The Always Inspiring Barbara Kingsolver

Question: I just watched a PBS documentary about you, in which you mentioned your "ten rules for writing fiction," but only explained two of them. Would you mind divulging the other eight? No doubt the show's editors cut them without realizing that aspiring writers would hyperventilate at their omission. (Gasp!)

Answer: Okay, slow down and breathe into a paper bag. I'll answer the question, but remember that things are never really so simple as they seem on TV. In that documentary I spoke of taking a class from Francine Prose in which I learned "about ten basic rules for writing fiction." Well, I exaggerated. From Francine I remember learning three specific, helpful things that might qualify as rules. They were:

Your first sentence (or paragraph) makes a promise that the rest of the story (or novel) will keep.

Give your reader a reason to turn every page.

Keep a very large trash can beside your desk.

I follow these faithfully, though I've updated the wastebasket to a recycling box. Now, lest anyone turn blue, I'll offer up a few more things I've figured out over the years which might qualify as rules. Maybe there will be ten. We'll see.

Show, don't tell. Everybody knows this rule, and most of us still break it in every first draft. Be ruthless. Throw out the interior monologue.

Be relentlessly descriptive. Use details from every sense you own.

Set your scenes in places you know well. Otherwise, your details will be bogus.

Know what your theme is. If you can't express what you intend to get across in a concrete sentence or two (or for a novel, a few paragraphs), do you really think anyone else is going to get it? Write it out for yourself, point blank. Then toss it, and return to your story with a better sense of direction.

Write with nobody looking over your shoulder. After your book's published, you can worry about whether the subject is commercial, how your mother will like the steamy sex scenes, etc. But while you're writing, your only worthy concern is defining your particular passion and giving it a voice.

Revise, revise, revise, revise. Fill up that recycling box. A first draft is a work of construction; the seventh one is the work of an artist.

Don't wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.

I could easily keep going here, but I'd better get back to work. Meanwhile, breathe deeply and kill your television.

Here's another take on that last point: