1. I will not give my novel two names , e.g. Pretension or Why This Must Be Great Literature or Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West. I will have the gumption to pick one title and stick with it. On a related note, I will not make the title longer than the novel itself.
2. I will not subtitle the name of my book with the phrase "a novel." I will trust that any reader of mine will be able to deduce that a book they find in the fiction section is, in fact, a novel. If they cannot figure this out for themselves, my book will probably be too advanced for them, as it will involve sentences with up to ten words and perhaps even multiple chapters.
3. I will not dedicate my book to a fictional character, pet, or abstract concept, because Elizabeth Bennet, Fluffy, and love cannot and do not read novels. No one else cares about the dedication.
4. Regardless of what the book is about, I will not allow my publisher to include any of the following phrases on the back-cover blurb: "twenty-something," "forty-something," "unlucky in love," "looking for escape," "Mr. Wrong," "Mr. Right," "adventure of a lifetime," or "sometimes the answer is right in front of you." There will also be a blanket ban on all rhetorical questions ("Will Character X be able to put everything right?").
5. I will not heed any rules, self-devised or otherwise, for novel-writing. Because I'm a famous novelist. Screw you, what have you ever done?
Friday, April 13, 2012
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