All language subtitles for MasterClass Neil Gaiman Teaches The Art of Storytelling - 18Rules for Writers

I remember reading an essay by Harlon

Ellison in which he pointed to an essay

by Robert Heinline.

Um, and they suggested rules for writers

and the rules were how to get published

and I read them and I believed them and

I have applied them and they have worked

for me. Rule one, you have to write. If

you don't write, nothing will happen.

Rule two, you have to finish what you

write. If you start it and abandon it or

if you start it and never let it go.

You know, I know people who just really

want to make something perfect. So, they

never finish. They never let it go. You

have to finish.

Rule three,

having finished it, you have to send it

out into the world to somebody who could

publish it.

these days of internet that actually

broadens your scope. There are so many

websites that actually want fiction,

want things, but there are also

publishers out there. There are agents.

You send it out and that bit is

important.

I was talking earlier with Coraline

about bravery.

There are a lot of things that people

know

are brave. you know, standing up to an

armed robber. Definitely brave.

Um, wild dog attack,

dealing with it. Absolute act of

bravery.

People don't normally list sending a

story out into the world

as one of those acts of bravery up there

with standing up to armdrobers or or

wild dog attacks, but really they really

are. Next rule, Heinlines was

refrain from rewriting except to

editorial request.

Having sent it out, don't just start it

again. Don't keep writing that book,

that story over and over again. Harlen

Ellison

added a little note on that. He said,

"Unless

you feel what the editor has requested

would compromise the integrity of your

story, in which case don't touch it.

defend it. Also perfectly valid.

The next rule is when it comes back

because it will probably come back.

You have to send it out again.

You can't go, I sent it out to this

editor, to this publisher, to this

agent. It has come back. My heart is

broken. I will never write it again. I

will put it away. Instead, you have to

send it out somewhere out there. There

is somebody so drunk, so desperate, so

confused that they will buy it and they

will publish it. And so, you're trying

to reach that person or perhaps somebody

with good enough taste and somebody

smart enough, whoever it is, keep going,

keep sending it out until you reach that

person. And the other rule which is

mine, it wasn't Heinline's and it wasn't

Harland's is and then start the next

thing through this all start the next

thing. When you finish

that first thing and you start the

process of sending it out, begin writing

the next thing.

Because that's the important thing

is

apart from anything else when that

publisher comes to you and says, "We

love this novel, but we'd love what's

the sequel like?" You can say, "Yes,

here is the sequel. I finished that,

too." And get them even more excited.

You need to be writing the next thing.

You don't just write something and send

it out and then wait for fame and

fortune to come knocking on your door.

You keep going. You keep writing. You

keep finishing things. And now you have

more things to send out into the world.

Those were Heinline's rules. They were

Haren Allison's rules. And I'm afraid

they're mine, too. They work for me.

as a writer. Um, two things are going on

that and they're both going on at the

same time. One of which is

you are doing it. You are all of your

characters.

You are everything that they say. You

are everything that happens. And the

other is you're the first reader.

And

both of those things are true.

When the magic is happening, when the

wind is beneath your wings, when you're

lifted up, all of a sudden it can

absolutely feel like you simply are the

first reader. You're the first person

ever to be here. You can't get the words

down fast enough. um because

it's just there and all you're doing is

describing something that is being put

in front of you. You have it feels like

almost no valition or perhaps no

valition at all. And that's true

and it's also true

that it's you doing it and you must

never forget that it's you doing it. You

never really do. Um, and there will be

bad days and there will be good days and

the bad days will not feel like you are

the magical first reader. The bad days

will feel like you are

a very tired brick layer who is building

a wall across a very very long field and

you're doing it brick by brick which is

word by word and your process consists

of going what is the next word

inspecting all of the possible words

that you can oh there's another word

over here that fits It's a lot better.

Okay, you put it in. It'll do. And just

doing that again and again and knowing

that if it's a novel, you are going to

be doing that word by word a 100,000

times.

Um, and that you can also feel

responsible for. But sometimes you're

almost too close to it. You're not

going, "Ah,

I am taking full responsibility for

everything this character says." You're

just trying to go, "Oh my god, can you

just say something that's interesting?

Can you just say something?" Oh, I've

done another one of those scenes where

it's two people in a room telling each

other things they know already. Oh, for

God's sake. And that's part of the

writing process. And it's okay. and your

frustration with yourself and your

frustration with the material. It's okay

because

the weird thing, the magical thing, the

absolutely unpredictable and unexpected

thing is

when you get to the end of the thing,

once you've done your edits, once you've

polished it up a bit and you've handed

it in to your editor at your publishing

house,

somewhere down the line,

3 months later,

They will send you a manuscript the

galleys

and your job is to copy edit them and to

go through them

and you'll be reading it and you will

remember that some of the book was

written on the days when putting every

word in was like pulling teeth. It was

painful. It was horrible. It was like

writing through a migraine. And some of

it was written on magical days when

words dripped like diamonds from your

fingers and sparkled in the light. And

every word was given to you by the gods

and was magical and sang.

But there's no way to really tell the

difference between them. It all sounds

like you.

And that is an incredibly

humbling

moment because frankly you think one of

the two should be better but it really

isn't. It's just the book you wrote.

You are always going to be rejected as a

writer. You're always going to be

rejected and that's basically healthy.

But I think the great thing about being

a young writer is that on the one hand,

you need the humility enough to know

that you don't know yet. And on the

other, you need an arrogance

that is normally only seen in sort of

seven-year-old boys. You need that

conviction

um that you are brilliant, that this is

brilliant, that this is the greatest

idea that anybody's ever had. And that

by writing it, you will set the world on

fire because

that is the thing that is the engine

that is going to get you through the

stuff that actually needs to be written.

Um you need to think you're brilliant.

It's okay that you're not

um it's like getting people people ask

me how do you cope with rejection? How

do you cope with writing a short story,

writing a novel and giving it to

somebody and having it rejected?

And there are only two ways

to do it. Uh, one of which is

you go down,

you get sad, you put the thing away, you

stop writing, you go and get a real job,

go and do something else. And the other

is a kind of crazed

attitude that actually

the most important thing now is to write

something so brilliant, so powerful, so

good. Nobody could ever reject it. Um,

my friend Joinski

tells me the story of

when he was a young writer, he'd come to

Hollywood.

He wanted to write. He wanted to sell

stories. He wanted to sell scripts.

Was writing stuff. Nobody was buying

anything that he wrote.

and he looked up Harlon Ellison,

uh, wonderful writer. He found

Harlland's number in the Los Angeles

phone book because back then we had

phone books.

And he phoned Harlon and he said, "Hi,

my name's Joe Strainski. I'm a writer. I

can't sell anything. Uh, can you give me

some advice?" And Harlem, being very,

very blunt, as was always Harlem's way,

said, "Okay, let me tell you, kid, the

problem is what you're writing is crap.

What you have to do is write really good

stuff and then you'll sell it. Okay?"

And he put the phone down. And what was

lovely is that Joe actually took that

and went, "Good. I got to get better.

And I got to get so good that nobody can

reject anything I write." and went on to

become, you know, Oscar nominated Joe

Strasinski. But rejection either way is

healthy.

If you are a young writer,

if you and and by young again, I mean

you're starting out, it's okay to get

rejected.

Um, the phrase not quite right for us

is a really good one because it's true.

If you give some, you write something

and it's not quite right for somebody,

that's what they'll say. It's okay. It's

just rejection. The trick is go on,

write the next thing. Write the next

thing. Write the next thing.