Terry Bisson's Rules for Writing SFF short stories

[Guy]

I tend to think if five people love something and five people hate it, then that is when it works.

That might explain a bit of criticism I got a couple of years back.

 

[BWFoster78]

Write the type of story you'd like to read.

See how other authors have done it.

Do what works.

Guy.

I think this is a wonderful idea. However, I think it takes a lot of time to get to the point where one can truly understand how a writer accomplished what they did.

If you look over my shoulder while I'm solving a differential equation, you'll see the final result, but, unless you've had quite a few calculus classes, you're not going to have any idea how I solved it.

How do you gain that basic understanding if not for the rules?

 

[Guy]

Because writing a story is far more subjective than solving equations. There are hard, unalterable rules for math and there is only one right answer to the equation. For artistic endeavors, they're more like guidelines than actual rules. Look at how often successful writers break them. The right answer is whatever works. The same story can be told any number of ways that work. "Rules" that apply to one genre might not apply to another. What works for one audience won't necessarily work for another. Look at the list linked in the original post. Plenty of those rules are, at best, highly debatable. Following a formula to write a story often results in formulaic writing.

 

[BWFoster78]

Because writing a story is far more subjective than solving equations. There are hard, unalterable rules for math and there is only one right answer to the equation. For artistic endeavors, they're more like guidelines than actual rules. Look at how often successful writers break them. The right answer is whatever works. The same story can be told any number of ways that work. "Rules" that apply to one genre might not apply to another. What works for one audience won't necessarily work for another. Look at the list linked in the original post. Plenty of those rules are, at best, highly debatable. Following a formula to write a story often results in formulaic writing.

Guy,

The problem is, and I've seen this repeated over and over with new author after new author, people just starting out typically think they know a lot more about writing than they actually do. They think, "Hey, I was good in HS English. I know how to write." They then put out the most horrible, unreadable dreck and actually think that it is as good as what professional authors are doing.

I fell into this trap myself. I thought my stuff was a lot better than it actually was. I look back now at the stuff I was producing just a year ago and find it to be unreadable dreck.

So, take someone who wants to be a writer. He reads a lot of fiction and says, "Okay, I want to write like my favorite author."

He produces what he thinks is something similar to what his favorite author would write, but, in actuality, what he's produced is complete unreadable dreck. The worst part is that he probably never even realizes how bad it is. He publishes the book, and no one ever buys it.

Learning the rules at least gets him in the frame of mind where he can start advancing his skill.

EDIT: My main takeaway from what I've experienced so far is this:

Writing anything that people actually will want to read is difficult, but it's not rocket surgery (one of my favorite phrases ). It can be learned by pretty much anyone. The problem is that a lot of people don't understand that they need to learn or how to go about it.

For me, the rules are a fantastic starting place. They summarize how other writers go about creating works that people actually want to read.

If a new author a) understands that they need to learn and b) have a way of learning that doesn't involve rules, good for them.

 

[Steerpike]

 

[Jabrosky]

Guy,

The problem is, and I've seen this repeated over and over with new author after new author, people just starting out typically think they know a lot more about writing than they actually do. They think, "Hey, I was good in HS English. I know how to write." They then put out the most horrible, unreadable dreck and actually think that it is as good as what professional authors are doing.

I fell into this trap myself. I thought my stuff was a lot better than it actually was. I look back now at the stuff I was producing just a year ago and find it to be unreadable dreck.

So, take someone who wants to be a writer. He reads a lot of fiction and says, "Okay, I want to write like my favorite author."

He produces what he thinks is something similar to what his favorite author would write, but, in actuality, what he's produced is complete unreadable dreck. The worst part is that he probably never even realizes how bad it is. He publishes the book, and no one ever buys it.

Learning the rules at least gets him in the frame of mind where he can start advancing his skill.

