Good writing is not about following rules. It's not about breaking rules, either. It is about knowing the rules, being as aware as possible of the expectations of your readers, and following your own heart to find fresh ways to draw readers into a story and move them.
I think of writing craft as a sense of knowing what to write, and of knowing how to communicate a situation, a scene, a personality, a conflict or a story in a telling phrase or phrases. Simply put, writing craft is writing know-how. Developing writing craft is a journey of life-long learning. First you develop your values about what constitutes good writing. Then you practice them as you write. Of course, as you practice them, you refine them and develop new ones. As your talent grows, your aesthetic sensibilities grow.
Can you become a better writer just by adopting certain values? I say: yes, absolutely. Attitude is important in all aspects of life, and your attitudes about your writing have a great deal to do with the quality of your output.
In this essay I suggest a value-based approach to writing.
Following are are eight writing values that work for me. See if they work for you.
Value #1: The most important thing you owe your reader is plausibility.
To me writing is about communication. The act of connecting with an audience carries with it a responsibility, the responsibility of making sense to your readers. Whatever I am writing, whether it is website content or a short story, making sense is my first obligation. That does not mean you cannot journey to the farthest reaches of your imagination and take your readers with you. You can. But you must start out by making sense to your readers where they are when they read the first sentence.
Think of it this way: The value of any sentence is the sense it makes. That is the meaning of the word sentence, by the way. It comes from the Latin root for feel or sense. From the time you write the first word of a sentence you have only until the period at the end of the sentence to make sense. It is the job of the writer to make sense in as few words as possible.
Value #2: Kill the little ones.
I know it sounds cruel, but to be a good writer, you have to kill those pet ideas you cherish so dearly, the ones you cannot bear to give up. You know the ideas I am referring to: Perhaps it is a pun that is going to make people groan, or a term that is not quite on the mark (but you love it anyway), or a phrase you have to repeat often because it makes you want to stand up and cheer. Be stern with yourself and delete those pet ideas and phrases you fall in love with. They are little babies that cannot survive without your obsessive love. Machine gun them. Mow them down.
Value #3: Write it all the way through before you write it again.
I know of many writers who believe they must get the first sentence perfect before they write the second; or the first chapter perfect before they proceed to the second chapter. I think that is a mistake that leads to inefficiency, frustration, and the beginnings of books being better crafted than the endings.
I do not understand the use of the word perfect in reference to writing. Writing is by nature imperfect (just as we human beings who create it are imperfect). And, like the character of human beings, writing can be improved.
If you write it all the way through before you write it again, you get to participate in building the entire work as evenly and as quickly as possible. For example, you get to see the connections at the end of the story you might never have realized in chapter one. As you write the next draft you might decide to plant them in the opening chapters. These themes or motifs can now grow throughout the work, allowing you to harvest them, so to speak, in the final pages. This makes the work more unified, moving and successful.
When you write it all the way through before you rewrite, you will be amazed at how easy it is (as you rewrite) to differentiate the little ideas from the big ones and to kill off the little ones. You will amaze yourself: What seemed so important when you wrote the previous draft will now seem relatively unimportant and easy to drop.
Value #4: Do less better.
Do not overreach yourself. Do not try for glorious effects in your writing if they are not completely glorious. When writing a headline, do not make a pun unless it works completely. Do not crack a joke unless it is really funny and does not offend. It is far better to pack a headline with a startling fact than with a clever pun. It could be too clever for its own good. Be truthful with yourself.
Remember the first and last bastion of a writer: restraint. Perhaps you do not have to explain everything. Perhaps not explaining every last thing can be a sign of respect to the reader: You have given your readers the tools to figure it out, and you have complete confidence that they will figure it out. Or perhaps not explaining something can lend an air of mystery that can draw readers in. Perhaps leaving something out at the right point can have an appeal all its own.
Value #5: Treat your reader as you would a friend.
Take your reader by the hand; treat him like a friend, with kindness. Always be aware of your reader and, as much as is possible, what that very important person is thinking. What sense would it make to write in a way that causes readers to get lost? They might say back to you, Get lost, and close the book on your writing.
Value #6: Rules are made to be broken.
As I stated at the outset, rules are made to be broken. But you must know the rules before you develop a sense of when and how to break them. My advice: Break a rule, if you know what you are doing. And do not forget to be audacious!
Value #7: Show, do not tell. Tell, do not show.
Do not just tell a reader what you want her to know: show, demonstrate, paint a picture. As much as possible let your reader experience the story first hand.
You probably know how counterproductive it can be when you talk at people. You can also write at people. It's not a nice thing to do.
At the same time, I have discovered, as many other writers have, that there is a time for telling.
Telling can be very effective when used sparingly. It is sometimes necessary to advance a story.
May God grant me the ability to show in my writing what must be shown, and to tell what must be told, and the ability to know which is which.
Value #8: Forgive yourself.
Have patience. Often your writing is not going to work out the first time. If after you finish a draft you see nothing to change, ask a friend who will tell you the truth. Most often the brightness in writing comes from polishing.
Try these eight values on. Keep them in mind as you write and see the difference they make to your writing when you do.
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