## Metadata - Author: [[Lea Page]] - Full Title: My Top Ten Rules for Writing - Category: #articles - Summary: Lea Page shares ten essential writing rules to improve storytelling. She emphasizes the importance of clear language, meaningful details, and engaging dialogue. Page encourages writers to connect with readers and thoughtfully revise their work. - URL: https://brevity.wordpress.com/2024/09/10/ten-rules/ ## Full Document [](https://brevity.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/lea-page.jpeg) **[#1](https://brevity.wordpress.com/tag/1/). “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”** ~Elmore Leonard Leonard’s rule rules. Writing that sounds like writing—where the writer tries to grab the reader with a display of superior skills—yanks the reader’s attention away from the story. It’s the equivalent of saying “Look at me! Look at me!” Let the reader lose themselves in what you’re writing about. They can admire you later. **[#2](https://brevity.wordpress.com/tag/2/). “Be brief and tell us everything.”** ~Charles Simic Simic is a poet, so there’s that, but prose writers should aim for precision and clarity, too. It allows us, as Leonard also said, to skip writing the parts that readers skim. The key to this—and pretty much everything else that’s good in the world—is in the details. **[#3](https://brevity.wordpress.com/tag/3/). But not just any details.** The right details tell a story of their own, while the wrong details clog the flow. We are instructed to add sensory details—yes, but only if they are meaningful. Don’t tell me the corridor is yellow unless that yellow stands for more than a paint color. Don’t tell me what your grandfather smells like unless it shows me how you feel about him. Don’t tell me the minutiae of how you get to work unless the clip of your high heels on the tarmac creates more than just noise. Telling details are double agents—always doing more than one job. **#4. Clear and simple language is beautiful**. Somewhere, a well-meaning teacher told their students to use more vibrant verbs. Yes, but also no. Word choice will not dial up urgency, tension, or emotional heft. If it isn’t interesting when said plainly, it isn’t interesting. Word choice is for precision. If there is a simpler word, use it. **[#5](https://brevity.wordpress.com/tag/5/). Setting = emotion.** In real life, it’s a sign of healthy maturity to name our emotions. In writing, this falls flat. The goal is not for the reader to *know* what a character feels but to *feel* what the character feels. “I felt angry” or “he was happy” is tidy, a closed system, no question or mystery for the reader. Dialing up the words—“I’m enraged” or “he was exuberant”—is not the answer, either. That just gives us a more intense closed system. Describing where in the body a character experiences emotion can work, but the risk of cliché—a clenched jaw, a knot in the stomach—is high. Projection, not ideal in relationships, is essential in writing. Setting is a useful screen (just don’t make it too big). A description of setting orients the reader in space, but it reflects so much more: the tone of an entire piece, and, if done through a character’s point of view, their internal state. A two-fer of sorts, saying more with less, and another opportunity to use telling details. **[#6](https://brevity.wordpress.com/tag/6/). Dialogue = character.** Dialogue reveals character. *How* and *why* a character says something is more important than *what* they say. Relatability comes from specificity. If a generic mother would say those words, don’t include them. If only *your* mother would say them, BINGO. That’s what we want to hear. **#7. Your first sentence matters more than any other.** They all matter, of course, but we read the second sentence because the first one compelled us to. Same with the third and fourth and so on until the last. That first sentence is your opportunity to say, “Stay with me.” A reader might give you another chance if you blow your first one, but they might not. Rhythm, voice, something unexpected. Immediacy, a small mystery, a perfect detail! There are countless good ways to begin, but they are all hooks. Pull out ten or twenty of your favorite books or stories and read the first sentence to see successful examples. Make sure yours does the job. If it sounds like writing, you know what to do. **#8. First drafts are a sacred conversation with yourself. The rest are for the reader.** The first draft is you saying “yes” to possibility—a leap of faith into… yourself, actually. Regardless of where you hope or expect the piece to end up, this beginning is 100% for you, to be written without a care. Subsequent drafts, however, are for the reader. Not that you should dumb things down or cater to whatever is hot at the moment, but if you want your writing to be read, you will need to invite the reader in. Do we all have a story to tell? Probably. Do we all deserve to be heard? Certainly—by friends and family. But the rest—all those readers out there—are under no obligation to give us a single minute of their attention. Make it worth their precious time. Build that relationship in the writing. It’s a conversation, even when you’re the one doing all the talking. If you haven’t asked yourself how you are connecting to the reader, you’re not on your final draft yet. **[#9](https://brevity.wordpress.com/tag/9/). Being able to laugh about some aspect of the writing is a good sign that you have a healthy detachment from a piece, especially if it’s about a difficult experience or topic.** This has nothing to do with toxic positivity—none of that “laugh it off” or “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” or “cancer is a gift” pablum. Trauma isn’t funny or cheerful. Humor is about accepting the fullness of truth. It is pure witness. **#10. Rules are for co-existing.** Don’t break them for the sake of breaking something. Do it because you have better ones. These rules, like dialogue, are revelatory of *my* character. You may reject some or all of them. If you do, I hope you work out exactly *why*. Make an argument for all the ways I have it wrong—I only ask that you do it with telling details. My goal is not to make you agree with me, but to encourage you to be *clear* about your own choices. Sometimes it helps to have something or someone to push against. Let’s do that: have that conversation, that argument, even, and then we can have a laugh. \_\_ **Lea Page’s** work, nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart prizes, has appeared in *The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Threepenny Review, The Rumpus*, and *River Teeth*, among others. She is the author of *[Parenting in the Here and Now](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1782501649/brevitynonfic-20)* (Floris Books, 2015). **Tagged:** [healthy detachment](https://brevity.wordpress.com/tag/healthy-detachment/), [setting is emotion](https://brevity.wordpress.com/tag/setting-is-emotion/), [telling details](https://brevity.wordpress.com/tag/telling-details/)