There are of course basic grammar and spelling rules that we must almost always adhere to, and it's unfortunately the case that a lot of inexperienced writers these days don't know even those. I wouldn't say those are the avid readers who want to emulate their favorite authors though. Instead they're the kids whose reading experience is limited to cruddy online fan-fiction and are writing only for attention from other kids on the Internet. If they read more properly edited books, they would know what good fiction looks like and have a better source for emulation.

 

[Amanita]

The rules of grammar and spelling have to be known before anyone can hope to write a readable novel of course. You also need a feeling for language which is gained through reading many different works, through writing practice and through literary analysis in school as well. If someone's good at those, he or she will be able to figure out why someone else's story works or doesn't work, which tools the author uses to get his story told etc.
There also are some rules about plot and story structure which should be observed. The ending should be well-rounded and connected to the rest of the story for example, something where many books and movies have disappointed me. Pacing is important as well. This used to be one of my weakest points. I recently found an entire chapter of 5000 words which could be summed up as: "The train journey went smoothly."
I don't believe in rules about stylistic choices such as "adverbs or no adverbs", "tight writing or flowery descriptions" etc. This depends on the story, the genre, the intended audience etc. Barely anyone seems to mind the adverbs in Harry Potter for example and I doubt the book would really have gained too much if she had replaced them. Surely not in sales numbers.
When I see a list of rules by some author, I take a curious look, remember what I think works for me and ignore the rest. I don't think there is a formula to write a successful book and if there were, why would published authors want to share it? More competition.
Books surely can be written depending only on a set of rules and will probably sell if they hit some trend but they're more likely to be of the shallow, mass-produced kind. A really good book needs more than that. Tolkien for example had his knowledge about linguistics for a foundation and his experiences from WW1 to give some realism to the scenes dealing with war, injury and death even though it's never been made explicit.
I think believing that published authors are all excellent and therefore everything they say needs to be adhered to is wrong. I've come across lots of published "dreck" which would have been torn to shreds on the Showcase but still seemed to sell. Luck, knowing the right people and ofcourse perseverance and the courage to take one's writing out in the first place seem to be the main difference.

 

[BWFoster78]

There are of course basic grammar and spelling rules that we must almost always adhere to, and it's unfortunately the case that a lot of inexperienced writers these days don't know even those. I wouldn't say those are the avid readers who want to emulate their favorite authors though. Instead they're the kids whose reading experience is limited to cruddy online fan-fiction and are writing only for attention from other kids on the Internet. If they read more properly edited books, they would know what good fiction looks like and have a better source for emulation.

Maybe others are just better than me at reading something and, absent other stimulus, figuring out how to reproduce it. Now that I've got a few years of hard study under my belt, I find myself gaining some ability to do this. When I started out, and I'm not talking about fan-fiction here, I had zero ability to get anything out of reading other than entertainment.

For me, it took learning rules about how to write for me to understand how those writers captured my interest. Oh, that guy used tension to capture my interest there. That author made me care about the protagonist by... On the flip side, I found that piece dreadfully boring because...

If you don't have the foundation of knowing what you're "supposed" to do, how do you ever determine what another writer actually did?

 

[Steerpike]

If you don't have the foundation of knowing what you're "supposed" to do, how do you ever determine what another writer actually did?

Of course, books and rules of writing etc., are relatively recent. How did writers figure it out before them? By reading.

 

[Ravana]

Of course, books and rules of writing etc., are relatively recent. How did writers figure it out before them? By reading.

Recent relative to what? The Iliad? I own style manuals more than a century old. Twain's essay dates from 1895. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism is from 1711. Sidney's An Apology for Poetry from 1595. Aristotle's Poetics and Rhetoric… yeah, like that.

I agree, the proliferation of such books is a fairly recent phenomenon… but their existence is nothing new. It's just that far more people have realized there's a quick buck to be made writing them.

That having been said: read first. Definitely. And last. And often. And re-read. Without that, I can't imagine any number of guides and self-help books profiting the aspiring author.

why would published authors want to share it?

