The Undiscovered Country

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

Looks like I made it to another round of the contest – by the skin of my teeth, I’m sure.

For this round, I’m to answer the following question:

What is your number one rule for other writers? How has this influenced your own writing?

I read a lot, and I mean a lot of books on writing. Some I’ve read more than once. My bookshelves are full of them, and some are better than others (both bookshelves and books).

My top four (in no particular order):

1. Self Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Brown and Dave King
2. Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. And E.B. White
3. The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner
4. On Writing by Stephen King

The problem with reading so many books on writing – and this is especially frustrating for new writers – is some advice can be contradictory. There are so many factors involved, and writing is so darned subjective, each writer must decide for him/herself which advice to follow and which to ignore.

Because of writing’s subjectivity, I’ll bet your list of favorite writing books is different from mine. Part of it is due to you and me writing in different genres. For instance, you could write non-fiction, literary, or children’s books, while I concentrate mostly on adult sci-fi and fantasy.

All that said, however, there is one rule I try to keep in the back of my mind as I write.

It’s two simple sentences that I gleaned from On Writing by Stephen King. I read his book well over ten years ago, and although I forgot most everything else he wrote about, this little piece of advice stuck with me.

Ready?

It may be a bit paraphrased (because I’m too lazy to flip through hundreds of pages to find it):

“Never lie to your readers. They can always tell.”

It seems obvious, doesn’t it? Why would anyone lie to their readers? This is especially true for non-fiction. On the other hand, how does one not lie when writing fiction? Isn’t it by definition made up, or false?

Made up, yes. False? No.

So what does King mean, then?

Have you ever read a book when a character did something completely out of character, or the writer used Deus ex Machina (in case you don’t know, the phrase means “a person or thing that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty.” [per Mirriam-Webster.com]) either too many times, or in such a way as to make you go, “Impossible!” and throw the book across the room.

It’s happened to me more times than I can remember (in books, and in movies and television shows), and each time I felt a sense of betrayal. I had been lied to, and all because the writer either couldn’t find a better solution, or was too lazy to find one. It’s also the one thing I keep in the back of my mind as I write, and I suddenly find my characters in an impossible situation. I force myself to stop and think about how they’re going to get through it without making the characters do something they normally wouldn’t do, or bring in Deus ex Machina.

For instance, in a recent story, my protagonist tried to fight off an assassin. The assassin shot him, and at one point the protagonist lost his own weapon. I could have awoken another character that the assassin knocked unconscious, but that would have ignored biology – and that particular action has been done to the point of dull and unoriginal. He could have found another weapon nearby that wasn’t previously mentioned, or some other character could have simply walked in and reacted quickly enough to kill the assassin. Remembering King’s advice, I stopped and stared at that evil little cursor winking at me for at least ten minutes before I found a solution that worked, and seemed plausible.

By avoiding such writerly laziness (which is my biggest weakness other than coffee and chocolate), that particular scene ended up so much more interesting. At least I think it did . . .

I could give even more advice, such as read, read, read, read – and read some more, both in your chosen genre and out of it, both fiction and non-fiction. I could also tell you to not consider the old advice, “write about what you know,” and instead “write about what you want to know," but I won't – even though I just did.

All in all, it boils down to this:

Respect the reader.

We writers have chosen to study, weep, and bleed into a skill that is completely subjective, and our successes and failures are ultimately decided by our readers. If we don’t have the utmost respect for them, we may as well quit right now, because we will see nothing but frustration and heartbreak.

After all, while in many ways we write for ourselves, we strive to find as many readers as we can who will laugh, cry, hate, fall in love, and every emotion in between as much as we and our characters do. We can’t do that if we don’t respect them.