Heinlein's Rules have been discussed here before. They're still pretty hard to beat. Dean Wesley Smith's blog has some more background information on them (link below), and some further comments Heinlein made about them I hadn't seen before. The comments on this post are worth looking at too, especially the discussion about how a writer has to follow the way which works best for them, e.g. fast one drafter or slow rewriter.

Terry


http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=5245#comments

I'd never heard of them before, although they all make sense.

Although when he says 'don't rewrite except to editorial order', I would agree with some of the responses on the site that surely that doesn't apply to rewriting until it's good enough. Rewriting is an essential part of the craft and process, and you wouldn't send a first draft to anyone unless, as you say, you're the type of writer who writes slowly and tries to make sure it's perfect first time.

The one about keeping it on the market until it's sold is possibly harder to stick to. If everyone rejects it and nobody will buy it, what can you do? Self-publish and sell it yourself, I guess.

No, I don't think he means you send out something that's not finished and only rewrite it if an editor asks you to. If you did that, well, no editor would ask you to. But when you say 'rewriting is an essential part of the craft . . . ', you may be (I'm not sure) weighing in with the accepted but not necessarily universal wisdom. Many writers are in essence one-draft writers (as I think was mentioned in the comments on Dean's post), in the sense that they aim to hit it first time, do a bit of clean-up and fixing, then submit it.

Your second point is a complicated one, I think. If you're writing short stories, there are a lot of markets you can submit to. What any writer should do is draw a line he won't go below, e.g. pro and good semi-pro markets but nothing below that. I write mostly SF/Fantasy, and there are quite a few markets in those categories. Well, less for Fantasy; less again for Horror and very little for Crime and Romance.

This week I sold the first ever SF short story I wrote. I finished it in 2004, sent it out a couple of times then shelved it for a year or two. Since the end of 2006, I've kept it out there: it was rejected 15 times before selling. It's sold to a good semi-pro anthology. The first important thing in this is that I believe it is a good story; that it getting rejected was not a sign of it being no good. Part of the reason for it being rejected, I'm sure, is the fact it's 10,000 words, which is quite a bit more than the norm. Also, the subject matter for this anthology was tailor-made for the story.

I have another 38 stories out there and none of them yet have exhausted the possibilities within my pro/good semi-pro bracket. However, I'm about to try self-publishing, so will probably have to reassess my criteria. Dean's view is to try just the 3 or 4 top pro markets before self-publishing. At the moment, I don't completely agree with that: there are some very good semi-pro magazines which get good review coverage and have wide readerships. But it partly depends what you want. Dean looks at it mostly from the standpoint of what will bring in the most income; but someone else may also be interested in other factors.

Novels may be trickier, of course. For a start, you can mass-submit unlike with short fiction, so you can find out sooner, I guess, if there isn't a lot of interest. On the other hand, editors change, publisher's requirements change, etc.

Terry

Well, you've inspired me to dig out some picture book manuscripts that I got a good reaction to a few years ago (one was actually optioned by a publisher, then rejected on the grounds that they couldn't find the 'right' illustrator; another received very favourable comments with the rejection. I must admit, after a handful of rejections, I put them aside. Now I think I'll throw them out again until there's nobody left who hasn't seen them!

By the way, I'm one of those who does a long, rambly first draft as my way of getting the story straight in my head. I suppose it's a form of planning - albeit a time-consuming one - but I then consider the second draft to be the first 'proper' one, and hence the one that I don't mind people reading.

These are business rules, not craft guides, and I reckon 90% or more wannabe authors fall down at rule no 1. And another 9.9% at no.2.
But I think too many authors who fulfil the first two fail in the industry because of rule 3. Most first drafts are rubbish. The wannabe author who can't see what's wrong with 300 pages of, 'He tossed his dark curls imperiously as he strode furiously from the doorway of the manor house, his anger quivering in the air like his whip,' will stay on the slush pile, however many publishers he hounds. Rule 3 - learn how to edit your own work would open more doors, I think.

Again, I think you're showing a bit of prejudice in saying 'most first drafts are rubbish'. If you're a many-drafts writer, yes; but a lot of writers are one-or-thereabouts drafters. Me included. Which doesn't mean there isn't preparation: I just do a lot of it in my head before writing and make lots of plot notes and outlines (even if I rarely follow them exactly in the actual writing); although sometimes I do just take off. I think you're right where all new writers are concerned: everyone has to go through a period of writing lots of crap drafts before hitting the balance between credible structure and spontaneity. But after that, it's different ways for different writers. Personally, I would give up writing if I had to write say an entire novel knowing I'm going to have to re-write it several times afterwards. It would kill my creativity.

