Curiosity ~ Lucidity ~ Humanity
Jean Siméon Chardin - The Young Schoolmistress
Circa 1736 (color corrected 2026)
My mother taught me most of what I know about writing by the time I was about twelve years old. Events seem to have proved she knew what she was doing: I’m now fifty novels into my career and still going. But twelve years old? I’m sensing your disbelief. So let’s go back to fifth grade.
I had the same teacher and most of the same classmates fifth through eighth grade. We had our own little library in the classroom and every afternoon began with a silent fifteen-minute reading period where we sat at our desks and read books from the library. I liked adventure stories, especially if pirates were involved. I mention this because on Friday afternoons we had an hour or so to write whatever we wanted. I wrote adventure stories. I brought them home. Mom would read them.
Of the reams of semi-coherent and illegible content I produced during that time I remember only one sentence: “The archaic telephone jangled shrilly in the murky tropical night.” That was followed by four or five pages of incomprehensible derring-do in the Amazon jungle, to which I’d been no closer than the Franklin Park Zoo. Mom would look at that opening sentence and say, “Is ‘archaic’ exactly the right word here?” No, it’s just agonizingly close. She would never tell me the right one. I had to figure it out, but more important develop a feel for right and wrong in prose. Her method was Socratic. (‘Antiquated’ is the word, btw.)
And then: “’Jangled shrilly.’ Doesn’t ‘jangled’ mean ‘shrilly?’” “Yes, Mom.” So out went ‘shrilly’. Adverbs are weak. Verbs are strong. You won’t find many adverbs in my work.
Nor did she like connecting words—however, nevertheless, to be sure. Sentences should connect through the force of the ideas in them. If you find yourself using a lot of connecting words go back and rethink your idea. Among all the words I’ve written I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s not a single however.
I could go on but instead I’ve summarized at least some of her beliefs below, with commentary by me. Coda: She died young, when her talent was just being recognized, and long before I had the idea for my first novel.
Enid's Laws
If the story isn’t organized, what have you got? A mess. To be organized, you must make some big decisions from the get-go, such as: What’s the POV? One character? Multi? Tell it in first person? Third? How about the tense? Tone? I’ve got a nice beginning but will it lead to an end? Getting stuck without an end is bad. Make sure an ending is possible, and “the world blows up” doesn’t count. There are maybe 10,000 decisions in writing a novel. Accept that.
Just like high school or college wrestling (meaning real wrestling). It’s much more fun to watch a back-and-forth match than a blowout.
Or, flipping it the other way, don’t fall in love with your characters. And the main character—perhaps hero, perhaps not—needs to be tested.
Get everything you can from your ideas—don’t leave the gold mine only partly dug. But stop before you do anything that makes the reader feel your behind-the-scenes presence and think that terrible thought: That couldn’t happen. Warning: pushing things as far as you can end up pushing you, the writer, out of your comfort zone and into new territory. Worth the risk? You be the judge. Alps and alps arise, as Pope wrote. And he would know.
Sometimes when you’re writing you’ll come up with a lovely little passage, a description of sagebrush at sunset, say, and a white dove gliding low. Does it move the story forward? No? Then out it goes. Shoot that dove! Is there one right word that will do the work of three? Banish that flabby trio. Sometimes you don’t need words at all!
On every page! In every paragraph! No boilerplate! Ever! On the other hand, dropping in the very occasional cliché can be very powerful if the reader is accustomed to their rarity in your work.
You can be playful and dark in the same story. (Look around you.)