Five Simple Rules for Better Writing by Josh Stallings

 Q: What are the ten most important things you’ve learned in your time as a writer? Both useful and useless?

RULE #1 This is a business. Don’t spend hundreds of dollars to sell a few copies of your book. 

Two weeks ago I drove 1,300 miles to Austin Texas to read at Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar where Scott Montgomery was hosting a Noir At The Bar event. I sold three copies, two to my niece. On a ledger sheet this made no sense. Clearly I’m no good at following rules, even my own. 

Intangible value added facts: Scott was the first book store person to push my writing, he turned Book People into my best selling venue. Over the years he has become a good friend. Also, my sister, nieces and nephews live in Texas. 

Best of all it was an opportunity for a road trip with my son Jared. We ate brisket burritos, Egyptian brisket, brisket and eggs. Driving across the west Texas wasteland at dusk a storm spit lightning bolts that stayed aloft long enough for us to really study them. Gallon sized raindrops exploded across the truck’s windshield. In a distant oil field, flames gave the horizon a hellish vibe. Before the reading we had an early dinner at “Old Thousand” where surrounded by family I had one of the finest Chinese meals of my life.      

It turned out to be a trip I didn’t know I needed, but I did. To cadge a phrase from Ted Lasso’s Dani Rojas, writing is life. So don’t forget to enjoy it.

RULE #1 AMENDED. Yes it’s a business, a long game brand building business. You never know if a person crossing your path might be the one holding your brass ring, or at least might invite you to an Egyptian BBQ food truck.  

RULE #2. Nope, not falling for that old trap. In the words of Dr Venkman: “I make it a rule never to get involved with possessed people. Actually, it's more of a guideline than a rule.” 

Guideline #2 Don't believe anyone who tells you the rules of writing fiction. Also don’t not believe them either. The hubris of thinking you know everything you need to about writing will inevitably lead to a poorly written draft. Sometimes you have to write a bad draft to get to the good one, but you don’t have to do it on purpose, unless you do, then bluster forward. 

I walk point on my writing journey. I am responsible for keeping the story safe, and sometimes that means trying things that feel silly. If a suggested change doesn’t make it better, I delete it. As a film editor I made the mistake more than once of showing a bad cut to a client hoping to prove it was a bad idea. They loved it and I had to see the bad cut go to finish. In books I am the client and the creator. Instead of showing a bad chapter, I assume the editor or agent or beta reader is smart or I wouldn’t be working with them, so I sometimes forget the note they gave and dig in to discover what and where the real problem is.

Guideline #3. My work can always be better, so I keep trying to make it better. Knowing this, I also need to know when to stop. Hit send. And take what I learned into the next book. I try to look at my writing in sections that I can put together later on a bookshelf. I will not judge myself by one book but by the ultimate body of work. 

Guideline #4. Marketing, by the time a book is out I’m already deep into my next book. My new obsession is all I really want to talk about. The book I should be talking about feels old and dusty. But not to readers. To them it’s a brand new shiny tale. Three years after finishing TRICKY, I’m in a packed room in the Idyllwild Library talking with book club members who are speaking enthusiastically about my work. I refuse to kill that buzz. Before going to book events I look through the published books, read over a few reviews (good ones only) and remember when that book was all I could think about. I remind myself these events aren’t about me, they’re about the readers. This way I come out of these talks feeling optimistic.

Guideline #5. Don’t yuck anyone’s yum. This is vital in both a writer’s life and life in general. 

Someone says, “I love carrot cake.” 

“What? Fucking vegetables for dessert? Yuck.” Is one way to go. Or “Nice. Triple chocolate fudge ice cream cake is my jam.” Might be a better response, if you don’t want folks to think you’re a dick.

Taste is personal. I am not the arbitrator of which books suck and which are brilliant. Putting down successful authors doesn't make me edgy or cool. Social media has convinced us that we need to “like” or “not like” everything with no real discourse on why and zero care for how it makes others feel. A world where we prove how smart we are by bagging on each other for misspelling or bad punctuation in a tweet, (or is than now an X?), instead of looking for the content of each other’s words we scream YOU USED TOO MANY COMMAS.

If we want to be perceived as peevish whiners, so be it. Buuut, from a sales point of view, telling a reader that they have bad taste will not endear you to them or make them want to run out and buy your latest tome.

I need to amend this, we have also lost the art of actual critiques. When I’m on a call with a fellow writer, say Thomas Pluck, we will delve into what works and doesn’t work in books we are reading. This week I compared the two books Jared and I listened to on our road trip, James McBride’s Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, and Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies. Both are brilliant, both flawlessly written, both deal with racism in America. Ultimately what I needed to talk about was how they left me feeling. 

Heaven and Earth Grocery Store had me crying ugly tears as I drove through the Texas hill country, and yet the take away was one of hope. McBride’s personal alchemy is in finding the beauty in a hard world and the humanity in criminals and damaged folks. No pollyanna, he doesn’t shy away from the fact that there are evil motherfuckers out there. He makes no excuses for racists or abusers. But in the end, bad things happen to bad people and good things to good people. A cynic may say that is not how the world works, but I wouldn’t.  

Small Mercies had me crying as we crossed back into California. It didn’t give me hope, and it shouldn’t. It is an honest look at what hate does to a woman, a family, a neighborhood, our country. It does deliver an adrenaline pumping ending. It is victorious, and damned if it didn’t feel righteous. And this is where it gets personal, hope isn’t a necessary element for any book. But it is something I seek. If you’ve read my books you’ll know I look for a shard of sunshine even in the bleakest of times. 

I’m glad I read Lehane’s Small Mercies back to back with James McBride’s Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, they taught me something about myself as a writer and a human.

The last GUIDELINE, Write, write, rewrite, keep going. Every day you can find evidence that a seventy-five year old man sold his debut novel, that James Lee Burke had over 100 rejections before he was published, or that Raymond Chandler wasn’t published until he was in his fifties. Or you can find evidence that whoever you are and whatever you’re writing isn’t what they’re looking for. If the latter makes you angry and gets you typing, go with it. If the former gives you hope and gets you typing, go with it. Just get typing.