“Seven rules for writing fiction”: Joyce Carol Oates

Several GITS readers emailed me about a great series The Guardian ran recently: Ten Rules For Writing Fiction. Today we feature Joyce Carol Oates:

1 Don’t try to anticipate an “ideal reader” — there may be one, but he/she is reading someone else.

2 Don’t try to anticipate an “ideal reader” — except for yourself perhaps, sometime in the future.

3 Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

4 Unless you are writing something very avant-garde — all gnarled, snarled and “obscure” — be alert for possibilities of paragraphing.

5 Unless you are writing something very post-modernist — self-conscious, self-reflexive and “provocative” — be alert for possibilities of using plain familiar words in place of polysyllabic “big” words.

6 Keep in mind Oscar Wilde: “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”

7 Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

Anything on the list here today that catches your eye, gives you inspiration, or causes you to rethink your approach to writing?

Tomorrow I’ll feature a different writer from The Guardian series and their rules on writing.