Zadie Smith’s 10 rules for writing
In 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules For Writing, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s greatest pens and asked them to share their rules for the craft.
Of all the responses, Zadie Smith’s is my favorite.
If you don’t know Zadie, she’s a critically acclaimed British novelist and essayist with witty, intelligent, and deeply observant prose. Her debut novel, White Teeth, published when she was only 24 years old, was an immediate hit. Since then, she’s published a number of successful fiction and non-fiction works and happens to teach creative writing at NYU, so if anyone knows a thing or two about writing, it’s her.
Zadie’s rules combine philosophy, poetry, and practicality, turning a how-to guide into a manifesto for approaching writing as both an art and a discipline.
This list you’re about to read is one I return to often, and I recommend you do the same.
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This is Zadie typing
1. When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
2. When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
3. Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation.’ You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle.’ All that matters is what you leave on the page.
4. Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
5. Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
6. Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
7. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.
8. Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
9. Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
10. Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand — but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.
For more tips on crafting and piecing together better sentences, check out this post and this one.