Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

by Sol Stein

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR WRITERS 1. Thou shalt not sprinkle characters into a preconceived plot lest thou produce hackwork. In the beginning was the character, then the word, and from the character’s words is brought forth action. 2. Thou shalt imbue thy heroes with faults and thy villains with charm, for it is the faults of the hero that bring forth his life, just as the charm of the villain is the honey with which he lures the innocent. 3. Thy characters shall steal, kill, dishonor their parents, bear false witness, and covet their neighbor’s house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, and ass, for reader’s crave such actions and yawn when thy characters are meek, innocent, forgiving, and peaceable. 4. Thou shalt not saw the air with abstractions, for readers, like lovers, are attracted by particularity. 5. Thou shalt not mutter, whisper, blurt, bellow, or scream, for it is the words and not the characterization of the words that must carry their own decibels. 6. Thou shalt infect thy reader with anxiety, stress, and tension, for those conditions that he deplores in life he relishes in fiction. 7. Thy language shall be precise, clear, and bear the wings of angels, for anything less is the province of businessmen and academics and not of writers. 8. Thou shalt have no rest on the sabbath, for thy characters shall live in thy mind and memory now and forever. 9. Thou shalt not forget that dialogue is as a foreign tongue, a semblance of speech and not a record of it, a language in...