The Rules

Want to try them?

Jan 24, 2024

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I’m still riffing off of those Dean Wesley Smith posts I keep mentioning. In one set he talks about Heinlein’s Rules. They’re business habits, rules for a career as a professional 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 until sold.

Many, many people talk about Heinlein’s Rules. Lots of controversy surround them, in particular over Rule 3. Do we want to touch on all that? ‘Cause I’d rather not. What I want to do is just give the rules a try.

So what does this mean?

You must write.

It means I gotta write.1 Do you write every day? I don’t write every day. I can go months without writing anything new. I’m probably revising something else while not writing something new, but as I (and Dean) interpret these rules, that’s not the same as writing. And, boy, would I love to do more writing.

So what does this mean in practice? Well, I’m revising something right now: the sloppy pantsed project I mentioned last week that I love (which is good, because revising, for me, is becoming more and more of a slog of a process). I want to keep going on that, so for now, for me, you must write just means: Write anything that’s written in scene.2

To get myself started, I picked up The 3 A.M. Epiphany,3 opened to the first exercise, hoping to just write anything so long as it was in scene, but I ended up drafting the first scene of another project that’s been percolating in the basement. About 600 words. I like 2000 better, but that’s not the point. I wrote. Despite having another project with priority going on. That’s a win. Plus this new project is a project that people have been asking for. Win, again.

And I still had plenty of time to work on the project I’m revising. Win, win, win.

But the next day I had a dilemma. Do I do the next exercise in The 3 A.M. Epiphany, or do I keep going with yesterday’s scene? In other words, do I keep this you must write business low pressure or do I do something “important” on top of my “important” revision.

For me, the answer eventually, thankfully, became banana4: Keep going with the scene, but also keep it low pressure. And while you’re at it, keep the revision low pressure.

This insight was not at all obvious for me until after I read something unrelated (and skippable) that gave me the aha moment: Keep writing by keeping it fun. To do that, keep it low pressure. Keep it nothing serious going on here.

But also do the thing that calls you.

So I kept going with the pipeline project. The pipeline project is fun. And even if I only write 500 words a day, that’s more than I was writing before—and that’ll be a 90,000-word draft in six months. Win, win, win.

But on the third day, I ran into some research issues—as in, I needed to do some. Do I keep going, just writing whatever? Or do I stop and research? Or do I just skip it altogether and keep going with the revision?

You must finish.

Despite what the forgoing suggests, finishing per se isn’t one of my problems. But I would like to finish faster. A lot, lot faster.

To that end, I’ve got at least one thing going for me: I’ve been at this a while. I’m pretty good at craft. And, as mentioned in the last post, I now realize that I should—and can—trust my craft.

I now see the craft as just tools, and not as the magic of the story-making process itself.

My process used to be outline, write, revise, because I thought I had to use my tools. But tools can be picked up or not. If I find a simpler, more effective way to do something that doesn’t require pulling out certain tools, I can leave them in the toolbox. They’ll still be there for me should I need them.

So my tools are still at hand, but maybe I don’t need to do a whole outline before I write. Maybe instead of outlining, I can just keep tabs of where I’m at in the story, and if I get stuck at, say, the 30% mark (judged both by word count and by what came before), maybe I can just call up my knowledge of plot and structure and remind myself, oh yeah, that’s where Pinch Points often happen. And maybe when I’m drafting, I can slow down a bit, just enough to make sure that I’m not writing just to reach an arbitrary word count, that I’m not writing crap I’ll have to clean up later. And maybe I can run the craft checklist in my head after I’m done writing but before I sign off for the day. Did I ground the reader in the setting? Check. Ooh, I intro’d a new character. Did I describe him and introduce him doing a characteristic thing? Hey, check that out, I did! Did I end the scene on a hook? Nope, but if I delete this last sentence, now I have.

My hard-earned tools are still at hand, but maybe I can change how I use them.

