Writing Blog Number 2

20240423 Heinlein’s Rules for Publication

Heinlein’s Rules for Publication with Commentary by Robert J. Sawyer

Okay, this is taken from a newsletter by author Robert J. Sawyer [Copyright © 1996 by Robert J. Sawyer. All rights reserved.]. I first discovered Sawyer through the book Illegal Alien, then the Far-Seer trilogy… which had a strong first book and mediocre follow-ups. Still, his newsletter (mailed out to me from the USA, which means I got it like 4 weeks after it was sent) was something I received, and I transcribed it to the computer. In my search through my hard drives, I found this one and so thought I’d share.
         Sawyer’s commentary follows each rule, my additions are in italics.


There are countless rules for writing success, but the most famous ones, at least in the speculative-fiction field, are the five coined by the late, great Robert A. Heinlein.
         Heinlein used to say he had no qualms about giving away these rules, even though they explained how you could become his direct competitor, because he knew that almost no one would follow their advice.
         In my experience, that’s true: if you start off with a hundred people who say they want to be writers, you lose half of the remaining total after each rule -- fully half the people who hear each rule will fail to follow it.
         I’m going to share Heinlein’s five rules with you, plus add a sixth of my own.


Rule One: You Must Write
It sounds ridiculously obvious, doesn’t it? But it is a very difficult rule to apply. You can’t just talk about wanting to be a writer. You can’t simply take courses, or read up on the process of writing, or daydream about someday getting around to it. The only way to become a writer is to plant yourself in front of your keyboard and go to work.
         And don’t you dare complain that you don’t have the time to write. Real writers buy the time, if they can’t get it any other way. Take Toronto’s Terence M. Green, a high-school English teacher. His third novel, Shadow of Ashland, just came out from Tor. Terry takes every fifth year off from teaching without pay so that he can write; most writers I know have made similar sacrifices for their art.
         (Out of our hundred original aspirant writers, half will never get around to writing anything. That leaves us with fifty…)
         This is something I tell so many people – just put pen to paper, metaphorically or literally.


Rule Two: Finish What Your Start
You cannot learn how to write without seeing a piece through to its conclusion. Yes, the first few pages you churn out might be weak, and you may be tempted to toss them out. Don’t. Press on until you’re done. Once you have an overall draft, with a beginning, middle, and end, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to see what works and what doesn’t. And you’ll never master such things as plot, suspense, or character growth unless you actually construct an entire piece.
         On a related point: if you belong to a writers’ workshop, don’t let people critique your novel a chapter at a time. No one can properly judge a book by a piece lifted out of it at random, and you’ll end up with all sorts of pointless advice: “This part seems irrelevant.” “Well, no, actually, it’s very important a hundred pages from now…”
         (Of our fifty remaining potential writers, half will never finish anything -- leaving just twenty-five still in the running…)
         So many people give up because it’s “too hard” or they feel the story is not going anywhere. See it through; you never know how it is going to go until it’s all over.


Rule Three: You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
This is the one that got Heinlein in trouble with creative-writing teachers. Perhaps a more appropriate wording would have been, “Don’t tinker endlessly with your story.” You can spend forever modifying, revising, and polishing. There’s an old saying that stories are never finished, only abandoned -- learn to abandon yours.
         If you find your current revisions amount to restoring the work to the way it was at an earlier stage, then it’s time to push the baby out of the nest.
         And although many beginners don’t believe it, Heinlein is right: if your story is close to publishable, editors will tell you what you have to do to make it saleable. Some small-press magazines do this at length, but you’ll also get advice from Analog, Asimov’s, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
         (Of our remaining twenty-five writers, twelve will fiddle endlessly, and so are now out of the game. Twelve more will finally declare a piece complete. The twenty-fifth writer, the one who got chopped in half, is now desperately looking for his legs...)
         And Stephen King’s advice to actually stop editing at some point comes in here as well. But it is worth noting that very few in-house editors who look at work offer advice any longer because of the sheer number of submissions they receive. An external editor, however, is a good idea, or a good beta reader. Don’t trust yourself.


Rule Four: You Must Put Your Story on the Market
This is the hardest rule of all for beginners. You can’t simply declare yourself to be a professional writer. Rather, it’s a title that must be conferred upon you by those willing to pay money for your words. Until you actually show your work to an editor, you can live the fantasy that you’re every bit as good as Sean Williams (my change; the author he had here is “problematic.”) or William Gibson. But having to see if that fantasy has any grounding in reality is a very hard thing for most people to do.
         I know one Canadian aspirant writer who managed to delay for two years sending out his story because, he said, he didn’t have any American stamps for the self-addressed stamped envelope. This, despite the fact that he’d known dozens of people who went regularly to the States and could have gotten stamps for him, despite the fact that he could have driven across the border himself and picked up stamps, despite the fact that you don’t even really need US stamps -- you can use International Postal Reply Coupons instead, available at any large post office. [And those in Toronto can buy actual U.S. stamps at the First Toronto Post Office at 260 Adelaide Street South.] (How out of date is this?! But the premise still holds – finding that market and sending it off.)
         No, it wasn’t stamps he was lacking -- it was backbone. He was afraid to find out whether his prose was saleable. Don’t be a coward: send your story out.
         (Of our twelve writers left, half of them won’t work up the nerve to make a submission, leaving just six…)
         This is only applicable if you want to be a professional writer, I do understand that. Yes, some will just go the self-publishing route, and that’s their choice. This is for those aiming for traditional publication.


Rule Five: You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold
It’s a fact: work gets rejected all the time. Almost certainly your first submission will be rejected. Don’t let that stop you. I’ve currently got 142 rejection slips in my files; every professional writer I know has stacks of them (the prolific Canadian horror writer Edo van Belkom does a great talk at SF conventions called “Thriving on Rejection” in which he reads samples from the many he’s acquired over the years).
         If the rejection note contains advice you think is good, revise the story and send it out again. If not, then simply turn the story around: pop it in the mail, sending it to another market. Keep at it. My own record for the maximum number of submissions before selling a story is eighteen -- but the story did eventually find a good home. (And within days, I’d sold it again to a reprint-only anthology; getting a story in print the first time opens up whole new markets.)
         If your story is rejected, send it out that very same day to another market.
         (Still, of our six remaining writers, three will be so discouraged by that first rejection that they’ll give up writing for good. But three more will keep at it…)
         Firm believer here. My record is 24 rejections for a piece before acceptance. And I have collected over 500 rejections since 2012 (I did not submit in 2016-7); who knows how many before then, considering I started submitting in 1987? Not everything has sold, but many have.


Rule Six: Start Working on Something Else (Sawyer’s rule)
That’s my own rule. I’ve seen too many beginning writers labour for years over a single story or novel. As soon as you’ve finished one piece, start on another. Don’t wait for the first story to come back from the editor you’ve submitted it to; get to work on your next project. (And if you find you’re experiencing writer’s block on your current project, begin writing something new – a real writer can always write something.) You must produce a body of work to count yourself as a real working pro.
         Yep, always. I have between three and 10 items on the go at once.


Of our original hundred wannabe writers, only one or two will follow all six rules. The question is: will you be one of them? I hope so, because if you have at least a modicum of talent and if you live by these six rules, you will make it.
         Most definitely – these are what I follow. Is that the reason I’ve managed to sell a reasonable amount?

I hope you found this illuminating.