First, break every rule you can think of. If you aren’t sure if something is correct or not, err to the side of whatever you think is incorrect. Rules are for people who need a structured meaning to their existence. Writers should be concerned with figuring out their own meaning, they needn’t worry about things like scholarly work or conventions of standard writing. Second, don’t concern yourself with things like plot, symbolism, or rising action. It is only when you concern yourself with it that you begin to hit people over the head with it. Let it happen on its own. Don’t rush anything. Don’t force anything that needn’t be forced. And don’t use words like “needn’t.” Third, as long as you write a how-to tutorial on the craft, people will assume you are somehow qualified to write such a tutorial and will no longer question your authority on the subject of writing. This, somehow, is helpful. Fourth, break any fluidity your writing might have once held by incorporating tangents about the Mesozoic period or obscure references to Norse Mythology. Fifth, it’s easier to make it to Valhalla without a sword than it is to get a literary agent to take you seriously. One word: freelance. Sixth, a vast majority of so-called “great writers” are brainless tools who will believe anything a literary criticism says. If the CLC says the glass window symbolized pain, it did. If the CLC said the work was an allegorical study of the United States’ foreign relations department, it was. |