So with that in mind, what did I do about my write-or-research dilemma?

I stopped writing, picked out a research book to read before bed that night, and then kept going with the revision. The book I picked for research didn’t give me the fodder I needed to keep writing the next day either, so… I was suddenly back to just not writing. C'est la vie.

Could I have instead shifted gears and written something unrelated? Apparently not. I considered it, consulted the 3 A.M. Epiphany for inspo and everything, but it was a slog. Fun is part of the secret of flow. Which is part of the secret of fast. So I chose not to write just to say I did. I settled for having shown up.

But. I am here, telling you about all of this. In doing so I’m not writing in scene, but I am writing something new. And I’m gonna push publish. I’m counting that as a win. And I’ll keep looking for hacks to get new in-scene writing done most days despite the need to do research, plus life and revisions going on. (A writing challenge might be the ticket.)

You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.

To revise or not to revise? This is probably the biggest bugaboo people have about Heinlein’s Rules.

To me, there’s no controversy. If your draft needs work, you should fix it. Or abandon it, I suppose that’s an option. But if a project needs work, give it work.

But if you’re taking forever to revise, as I tend to, you’re probably not writing new. And isn’t there eventually a point of diminishing returns? It’s a business. At what point am I more likely to have more success by letting one project go to market and starting another with its own chance of going to market? How much of this is a numbers game? And how much does fun play into success? Because, and I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a lot, and to me, the fun is in the surprising stuff that flies from my fingers when I’m writing, less so—and becoming more and more less so all the time—in the revising and rewriting. And from what I hear, enjoyable writing is highly correlated with enjoyable reading.

So while I’m changing the process to finishing faster, can I also change the process to write better?

Since I’m probably going over yesterday’s writing to get a jumpstart on today’s anyway, can’t I just tidy up anything that needs tidying? Cut anything that rambles. Rephrase anything that could be more accurate? Add detail to anything that’s begging for it?

But more than that, maybe when I realize I just wrote something pretty good that means I’ll have to change something I’ve already written, could I maybe just go back right then and change it while it’s fresh in my mind instead of making notes I’ll have to decipher and execute later. Because that takes way longer.

So following this rule, for me, doesn’t mean that I won’t rewrite or revise, it’s just that I’ll try doing it differently. I’ll do it more as I go. And I’ll do it with an eye for what’s already working and not for what must suck because this is just a first draft.

I no longer want to revise for the sake of revising. So I won’t be approaching my drafts with the attitude that they must be broken. I will look for what works—what doesn’t will still stand out.

Of course this is easier said than done when I’m already in the revision trenches with a project written under the influence of a different mindset, but one can always set intentions for next time.

You must put it on the market . . . and keep it there until sold.

Lots and growing numbers of options for applying these last two rules. And Dean Wesley Smith’s posts have gotten me interested in short stories. I’d been thinking that that’s where I would take my low-pressure writing sessions, but then the pipeline project pushed through… although, then it stalled again, so maybe I should reconsider those short stories. Which is to say I’m still figuring out how to regularly apply these last two rules. As I see it, I’ve gotta get some momentum going on the first three before these last two come into play.

But if the pipeline project needs more than 24 hours to percolate the next scene, I’d love to get into the mindset of using those days to turn toward short stories. Apparently there’s lots of shipping opportunities for short stories.

So that’s that.

So I don’t know about you, but I’m going to lean into Heinlein’s Rules. I’m going to keep showing up to write new stuff—but I’m going to stay open to how I can use my tools in new, more efficient ways. I’m going to trust the craft. And I’m going to trust it while I’m writing, not just while prewriting and revising.

And this all just gave me an idea that jived with something I’m already doing that could, maybe, become a thing. Don’t have much more to say on it yet, but maybe by next week I will.

And about those short stories. Anyone up for a writing challenge?

See you next week.

Thank you for reading!

I hope your writing goes well this week.

Keep at it,
Megan

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