatever you want, how you want. No one can tell you what to do!’ - don’t believe her. She’s trying to be positive and encouraging but actually this is a pretty unhelpful thing to say.  Of course writing has rules. And of course you can break them if you want. It just means you haven’t a snowball's chance in hell of being published if you do.  So what are these rules?  Well, if I list some of them, chances are you’ll throw me a puzzled look and say well of course, doing X/not doing Y is a given. As one of these cheery speakers said to me, years ago, when I picked her up on her blithe statement.  The Pursuit of Love by (rule breaker) Nancy Mitford OK, so here are a few of these Not Rules That Are Rules Really: 1. You need a strong main character. If telling the story, she/he can’t be ju...

There's no joy in watching an average sinner burn. But there's more fun in viewing the flights of the best than in hearing an angel hosanna. Now, before your knickers start doing The Twist, as the British like to say, I mean saints and sinners in writing. And I'll start with a few wee examples to help set the stage for my rant. In fact, let's make this a brief game, with your identifying the relevant sin. The examples are taken from Sullivan's Sting, a delightful mystery by Lawrence Sanders, one of my favorite writers. 1)  Mrs. Winslow was happy she'd worn her basic black and pearls, for all the women were in evening gowns and the men...were spiffy in white dinner jackets and plaid cummerbunds. She was introduced around and everyone was just as nice as they could be. Champagne was served in crystal flutes. 2)  "Mort, I told you not to bet," Nancy said morosely. "David always wins. I need another drink." 3)  More regula...

by Bill Kirton A novel with no e. There are plenty of examples of writers who’ve produced great stuff by imposing restrictions on themselves. Beckett wrote in French to stop himself giving in to his facility with English. The French classical dramatists interpreted the ‘rules’ of Aristotle very tightly and had to write in Alexandrines and stick to the 3 unities. But their constraints were easy to cope with compared with the things the members of a group called Oulipo do. I’d vaguely heard about them before but was reminded of them when I listened to a BBC podcast. It seems writing’s not hard enough, so they impose artificial constraints to make it even trickier. The name comes from  a French expression meaning ‘workshop for potential literature’. (It could only be French, couldn’t it?) The group’s been going for fifty-odd years and you can only join if you’re invited to. If you ask to become a member, that guarantees that you never will. Mind you, when you hear the so...