Writing is an activity with many rules. Some are imposed upon the writer by the conventions of spelling and grammar; others are self-imposed, and arise from observation and experience. The rules below fall into this latter category, and I try to keep them in mind whenever I’m working on a new composition.

1) Write as clearly as you can. Don’t give your readers a hard time with obscure or unpronounceable words, vague descriptions and convoluted sentences. Say what you mean to say, and give the readers enough information for them to picture the scene and follow the action.

2) Write first, edit later. The important thing is to tell the story. If you spend all your time trying to perfect the first scene or the first line, you’ll never get the thing finished. Accept that the first draft will be rough, and press on. You can fix it up later.

3) Show, don’t tell. This rule wins no prizes for originality; it’s one of the most common pieces of advice given to new writers; and yet, it’s still one of the most vital. Too many explanatory sentences can leave a scene flat. Encoding the information in action and dialogue allows the readers to infer it for themselves. For instance, in this scene taken from my short story The Bigger The Star, The Faster It Burns, Natalie is worried about her friend Ed, and Alejandro is becoming impatient with her, but rather than state either of those facts outright, I communicate them through the things characters say and do:

“I feel kind of bad about Ed,” she says. “I shouldn’t have left him like that.”

Alejandro rubs a sleepy palm across his face. Although bare-chested, he’s still wearing his jeans, and his hair’s flattened on one side, damp with sweat.

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” he says. “You have me now.” He lights a cigarette from the pack on the bedside table. Natalie sits up and hugs her knees.

“Do you think he’ll be all right?” There are steel drums playing in the street. She gets up and pulls back the net curtain, looks down at the crowd. She says: “It was just a stupid argument.”

Her shoes are lying on the floor by the door. In the orange half-light, Alejandro holds the cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger. He takes a small, tight drag and curses in Portuguese.

“Come to bed,” he says.

4) Use small details to suggest the bigger picture. Describing each and every character and setting in meticulous detail isn’t always possible, or desirable, and to do so will severely hamper the pace of the story you are trying to tell. Better to pick a few telling details which suggest the rest – as in this example, also taken from The Bigger The Star, The Faster It Burns, in which we first meet Natalie and I use half a dozen small details to give you the sense of her as a whole person.

Ed stops at a lonely roadside café on a hot autumn night. He drums his fingers on the counter.

“Hey, how about a coffee?” he says. It’s late and he’s the only customer. The waitress comes over. She’s eighteen or nineteen, with long hair and black eyeliner.

“I’m waiting for the water to heat up,” she says. She’s got a black t-shirt and there’s a biro behind her right ear. She looks over Ed’s shoulder. “Is that your car?”

He turns in his seat. He’s left the Dodge across two handicapped spaces in the empty car park.

“Isn’t it a beauty?” he says.

She looks at the sweeping tailfins and scratches her chin. There’s dried egg on her sleeve.

“It looks old,” she says. “Is it American?”

5) Make use of all five senses. Our senses have a powerful connection to our memories and imaginations, and invoking them can really bring a scene to life in the reader’s mind. In this following excerpt, where Ed is taking photographs of a crashed spaceship, I have italicised the sensory descriptions:

It’s midnight. Ed opens his door and climbs out, camera in hand. He can smell the heather. He walks over to the nearest fragment. The metal’s smooth and warm to the touch. With a dry mouth and sweaty palms, he starts snapping; knowing the pictures he’s taking will make his reputation.

Back in the car, Natalie lights a cigarette. She puts her feet up on the dashboard and lets her long hair fall over the back of the seat. She knows there are armed helicopters patrolling the main crash site to the north. But here in the valley, all she can hear is the click of Ed’s camera in the hot night air.

Of course, there are exceptions to all these rules. What do you think? Do you have any hard and fast writing rules? Please feel free to join the discussion.

All our myths are attempts to address three questions:

1. Where did we come from?
2. How do we behave now we’re here?
3. Where are we going?

Science fiction concerns itself mainly with the third question (and you could argue that the other two are the purview of religion and mainstream literature, respectively). Bearing all this in mind, here are seven things I’ve learned about writing:

1. Some days, writing is like scrabbling around in a dark pool looking for pretty stones.
2. If you want people to read your story, write about people.
3. You will be remembered for what you write, not what you fail to write.
4. If a reader has to put your book down and use a dictionary to look up the meaning of the clever word you’ve used, they may not come back.
5. Stuck for inspiration? Stop thinking about it. Have a bath. Go for a walk. Clean the car. Distract yourself and inspiration will strike.
6. Want to be a more productive writer? Give up caffiene and quit smoking. Seriously. Both are counter-productive distractions.
7. The only thing more terrifying than beginning to write, is not to write at all.

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

These rules appeared in the 1947 essay “On the Writing of Speculative Fiction” by Robert A. Heinlein and I agree with all of them save for number three. I tend to find my first drafts fairly ragged. The magic happens in the rewrites. I would hate to send a first draft out to market. But, based on my own experience, I think we can interpret this rule as:

“When a professional editor tells you to change a story, do so.”

After all, the editor probably has a far greater understanding of what sells in his particular market. Don’t be precious. If they ask you to change something, they almost certainly have a very good reason for the request.