'Cause a lot of them are editors, too, and wish they didn't have to put up with the drivel they see day in, day out.

analysis

^ This.

"School" notwithstanding. As with manuals, the teacher is only a guide, pointing out those things you should be attending to if you wish to understand and master the craft. You can do without; guidance facilitates the process. Think of "rules lists" as "lecture notes" instead and see if they feel any different.

If you can't analyze, however you learn to do so, you'll never be able to tell the differences–and similarities–between your writing and that of those you wish to emulate.

How many times would someone have to read Gormenghast before he could produce a piece that felt, that read, the same way, Steerpike… if he couldn't identify what it is about Peake's writing that makes it what it is? No, there's no book of instructions that would allow this, no list, no recipe, nor even any combination thereof; but the consideration of such guideposts in relation to the text might. They would certainly ease the task. Some people absorb elements of style from reading more readily than others, to be sure… but I can't imagine anyone not being able to look at the recommendations of another accomplished author and derive something of use from it.

Writing guidelines can't teach you how to write. They can teach you how someone else has, when taken in consideration alongside that other's writing, so that you can try to do something similar yourself. That's their principal value, and correct means of employment, in my view.

I fell into this trap myself. I thought my stuff was a lot better than it actually was. I look back now at the stuff I was producing just a year ago and find it to be unreadable dreck.

Didn't we all?

 

[Guy]

Guy,

The problem is, and I've seen this repeated over and over with new author after new author, people just starting out typically think they know a lot more about writing than they actually do. They think, "Hey, I was good in HS English. I know how to write." They then put out the most horrible, unreadable dreck and actually think that it is as good as what professional authors are doing.

This is an oversimplification - just because I'm not a fan of rules doesn't mean I think writing fiction is easy.

I fell into this trap myself. I thought my stuff was a lot better than it actually was. I look back now at the stuff I was producing just a year ago and find it to be unreadable dreck.

Which is true of just about every writer. Even those who followed lists of rules.

So, take someone who wants to be a writer. He reads a lot of fiction and says, "Okay, I want to write like my favorite author."

He produces what he thinks is something similar to what his favorite author would write, but, in actuality, what he's produced is complete unreadable dreck. The worst part is that he probably never even realizes how bad it is. He publishes the book, and no one ever buys it.

Again, an oversimplification. Seeing how other authors have done it is merely a starting point. A lot of writers have started out copying their favorite authors, looked at their writing and saw they were just a cheap imitation of whoever they were copying, then started making changes until they were no longer an imitation. That's how they developed their own voice and style.

I look at these lists of rules and sometimes I see something that makes sense. Other times I see things that I just totally disagree with. Two examples are the rules against adverbs and description. I see no reason not to use a part of speech, and as a reader I have no problem with them popping up in a story. As a reader, I want to know what a character looks like. I love the descriptions James Silke wrote in his sword and sorcery books. They did a perfect job of putting me in his world, and I can't imagine why an author would not want to do that for the reader. Louis L'amour gave wonderful descriptions of landscapes. He put the reader in the old west. Even though I've never been on a cattle drive or ridden the lonely canyons of Utah, I feel like I have after reading one of his stories. The feeling I'm left with is not that I've read about the event or place, but that I was actually there. I have to stop and remember, "Oh, wait. I didn't really do that." That's the experience I want to give the reader. This is done through description. So I know the rule of avoiding description is wrong, at least for the types of stories I like to read and the ones I want to write. Judging from the adverbs and descriptions I see in published works - often by people well known in the genre - there are a lot of authors and readers who feel the same way. So when I see a rule that says never use adverbs or avoid description, I know it's b.s. One of Bisson's rules was to have no fights in a short story. Apparently Robert E. Howard and Louis L'amour never got that memo, because both of them have published an awful lot of short stories, and almost all of them (if not all of them) had fights. L'amour is still one of the top selling authors in the Western genre even though he's been dead for 26 years. I think it's safe to say he knew what he was doing. He knew what kind of story he wanted to tell, and he knew his audience and the kinds of stories they liked. So, again, this tells me Bisson's rule is wrong. There are times when it is good to have a fight in your story. It depends on a number of factors. Readers of westerns or sword and sorcery want fights.

