The Five Writing Rules Fiction Writing Has Taught Me

1. Shitty First Drafts Are Okay
I owe this lesson to Anne Lamott and her excellent chapter on the subject in Bird By Bird. I used to think I was the only person on the world who got frustrated with my perceived poor quality of writing when I read my first draft. "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts," she says. "You need to start somewhere." The way she goes in-depth to explain how she fixes up her bad first drafts is incredibly helpful.

2. Research
Research is more important than I used to think. Thanks to our discussion board activity on the subject, I learned that research strengthens even those stories that are completely fictional. It's something that I'm going to take much more seriously now. After all: How can you describe something accurately if you're only basing it on your own guesses? It's like telling someone how bad a movie you've never seen is. Eventually they'll be able to tell by your lack of concrete knowledge about the film that you're just making crap up.

3. Let's Talk About Dialogue
This was from both Bird By Bird and Writing Fiction's chapter 8, Call Me Ishamel. Dialogue is a refined art that takes poise and understanding of the english language to master. It's not just about nailing out the way people talk in real life 100% accurately. In fact, Lamott says that good dialogue is good when the author knows what not to print out. If fictional stories all contained dialogue fashioned after the way people speak in real life, reading would be much more difficult and repetitive.

4. Character Construction
Another great use of dialogue is the way it can really form and strengthen who you want your character to be (as shown in Writing Fiction's "Building Character" chapter. Everything about the way you create your character is important. There can be significance in anything from the way he parts his hair to his fashion choice to his name. We learned that in week one when we talked about our names and why we were given them.

5. Someone to Read My Drafts
One of the final chapters in Bird By Bird is called "Someone to Read Your Drafts" and it's about finding a person who can give you honest and helpful critiques on your writing. It was very powerful for me because I am mostly left to my own devices for my writing and I realized that I need to find someone who can help me out in this regard. I would have my mom do it but then I would subconsciously think 'do I really want my mother reading this?' every time things got dark in one of my pieces. Oh well... I guess I just have to keep looking and continue my journey; in life and in writing.