I think what Rule 3 means is, get your story right before you send it out. Then, you only rewrite it for an editor who's going to pay you for it. You don't rewrite on the basis of what a rejecting editor might say about it. I've found you have to sometimes make a judgement call with this one, in that these days it seems quite a few editors will ask you to rewrite on a kind of promise: but you're not always totally sure how strong that promise is. But I would for example be very resistant to rewriting according to what an agent said, because they're not the person paying for the book.

Terry

He tossed his dark curls imperiously as he strode furiously from the doorway of the manor house, his anger quivering in the air like his whip

Is it wrong that I would TOTALLY read that book?

[destroys credibility in an instant]

For interpretation of rule 3, I think it's a question of semantics and what you consider "written" in order to refrain from rewriting it.

Nobody but an idiot would insist that the first version of every sentence you write is the version you send out. For example, when typing a contentious email for business purposes, I routinely delete / rewrite sentences and paragraphs six or seven times in a row. I don't consider the email finished until I get to the end and read it through. By that time, it is relatively polished and the wordcount represents a tiny fraction of the number of words I typed in the first place.

Equally, the collection of ruminations, fragments, plot-points and scribbled jottings that comprise a first-draft for many of us are not what anybody sensible would call "written". It's just like stacking a pile of clay onto a potters wheel - all the ingredients are there, but it still won't hold your flowers. It is only when the shaped clay comes out of the kiln that it can truly be considered finished.

But, and this is key, there does have to come a point where you say "I have put as much effort into this as I want to. I will not make any further changes until somebody pays me to do so." That way, you can progress onto the next project with a clear conscience.
G

Terry, I'm not showing prejudice, I'm describing what I've come across having read hundreds of scripts by unpublished writers. The majority of slush pile books that will never get further haven't been worked on hard enough.

You may be a one-draft writer, but every post you make on here suggests you care passionately about craft and study, test and absorb it. The majority of writers don't. They don't have that polish, that, (pardon the pun on your name,) edge to their work. they don't pay enough attention to detail in draft one. Their first drafts are riddled with hackneyed phrases. I know this from having read for agents, publishers and many comps. Most scripts are rubbish and the key reason, given that the authors have fulfilled Heinlein's rules 1 & 2, is that they haven't taken enough care when writing. To finish a draft is rarely enough. It is very common among the writers I've worked with, for the first draft to contain the germ of a strong idea and the craft with which it's executed to fall way behind the story idea. Redrafting, learning the art of editing and the elements of craft and applying them in subsequent drafts is likely to help an unpublished writer far more than banging on new doors with old problems still unattended to in their writing.

Rule 3 sucks. It does a real disservice to the majority of writers. The rest is sage advice.

you care passionately about craft and study, test and absorb it. The majority of writers don't... they don't pay enough attention to detail in draft one.

It's certainly my experience of teaching for the OU that the BIG news of the whole course, for most of the students, is that rewriting (or re-drafting, or revising, or whatever you want to call it) is part of the process. They're used to perhaps a spot of planning, but after that writing something, checking the spelling, checking for the technical errors they've just been taught about, and counting it done. After all, that's what we all did at school and university.

Part of all assignments is a commentary in which they discuss (or they do by the time I've clipped them round the ear often enough) their process, including re-drafting. That's how I know that they need telling, and how I see them finding out how much better the piece gets when they do revise, especially when they manage time to set it aside for a while.

Occasionally a student says in their commentary, "It didn't seem to need much revising" and even more occasionally they were right: sometimes it clearly is that kind of work - the rare, lovely piece which just pours out of the pen. That's more common (though still rare) at the end of the course... and it's happened because of everything they've learnt and internalised and integrated, by re-examining and revising, inch by inch, their earlier work.

But it is invariably the extremely good and experienced students - the ones who are going to get distinctions and go on to MAs - who already have a lot of craft and technique at their fingertips, ready to come out when the lucky, perfect idea asks for it. They learnt that craft and technique by really working on their writing: looking at stuff and trying every which way to make it better. They also prepare and work their material before they start - which is another thing most aspiring writers don't know about (except in the dull sense of research) And even then there are always, always tightens and tweaks to do.

Gaius is right: what do we mean by "re-write" anyway?

If what's meant is "don't re-write a book that you've done everything possible to until the book's under contract", then I agree that it can be disastrous to re-write your entire novel on the basis of three sentences from an agent who hasn't taken you on, say. And again for the next agent.

But I fear, like Cherys, that too many would-be writers reading those rules will think that it means that what they do to their piece is enough: Write, check, send.

