Think of an interesting story you will enjoy telling.

Make a plan for your story and mend the plan as you go.

Have at least one likeable character.

Villains can be likeable.

Each character needs a distinct voice.

Characters should learn.

Build characters, not worlds.

Your characters will build the world.

Be kind to your characters.

Avoid lazy words.

Set up scenes in advance. Put people and things in place before they are needed.

If you need a stout rope and a pot of boiling lead, put them in place before you need them. Come ready for your own scene.

Give your reader something to do besides just read your story: give her a puzzle to solve, or invite her to ask a question or to have an opinion about something.

Spend time on research, and accumulate a research library built with real books. Put the library in your office surrounding your desk.

Get a dictionary. You will need to do some hunting to find a good one. Mine is a Webster’s New International Second Edition from 1938. Dictionaries have personalities. Find one that feels right to you.

Get a Rodale’s.

Get a Jane Straus Blue Book even if you think you don’t need it.

Get a dictionary of lost words and a dictionary of etymology.

Read, a lot, but only for pleasure. Do not waste time reading anything else.

Read stories published before the popular internet came along (roughly 1994), and stories published after. Which do you like more?

To this reader, stories published in the age of the internet seem anxious.

Write every day, when your mind is fresh. Mostly that means early morning. Get up, get your coffee, go to your office, get to work.

Get your sleep, eat right, get some exercise, get a little sun. Do not neglect family and friends.

Don’t get too concerned about being a writer. Instead, do your research, make your plan, and let your characters tell your story for you.

Do not pay attention to book blurbs. Do not be scintillating. If you become scintillating, it is a condition.

Try cutting out adverbs.

Be aware of the Bechdel test. Look it up, if you don’t know what it is. Consider how your story might be improved if you applied Bechdel.

White writers: don’t use words that provoke or denigrate people of color. It is unfortunate that this has to be said.

Read stories to children.

Ride the bus sometimes and listen to the people.

— EAB