Metro — The 10 Rules of Write Club

Jun 10, 2015 Books

From time to time, Metro editor Simon Wilson gets asked to talk to groups of students or aspiring writers. This is a list version of what he tells them.

1. THERE IS NO WRITE CLUB

• It’s a solitary occupation.
“A writer is someone for whom writing is harder than it is for others.” – Thomas Mann.

• Write all the time.
“A writer is someone who writes, as opposed to someone who is going to write in the very near future.” – Louis Menand.

• Keep a notebook with you.

• Finish, leave it alone and come back to it later.

• Read every day.

• Write every day.
Don’t give up when nothing happens.

2. BE ENTERTAINING

• Be funny, and clever, and insightful.

• Tell a story.
Readers want to know the consequences of everything that happens. If you keep answering the question, “And then?”, you will tell a gripping story.

• Writing is about subtext.
Subtext is the meaning of things that is revealed by what happens, not what you tell the reader. Subtext delivers theme, and understanding it is power for the reader. (The Hunger Games is not about killing people. It’s about courage and honour and love and learning how to be a person you can be proud of.)

• Pretend you’re on TV.
Read it aloud. Listen to yourself. Would you switch channels?
All writing has the same rules: textbooks would be brilliant if they were written to be read on TV.

• Make it as good as you can.
Draft, revise, leave it, revise. Read it aloud. Revise.

3. OFFEND SOMEONE

• Free speech exists at the edge of things.
It’s meaningless if everyone just says harmless things. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Voltaire.

• Satire isn’t satire unless it attacks someone.
Offence is an air freshener.

• Have a moral code.
You can be as critical as you like of things that are wrong, provided you also have a sense of what’s right.
Satire isn’t the same thing as cynicism. Cynicism is corrosive, of you as well as of your subject, because cynics are merely people who complain about everything. Cynics are toddlers with better language skills.

4. CONSIDER YOURSELF A NOBLE BEAST

• Writers are noble because they speak truth to power.

• Writers are beasts because it’s not their job to be nice.
Writers are not their subject’s friend.

• Go easy on the defenceless.
Be fair: put criticism in perspective.
Be humane. Remember you are dealing with people’s livelihoods and values and good name.

5. THERE ARE NO RULES OF WRITE CLUB

• No one knows anything.
Film producers don’t know what movies will make money.
Writers don’t recognise their own best work. Know this about yourself.

• Formulas are death.
Fifth Gear is not Top Gear.

6. LEARN SOME FACTS

• Good facts give weight to opinion.
Tell them something they don’t know.
Knowing the facts helps save you from your own bigotry.

• Study your subject.
Look for the little things that tell you about the bigger things. The body language: the way they dress and move and sit and relate to people.
Use anecdotes to illuminate all that.

• Get the facts right: check everything.

7. KNOW YOUR READERS

• What is your purpose?
Do you want to persuade your readers to your view, or do you want to reinforce what they already think?
Do they want the truth, or do they want to feel good about themselves?
And what do you feel about that?

• Write to please yourself.
You’re writing for readers, not to impress yourself. But you have to like it too.

8. OPEN YOUR MIND

• Read the enemy.
Test your views against those of people you don’t agree with.
Open your mind, seek out what’s good in their thinking and enjoy their good writing.