I’m on the road at the Romantic Times convention this week so I asked the wise and noble James Scott Bell if he’d fill in for me.

He graciously accepted. Thanks Jim!

10 Commandments for Writers

When I first started to teach writing in the late 90s, I jotted down what I thought should be the 10 Commandments for Writers. I looked at it again recently and thought, You know what? It still holds up.

I’ve tweaked them a little bit, but they remain essentially the same. Here they are:

1. Thou Shalt write a certain number of words every week

This is the first, and greatest, commandment. If you write to a quota and hold yourself to it, sooner than you think you’ll have a full length novel. (I used to advocate a daily quota, but I changed it to weekly because inevitably you miss days, or life intrudes, and you can run yourself down. I also take one day off a week.) So set a weekly quota, divide it by days, and if you miss one day make it up on the others.

2. Thou Shalt write passionate first drafts

Don’t edit yourself heavily during your first drafts. The writing of it is partly an act of discovering your story, even if you outline. Your plot and characters may want to make twists and turns you didn’t plan. Let them go! Follow along and record what happens. I edit my previous day’s work and then move on. At 20k words I “step back” to see if I have a solid foundation, shore it up if I don’t, then move on to the end.

3. Thou Shalt make trouble for thy Lead

The engine of a good story is fueled by the threat to the Lead character. Keep turning up the heat. Make things harder. Simple three act structure: Get your Lead up a tree, throw things at him, get him down.

4. Thou Shalt put a stronger opposing force in the Lead’s way

The opposition character must be stronger than the Lead. More power, more experience, more resources. Otherwise the reader won’t worry. You want them to worry. Hitchcock always said the strength of his movies came from the strength and cunning of the villains. But note the opposition doesn’t have to be a “bad guy.” Think of Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive.

5. Thou Shalt get thy story running from the first paragraph

Start with a character, in a situation of change or threat or challenge, and grip the reader from the start. This is the opening “disturbance” and that’s what readers respond to immediately. It doesn’t have to be something “big.” Anything that sends a ripple through the “ordinary world.”

6. Thou Shalt create surprises

Avoid the predictable! Always make a list of several avenues your scenes and story might take, then choose something that makes sense but also surprises the reader.

7. Thou Shalt make everything contribute to the story

Don’t go off on tangents that don’t have anything to do with the characters and what they want in the story. Stay as direct as a laser beam.

(JSB: This one seems self-evident now, but at the time I was seeing manuscripts with scenes written for their style, not their substance. Another way to put this is the old advice to be ready to “kill your darlings.”)

8. Thou Shalt cut out all the dull parts

Be ruthless in revision. Cut out anything that slows the story down. No trouble, tension or conflict is dull. At the very least, something tense inside a character.

9. Thou Shalt develop Rhino skin

Don’t take rejection or criticism personally. Learn from criticism and move on. Perseverance is the golden key to a writing career.

10. Thou Shalt never stop learning, growing and writing for the rest of thy life

Writing is growth. We learn about ourselves, we discover more about life, we use our creativity, we gain insights. At the same time, we study. Brain surgeons keep up on the journals, why should writers think they don’t need to stay up on the craft? If I learn just one thing that helps me as a writer, it’s worth it.

Now, I’m not Moses, and this post is not a tablet of stone. But these “commands” have worked for me over the years. I commend them to your service.

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JAMES SCOTT BELL is the author of the #1 bestseller for writers, Plot & Structure, and numerous thrillers, including Don’t Leave Me, Try Dying and Watch Your Back.

He was the winner of the first Christy Award (suspense category) and has been a finalist two other times. Under the pen name K. Bennett, he is also the author of the Mallory Caine zombie legal thriller series, which begins with Pay Me in Flesh.

He served as the fiction columnist for Writer’s Digest magazine and has written highly popular craft books for Writer’s Digest Books, including: Revision & Self-Editing for Publication, The Art of War for Writers and Conflict & Suspense. His website is www.jamesscottbell.com.