And they'll produce yet another piece to join the other 98% of the slushpile/competition entries: the stuff which just isn't good enough. And they'll never find out why it isn't good enough, or have a clue what to do about it.

Emma

There are plenty of writers on Authonomy who get to the Editors Desk, recieve their Editor's review, and then have absolutely no idea how to incorporate the advice they've been given.
The trouble with rules like no.3 is it gives these writers an excuse not to try - most are extremely rude to the poor editor who's done their review, and often take the easy route and self-publish or sign with an 'indie e-publisher' which is to all intents and purposes the same thing.

A lot of writers I've known go on to get picked up by main stream publishers achieved it because they DID take the advice they were given and redrafted/restructed the mss (as opposed to rewriting from scratch which is unecessary, and not what agents/editors are asking for) before resubmitting it as a stronger and more commercial proposition.


- NaomiM

It also rings alarm bells with me when writers say that they're frightened to revise too much, in case they "lose the freshness".

I've never seen a good writer say that, only weak ones.

Yes, it's true that when you're learning to write, it's possible to over-correct, tidy things up according to formal rules, lose sight of what you were originally trying to do with a scene.

But actors have to learn how to keep things fresh every night: if they were afraid to rehearse more in case they lost the spontaneity, they'd never rehearse enough to get the damn thing reliably right. Effectively, if you're not bored to tears with a piece, you haven't done enough work on it.

You have enough technique to get over that stage: to learn to make writing more fresh, not less, by working it. To work out your process so you hang on to your original vision, so it can go on controlling your revising as it controlled your first draft. And you'll only learn that, by doing it, and learn to see where you've spoilt it and how to un-spoil it.

I can feel a blog post coming on - thanks, Terry!

<Added>

oops!

You have to have enough technique to get over that stage: to learn to make writing more fresh, not less, by working it.

It also rings alarm bells with me when writers say that they're frightened to revise too much, in case they "lose the freshness".

Yes, another thing that's very annoying, is if you give a crit and instead of editing the section to correct the errors, the writer simply rewrites the whole scene from scratch, because invariably they've still got the same technical mistakes in it. Sure, if the scene is unnecessary then just dump it, but otherwise edit it, don't rewrite it.

Yes, another thing that's very annoying, is if you give a crit and instead of editing the section to correct the errors, the writer simply rewrites the whole scene from scratch, because invariably they've still got the same technical mistakes in it. Sure, if the scene is unnecessary then just dump it, but otherwise edit it, don't rewrite it.

Can't disagree more.

a) If a crit results in enough self-awareness to see that the piece itself is wrong, then rewriting will often make it stronger, punchier and more in line with "the vision."

b) Seeing a technical mistake highlighted in one piece is just as valuable as seeing it highlighted in another. Knowing how to correct the original is no more or less valid than applying that same knowledge to new writing.

c) Putting work up for crit is to test and experiment. You cannot know what the writer intended unless (and sometimes even if) they tell you. If you give an honest crit that shows the writer they have missed the mark, then that has to be considered a positive result, even if (as with a piece I read at a terrestrial group) it results in binning 20,000 words of a WIP.

Case in point; you critted a piece of mine where you reacted very negatively to a male character. That was fantastic from my POV as it showed where I had entirely misaligned my writing. There was no point trying to fix minor tech errors when what readers were seeing was so contrary to my intention.

G

ps: To be clear; these changes were at what I consider the "shaping" stage rather than the "finishing" stage. The MSS in question is unlikely to have more than a sentence or two changed until somebody takes an interest now.

Can't disagree more.

Somewhere between you two on this one, I think.

Sometimes someone pointing out a technical mistake makes you correct that slip, and it's dealt with. And, yes, if they don't understand the problem properly it could be that instead they re-write the scene, and make a similar mistake somewhere else; you conclude, irritatedly, that they've learnt nothing from your crit.

But sometimes working out how to correct it makes you realise that there's something more fundamental that's not working: the way you've set about the scene, say. I blogged about sorting out the macro of a piece before you tackle the micro, and a commenter said very sapiently that sometimes you only see that the whole wood's the wrong shape because you notice a single tree looking odd... So someone pointing out a PoV move that doesn't work might make you re-think the PoV structure of the whole thing: maybe the scene needs writing through a different pair of eyes, for example.

Hopefully, if you do use the crit to work out not just what's going wrong, but to check if there are wider implications for the story, your PoV-spotting-lens has been strengthened and at least you'll make similar slips less often. And perhaps you'll get more experience at getting PoV structure more right, more often, at the first try.

But fundamentally, if someone's not wired for learning from a critting set-up, then there's not a lot you can do about that.