The problem of having all these lists of rules is that a beginning writer finds them and thinks, "All right, if I follow these rules I'll have a good story. After all, that's what this author did." He follows them and ends up with dreck, but he doesn't know it's dreck. People tell him it's dreck, but he thinks, "It can't possibly be dreck. I followed all the rules." See how that can work? Any approach can be oversimplified, and the results are the same.

You learn to write pretty much the way you learn any other skill - by screwing up a lot.

Like I said earlier, the right answer is whatever works. If following a list of rules works for you then, by all means, have at it.

 

[Philip Overby]

I do think a major issue is this idea that one's writing is never good enough because it's not ________ or it doesn't follow rule _____. I've reached the point where I'm comfortable with where I'm at as a writer. Does that mean I don't want to improve? No. It just means I have my style that I like and I understand some people won't like it. I developed my style more from reading and writing than I have from reading lists of rules or writing books. Although I have learned methods I like, I adapt them to work for me. Again, I believe there's too much focus on every person loving your writing rather than completing work and putting it out in the world for people to enjoy or hate.

This doesn't mean I've soured on craft, it's just I see so many writers never pull the trigger because they want everything to be perfect. It will never be perfect. When you read it one year from now you'll say, "I wish I would have changed _____."

The best way to learn is to fail. There is only one chance to make a good first impression, so do all your failures behind doors. Once you fail at writing a number of times, you'll hit the one story that makes you go "Hey, this is great." That's when you're ready to share with the world. But again, there will be people that hate it. So it goes.

 

[Feo Takahari]

On the whole "rules" thing: what if it's NOT your story? When I edit for other writers, I make a variety of suggestions for improvement. In some specific cases, I look at a sentence that does not have an adverb, and I think that it would read better with an adverb in it, so that's what I suggest. It's not a matter of attachment to my story, because it's not my story--I'm just going with what sounds best to me, even if it's against "the rules."

 

[BWFoster78]

Guy,

Other times I see things that I just totally disagree with. Two examples are the rules against adverbs and description. I see no reason not to use a part of speech, and as a reader I have no problem with them popping up in a story.

This is the main attitude that I find so perplexing.

Instead of reading a widely stated rule like the ones you mentioned (contrasted against what some random writer posted on a blog somewhere) and thinking about how you disagree with it, why don't you seek to understand why so many people are telling you not to do it? To me, it just seems slightly ridiculous to say, "Hey, I know a bunch of professional editors and writers are adamant that you should..., but I, as a new writer, I think... so I'm just going to ignore their advice."

All most of us are saying is that you should first seek to understand fully the reasoning behind a "rule." After gaining an understanding of what benefit the rule grants you and what pitfalls not following the rule conveys, you can make an intelligent decision as to whether it is or is not worth adhering to the rule.

The problem of having all these lists of rules is that a beginning writer finds them and thinks, "All right, if I follow these rules I'll have a good story. After all, that's what this author did." He follows them and ends up with dreck, but he doesn't know it's dreck. People tell him it's dreck, but he thinks, "It can't possibly be dreck. I followed all the rules."

The difference I've spotted is:

Self published authors who try to follow the rules tend to produce readable dreck.

Self published authors who make no attempt to follow the rules tend to produce unreadable dreck.

Granted, they both produce works that have no value, but at least a reader can get through the first set to tell them how bad the story sucked.

