Commandment I.
Thou shalt not sprinkle characters into a preconceived plot lest thou produce hackwork. In the beginning was the character, then the word, and from the character’s words is brought forth action.
Commandment II.
Thou shalt imbue thy heroes with faults and thy villains with charm, for it is the faults of the hero that bring forth his life, just as the charm of the villain brings forth the honey with which he lures the innocent.
Commandment III.
Thy characters shall steal, kill, dishonor their parents, bear false witness, and covet their neighbor’s house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, and ass, for readers crave such actions and yawn when thy characters are meek, innocent, forgiving, and peaceable.
Commandment IV.
Thou shalt not saw the air with abstractions, for readers, like lovers, are attracted by the particularity.
Commandment V.
Thou shalt not mutter, whisper, blurt, bellow, or scream, for it is the words and not the characterization of the words that must carry their own decibels.
Commandment VI.
Thou shalt infect thy reader with anxiety, stress, tension, for those are conditions that he deplores in life, but relishes in fiction.
Commandment VII.
Thy language shall be precise, clear, and bear the wings of angels, for anything less is the province of businessmen and academics and not writers.
Commandment VIII.
Thou shalt have no rest on the sabbath, for thy characters shall live in thy mind and memory now and forever.
Commandment IX.
Thou shalt not forget that dialog is as a foreign tongue, a semblance of speech and not a record of it, a language in which directness diminishes and obliqueness sings.
Commandment X.
Above all, thou shalt not vent thy emotions onto the reader, for thy duty is to invoke the reader’s emotions, and in that is most of all the art of the writer.