Marc Levy’s Writing Rules

Here’s a useful set of writing rules courtesy French author Marc Levy. After an initial stroke of luck in 1999 with his first book (Dreamworks nabbed the film rights, allowing Levy to quit his day job and write full time), he’s since had quite a bit more success—thirteen novels in print to the worldwide tune of 27 million total books issued across 45 languages. Not. Bad.

I admit I haven’t yet read any of Mr. Levy’s work, but with a track record like his, I suspect he might have gleaned some insight into the process. So, I pondered his rules, found them to be sound, and thought I’d share.

Note: I originally found these in this post on the Writer Unboxed site—please click through and check out the other interesting and helpful articles contained there!

The Rules of Writing by Marc Levy

• Stop trying so hard to find a subject. Let your subject come to you and relish in it! Remember—writing is one of the rare jobs where you can stare at a palm tree for two hours and pass it off as work. This doesn’t mean, however, that you should choose your activities arbitrarily. There is a saying: “Writing comes from writing.” What does this mean, exactly? If you want to write brilliantly, you should make it a habit to read. Don’t watch television, unless your goal is to write the script for the next episode of CSI. Reading often leads to writing. Newspapers are a great resource. They tell stories that come from real life, but are often even more difficult to believe than fiction. I can’t tell you how many of my books were inspired by stories I had read in theNew York Times.

• Writing is about people. The first goal of writing a novel is bringing an imaginary character to life. (Exceptions to this rule include nonfiction and biographies.) People are not one-dimensional. Each of your characters should have their own psychology and voice—if you succeed in giving them a proper set of attributes, a reader would be able to understand the dialogue between characters even if the dialogue tags of “said John” (or Peter, or Emma) were removed.Streets, cafés, buses, subway cars are filled with people. Observe them. Listen to them. Note their behavior. Then, perform a bit of surgery. (No blood involved, I promise.) Grab a piece here, another there, and reassemble. If you are waiting in line at the DMV or post office (where there are always long lines), it’s a fun way to pass the time. Try to imagine why the woman next to you has tried to reread the same page in her book for the past hour, why the boy behind her looks so nervous, or why the guy in back is mumbling to himself while texting. Everyone around you has a story. Imagine, for example, how they would react if something unusual were to happen where you are. Even if they have nothing in common, with your imagination, they might all just share a moment as characters in the same story.

• Don’t show too much, don’t tell too much. What is not said can be as important as what is said; sometimes, it can say even more. Remember that, in real life, silence can prove more powerful than a lot ofblah, blah, blah. Don’t show too much by trying to make your book into a series of images—you are not a movie producer. Describing the main character’s bedroom can be telling and also captivating, but not if it takes three full pages of unnecessary detail. Most of the time, one detail is enough to infer several more. For example, if you say that the carpet in a room hasn’t been changed for 25 years, the reader can probably deduce that the wall hasn’t been painted recently either. The same concept applies to people. One tiny detail can reveal a lot about a character and give plenty of freedom for the reader to imagine the character as he or she wants. This is all to say, don’t use too many words when a few are enough to say what you want.

• Dialogues are conversations. They are not poetry, nor are they beautiful feats of language that no one would say in real life. A dialogue is a conversation between characters, not a tool for writers to impress their readers. Dialogues should also reflect their time period. Two women having dinner at the restaurant in the 1930s would probably not ask the waiter if their vinaigrette was low-carb. Likewise, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton would probably not speak to each other in modern slang.

• Don’t be afraid of writer’s block. It’s a part of the job. But when you really feel stuck, just try to imagine what might happen next in your story if a few very simple things were to occur…Perhaps the refrigerator breaks, or a woman who has been married for twenty years suddenly tells her husband she wants to have passionate sex, or a young girl suddenly develops a crush on her waiter in the middle of dinner. Play some scenarios out, just to get your mind flowing. Just try to imagine—it comes before writing. Don’t forget to tell a story. Things have to happen, or it will be very boring.

• Have fun. Finding the right word, shortening sentences, expressing your ideas can be quite painful, but the greatest gift of writing is the freedom it gives you: the freedom to be with the characters you have created, in places you have chosen to lead them. Enjoy the journey if you want your readers to enjoy it, too. The safekeeper of this freedom is, in my opinion, humility. Look at what you write, and never look at yourself while writing. The moment you step back and look at yourself as an author instead of focusing on the writing itself, you lose this freedom. You must be willing to dive wholeheartedly into the imagination, where truth meets fiction, and in your writing, you must be as discreet and invisible as a puppeteer.

• There are no rules. The last rule, which is the most important rule of all, is that there are no rules. If there were a few simple steps to great writing, everyone would have figured it out by now, and the job would be very boring. Everyone is different. Be yourself, and invent a few of your own rules.

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