This Is For Writers Yet To Be

You Can Get Away With Breaking All Of The Other Rules At Least Once In A While, But You Can't Get Away With Breaking This One. Readers Will Accept Almost Anything From You If You Don't Make Them Feel They Have Wasted Their Time And Money. Remember, You Can Bore Readers In A Lot Of Different Ways. It Doesn't Necessarily Take A Dearth Of Action; Too Much Action Can Get You The Same Result. Everything In Writing, Like In Life, Requires Balance.

I Didn't Want Readers To Have To Make Allowances For What They Couldn't See, But To Be Able To Say To Themselves That The Fabric Of The Magic Detailed Was Perfectly Believable.

The Reader Wants To See Something Happen Between Pages One And Four Hundred, And Nothing Happens If The Characters Don't Change.

I Remember One Winter, When I Was About Five Or Six, I Spent Three Days With Another Boy, Tracking A Bobcat That Had Been Sighted In Another County Fifty Miles Away, But Which I Was Sure Had Come Into Our Neighborhood.

The Muse Whispers To You When She Chooses, And You Can't Tell Her To Come Back Later, Because You Quickly Learn In This Business That She Might Not Come Back At All.