 

[Steerpike]

Who says Guy (or anyone else) doesn't understand the reasoning? One problem is misuse of the word "rule." If what you have is a concept that you want someone to understand and then follow or not follow as they see fit based on that understanding, that's not a "rule." Another problem is that most, if not all, of the rules posted by people are empirically false. If you tell someone to never use adverbs, and they've just read ten published books by professional authors that all include adverbs at some point, then your "rule" looks like nonsense to them.

People who want to expound on rules of writing would go further toward achieving their goal if they stopped pretending they've found the one true path and get away from the word "rule."

 

[Ankari]

Rules are lazy. Instead of rules, they should be called "focals", and read like this: Understand active versus passive writing. Understand why active writing is generally considered stronger, except in the case when it isn't.

Understand adverbs and why they are generally avoided unless when necessary.

Understand Showing and Telling. Each has their merits, but only if used properly. (Showing is the current favorite of most authors.)

(The list continues)

No one has the responsibility to teach all new authors these focal points. I fear that is the reason why "rules" exist. It's easier to condense considerable explanation into a short statement.

 

[BWFoster78]

People who want to expound on rules of writing would go further toward achieving their goal if they stopped pretending they've found the one true path and get away from the word "rule."

Steerpike,

On one hand, I get your point.

On the other hand, I can't help but think that, if one refuses to take good advice just because they disagree with the presentation of that advice, that's their problem. It's like you're saying this:

Author comes across a great idea that could help others and so posts it on his blog as a new rule. You advocate responding by saying, "Sorry, I completely reject your advice because you called it a rule."

Seems to me that, if the advice really is helpful, that you're hurting yourself a lot more than you're hurting the blogger. Truthfully, that attitude comes across to me as kinda silly.

 

[Steerpike]

On the other hand, I can't help but think that, if one refuses to take good advice just because they disagree with the presentation of that advice, that's their problem.

Except I never said this. You may wish to pretend I said it, or that others advocate it, to further your point, but it's just not the case.

What it appears to me is that you want to be able to cite rules to writers without having them questioned or without having to provide any rationale for citing them (in fact, when I have previously suggested that a person providing a critique needs to think about what they're reading, whether a given rule is appropriate, and use some rationale in deciding whether or not to cite a rule, you objected to that idea).

Blind parroting of rules-that-aren't-rules to beginning writers doesn't do them an ounce of good.

 

[Steerpike]

No one has the responsibility to teach all new authors these focal points. I fear that is the reason why "rules" exist. It's easier to condense considerable explanation into a short statement.

That's the reason they exist. The problem is, neither the people who parrot them nor some percentage of the people who receive them appear to understand that they're a short-hand for everything you mentioned.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Instead of rules, they should be called "focals"....

Recently, I've taken to referring to these as "techniques" or "methods" where I used to say rules. For me, in my writing they are rules because I adhere to them with rare exception.

However, when discussing someone else's art it seems more appropriate when asked for advice to say something like, "Here's a technique I use". It may seem silly to some but, as writers, we know words are important. A technique can be experimented with, used, or discarded. A rule must be followed.

We talk about about adverbs a lot here. I'm a proponent of limited adverb use, if not outright exclusion. However, that's an INDIVIDUAL RULE that leads to MY STYLE. It's a technique for anyone asking for my advice. Anyone who has used me as a critique partner (there are a few in this thread) understands I don't review another's work under the microscope of my personal writing rules (that wasn't always my way). Now, I'd never outline another writer's adverb usage unless it was a major problem.

For example, if the adverb usage was overwhelming and verbose, say one in every thirty or so words, I would point it out. Or, if there was an extreme dependence on telling and not enough showing because the writing is heavily adverbial, I'd point that out as a place to consider for improvement. Even then, I try to be clear I'm offering suggestions based off my experience & those suggestions are merely offerings for experimentation. They aren't some "one true way".

Most of my more experienced writing partners don't need that kind of attention though. They have developed a set of their own rules, techniques they employ & methods which work well for their art. They are different than mine & the product differs as a result. Thank god for that....