Rob Chilson

WRITING: SOME HINTS ON HOW 2
from Rob Chilson

FIRST, read a thousand books and stories. Never stop reading.

How To Start

The seat of the pants method: apply the seat of your pants to the seat of a chair and start writing.

Robert A. Heinlein's Three Plots:

Boy meets girl
Little Tailor
One who learns better
Here's an addition to Heinlein's 3 plots: the gimmick story [Biter bit, etc.]

Also see 20 MASTER PLOTS And How to Build Them, by Ronald Tobias, Writer's Digest Books, 1993

Heinlein's Rules for Becoming a Writer:

You must write
You must finish what you start
You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order*
You must put it on the market
You must keep it on the market till it sells

*Rule 3 is endlessly misunderstood to mean no rewriting. Not so. Heinlein is saying that when you have finished writing [Rule 2], including all rewrites, stop fiddling with it -- send it out.

Beginning the Short Story:

Chilson's 3 rules for page 1:

Grab the reader by the nose (use a punchy opening line)
Shoot the sheriff on the first page (start the story at once)
Put ground beneath the reader's feet: who what when where (the "why" is usually your story)

[Henry Kuttner's dictum: first get your man up a tree -- then throw rocks at him.]
In a novel, the same three rules apply, but don't have to be done on the first page.

Random Thoughts from Uncle Rob, for beginners:

Write the story -- then cut off the beginning and the end
Cut everything by ten percent
Kill the ones you love (words & phrases & really neat stuff)
Write as clearly as you can; that is style
Learn from everyone; imitate no one. (If you can't manage that, imitate everyone.)
First, master the Craft; the Art will come
If your protagonist cries, your reader probably will not

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