METHOD TO THE MADNESS

This page is meant to offer a comprehensive list of tips and pointers towards workshopping creative text. The first batch of guidelines are derived from Sol Stein's Theories; the second from Dr. Jack Penha's Method Writing List. Both are excellent sources for reducing redundancies in narrative - and, although seemingly constrictive - work wonders for maintaing fluid prose. Naturally, there will arise situations where one might be inclined to ignore certain advice; but on the whole, these are words to live by.

Someone has to want something badly.
That somebody should be the main character.
A main character should want something important.
The main character may well want something very different from what the writer might want.
Start with character, not plot. What a main character wants, gets the plot going.
It is easier for a writer to write objectively about someone not like her/himself.
Writing is rewriting.
A protagonist needs an antagonist.
An antagonist need not be a villain.
An antagonist is most often a person.
It is often a good idea to have the antagonist be someone involved with the hero or heroine's life before the story began.
If a revision isn't for the better, it isn't necessary.
Concrete details make a character round.
The rules of craft enhance creativity.
When inventing a character, keep away from the present age of someone you know well.
Whenever you have a choice to make, consider all of the possibilities carefully.
The more possibilities you consider, the better the chance your writing has to be original.
Surprise creates suspense.
The best kind of surprise is an unexpected obstacle.
A summary is a synopsis, not a scene.
Readers are more interested in an active protagonist than in a passive one.
Narrate as much as you can through dialogue in fiction - as if you were writing a play or a movie.
Dialogue is not a verbatim transcript. Nor does it consist of well-structured sentences.
A reader wants something visual on every page.
The action of a scene is what the reader has been prepared to look forward to.
If a character is torn between two conflicting wants, suspense increases if the matter is not resolved immediately.
A writer orchestrates the emotions of his reader.
As a story continues, obstacles should be greater, not smaller.

Wherever possible, revise sentences to dumb verbs of being (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been) in favor of more active verbs.
I was kicked by that mule.
Ask: who kicks whom?
That mule kicked me.
Better yet: resee the entire sentence.
That damn mule tattooed my butt with his back feet.
Even consider revising the continuous tense (I was crossing the street when the bus hit me) to a tense without a verb of being (I had just reached the middle of the street when the bus hit me).
Verbals ending in '-ing' are not verbs; they are participles or gerunds; they cannot sustain sentences by themselves without real verbs. Thus, you cannot simply eliminate a verb of being and expect a sound sentence to result.
NO: I am going to the movies.
YES: I expect to see Citizen Kane tonight at the movies.
Do not casually refer to some vague 'you' in your writing. Probably, you mean 'I' or 'one' or 'people'; you certainly don't mean me!
INSTEAD OF: When night fell, you saw millions of stars,
TRY: When night fell, I saw millions of stars.
Avoid 'then', 'suddenly', 'started to', and 'begun to'.
It's = it is; its = possessive pronoun.
Possessive forms require apostrophes (The vampire's fangs pierced Mavis's succulent neck).
An author usually writes fiction in the past tense to persuade readers that the plot has happened.
An analyst usually writes in the present tense about the events in the plot of a work of literature, because those events happen anew to each reader.
In any event, do not needlessly shift tense in any one piece of writing.
A comma hasn't the strength to join sentences. Read your drafts aloud and listen for places deserving full stops/periods. A semi-colon's major function is to join two closely-related sentences.
Eliminate every unnecessary word, thus increasing the efficiency of your writing.
Names - of people, places, products - add specificity and versimilitude to pieces of writing.
Think about it: 'should of' makes no sense; it only sounds like 'should have'!
If you use the word 'always', make sure you mean always!
Enclose the titles of short stories, one-act plays and poems in qutation marks; underline (or italicize) the titles of novels and full-length plays.
Never start writing about a literary work from the beginning of the work; you will trap yourself into plot summary.
Test each paragraph in an essay against the essay's thesis; each paragraph should help to prove the essay's thesis. The last step in essay-writing is to revise the thesis and introduction.
Without specific appropriate evidence (and parenthetical documentation) from the work about which you write, you cannot prove your thesis; but use quotations only when the quoted language is crucial.
Just as you should never plop a pound of pasta into a pot of water, you should never drop a quotation into a paper. Integrate quotations into your text. Who says them?
Avoid using the noun quotation or the verb quote in your paper.
Beware the overgeneralization! Do you mean all... or some... or a few... or one? Do you really mean people? Society? Men? Gods?
Pronouns and antecedents must agree! The following sentence does not foster agreement: When any English student hands in their paper late, they use up a freebie. Anyone, everyone, nobody, anybody, no one are singular!

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