Rule 8: Do not insert flashbacks, POV changes, or interludes in the first ~20,000 words of your story.
So after all those high and mighty words about greater concepts and the nature of the narrative itself–let’s have a somewhat more technical rule. While this varies somewhat from book to book, generally speaking, the first 10 to 20 thousand words in your story will be where you establish the main character and the main plot, and try to convince your reader to care about them. This is your hook, the part where you assume the reader isn’t interested in any of this and try to draw them in. And the absolute worst thing you can do with this time, with these all-important first few words?
Go on a tangent. Remember, you are trying to establish the main character and why the reader should care about them. If you suddenly introduce a side plot, or switch to a different story set in the same world (even if that story will eventually be relevant to the main plot), or try to introduce a new main character–you’re doubling the difficulty of keeping your reader interested. Suddenly, you have to make two things interesting and engaging, not just one. Suddenly, you’re dangling a new shiny thing in front of your readers and trying to make them interested in it, when those readers are still deciding if they want to be interested in the other shiny thing. There will be other times to introduce side plots and side characters, but generally try to keep them out of the first part of your story. These first few pages are here to establish why your reader should care about your story, not introduce all the intricacies and complexities your plot will require.
And now, for a bonus round–of things I’ve learned not as a reader, but as an author.
Rule 9: Don’t add too many numbers.
To illustrate this point, let us write and compare two short stories. The first: “Mary made many pancakes, and all three of her children had enough to eat.” The second: “Mary made seven pancakes, and all three of her children ate two.” I firmly believe that the first story, the one with less numbers, is the objectively superior version of this tale. The first reason for this is, despite the first of these stories giving the reader less information to work with, the reader is actually left more informed as to the circumstances of the characters involved. Mary made “many” pancakes. This version might tell us less about the number of pancakes Mary made, but it tells us more by cluing us in as to the circumstances in which those pancakes were made. Anyone could make seven pancakes–but many pancakes? The only person who could make many pancakes is someone with an abundance of cooking material. This tells us that Mary is likely well off, at least at the moment. And again, how many pancakes did her children eat? In version one, they ate “enough.” This tells us that no child was left wanting, that Mary’s cooking was enough to satisfy all of them. In version two of the story, the children ate “two” pancakes. This contains more technical information on what actually happened, but less of the emotional context behind the happening. Was two enough for each child? Did any of them want more? We don’t know, because we don’t really know anything about how many pancakes each child ate–we just know the number, “two.” The second reason the first version of this story is superior is because it avoids leftover numbers. In version two of this story, we have one pancake left, unconsumed. Why? What happens to this pancake? Is it thrown away? Does Mary eat it? Of course, it’s no great effort to write a sentence or two to explain the fate of the seventh pancake, but that’s not the point. The existence of an unnecessary pancake creates bloat in the story–both bloat in that it adds unnecessary sentences to the story, and mental bloat on the part of the reader. If the seventh pancake isn’t important to the plot, the reader should never have to think about it. But by adding it in, we force the reader to consider, “Is there a reason there’s a seventh pancake? Will it become relevant to the plot later on?” This wondering does nothing but detract from the main story we are trying to tell. Of course, in this instance, it would be easy to just rewrite the story so there are only six pancakes made to begin with. But that’s because this is an extremely simple example. As you write more complex stories, with larger numbers of things split up into more parts, it becomes easier and easier to end up with a number that doesn’t end up going anywhere. Which is why, whenever possible, you should avoid numbers and use more general terms, like “many” or “enough.”
Of course, you may have noticed that in both of those examples, I gave a specific number of children to Mary. That’s because, in some instances, it is actually better to use specific numbers over generalizations. This is usually true whenever a generalization would leave something too open to interpretation. For example–while two people might have different interpretations of what “many” pancakes means, we generally understand, with the context given, roughly what “many” looks like. One person might interpret “many” to be three, another might interpret it to be 12, but we all understand what’s being said–Mary made enough pancakes to feed her children and then some. However, let’s examine what many children might mean. Again, different people can have different interpretations of what “many” means here, but unlike the pancakes example, those different interpretations can lead to very different views of who Mary is and what her household looks like. One person might think many children is two children, another might think many is 10 children, and now these two different people have very different views on who Mary is as a person. Therefore, it is fine to use some numbers; you just have to consider carefully where you should put them and where you should avoid putting them.
Rule 10: Review at least a day after you have already written.
Careful review of your work–whether by yourself or someone else–is absolutely vital to producing something good. The truth is, no one, no matter how skilled or talented, can regularly produce good first drafts. It just doesn’t happen. So how do we review effectively? The simplest answer is just to do it over and over and over, and get as many people as you possibly can to look over your work for you. But of course, no one has infinite time nor infinite friends–this method only works up to a point, and we generally want to make sure our self-reviews are as effective as possible. There are a lot of methods of doing this, and frankly I could write a whole article just on this topic alone, but for now, I’ll just touch on one of my favorite methods. Whenever you review, you should make sure to do it at least a day after you have actually written your story.
Why? Well, whenever you write something, you create a sort of mental model of what you are trying to write. An idea, a concept or thought you are trying to convey to your audience. This is the essence of what writing actually is–an attempt, through crude and often unsuitable language, to convey a pure idea to someone else. To write is to attempt to lay a piece of your mind bare for the world to see. The problem is, if you try to review what you have written right after writing it, you won’t see your words. Rather, you will see the idea behind your words, the thoughts you are trying to convey. Those thoughts are still fresh in your mind, after all. To review effectively, you need to distance yourself from the mindset of an author and try your best to see your work with fresh eyes. One of the easiest and most effective ways of doing this is just to give yourself time.
Rule 11: The speed and fluency of your writing have no actual impact on the quality.
Writing, as with all things, is subject to the whims of the wheel of fortune. Sometimes, it will lift you up, and your words will flow fast and free. In the span of an hour you will complete the work of a day, and you will end your writing session thinking about how easy that was. Sometimes, however, the wheel will grind you to dust beneath its rim. You’ll stare at the page for hours, barely able to eke out a pair of sentences, struggling to express even the most basic of ideas. I am here to tell you that your position on that wheel of fortune, no matter how it feels at the time, does not actually impact the quality of your writing.
This is, again, a little nugget of wisdom that comes more from my mom than me–but unlike my point on interviewing people, it’s one I’ve actually tested and found to be true. Sometimes, you’ll write several pages in a flash, and then look back and realize how stupid that writing was. Sometimes, you’ll barely manage a handful of sentences, and then go to review and find almost nothing wrong. The point is, don’t despair when at the bottom of that wheel of fortune–both because the wheel always keeps turning, and you will one day again be at the top, and because your position on the wheel cannot dictate the quality of your writing. Only you can do that.
Rule 12: Rules are made to be broken
And finally, the penultimate rule, the conclusion to this entire article:
There are no rules. Not really.
At the end of the day, all fiction writing exists for a single purpose–to engage the audience. Perhaps this is through simple entertainment: an action story filled with excitement. Perhaps this is through some deeper idea: encouraging your readers to question themselves. It matters not. At the end of the day, a good book is one that engages its audience; a bad book is one that loses their attention. All these rules are–all any rules are, when it comes to writing fiction–is a series of guidelines, a set of things that did and didn’t work in the past. But make no mistake. If you can better engage your audience by breaking these rules? You should, without an ounce of hesitation.
That is your only true rule as a writer. Make something your audience enjoys. Everything else is secondary.
