The 10 commandments of the writer

The result of our actions depends, to a large extent, on the intention underlying the action. If we do not worry about purifying this intention, it is normal that we make mistakes, and we do not even know why. In the field of writing, we have many preconceived ideas and underground conditioning that, if we do not train ourselves to disarm, will make our texts not work, neither for us nor for the readers, no matter how much we try.

In writing, as in life, preconceived ideas and conditioning do nothing but distance you from healthy texts that bring you closer and connect with the reader.

So here I propose a Decalogue that, if you print it, place it on your desk, and read it before starting to write, will help you do intentional cleaning work and will place you at a healthy starting point to launch into write.

1. Until I have other reliable narrative supports, I will not forget to include in my memoir ghostwriting services, a protagonist, a conflict and a change.
2. I will not write in the abstract: the reader’s narrative memory works by emotional and experiential impulses, not by accumulation of data or ideas.
3. I will not attribute to the reader the role of “fortune teller” (he does not have to intuit my most hidden intentions, and he does not even have to appreciate my special way of suggesting things) nor of” idiot” (there is no need to explain the things like a child).

• Narrative units are usually classified, generally into scene, summary, description, linear narration, digression and ellipsis (although other types of classifications could be established or include more subtypes). The good use of these units determines that the story moves at a pace appropriate to what you want to tell. If so, the reader will have the feeling that everything happens in its own time, that the plot evolves, that everything is significant and that nothing is left over or missing.
• But of course, this is something that (like all the other points we have mentioned) requires practice. At first, it is normal that you write stories only in summary mode, that you narrate irrelevant sequences that could have been transformed into ellipses, that you include excessive digressions or that the scenes are few and too short. All of this clouds the reader’s understanding and makes it difficult for yourself to travel through your own story, so you better learn to drive the car before hitting the highway.

The theme must be able to be interpreted by the reader at each point in the story and the deep meaning of your story must adhere to what makes the difference between the moment in which the change in the character occurs and

4. I will ensure that the ideas for my stories come from a physical and tangible environment (more than mental) that is conducive to the plot; That is, valid coordinates of place, time and action whose management allows me to convey to the reader what I want to convey (the theme) without having to explain it to them.
5. I will periodically remind myself that the theme must be able to be interpreted by the reader at each point in the story (even in the first line) and does not consist, by any means, of a final revelation that makes him understand everything at once. The final revelation or explosion comes precisely from all the previous work of deciphering and interpretation.
6. I will introduce the description to the action thread. In a short story I cannot allow myself to stop the action to exercise contemplation.
7. I will give the protagonist the responsibility for how to act on his own conflict, and not to other characters, external elements or the reader himself.
8. I will keep in mind that readers have to identify with the protagonist, but also with the antagonist, so this one can be bad, but if you can’t see a human being in him and he is not up to par with the protagonist, it does not fulfill its function well, which at the end of the day is to act as a counterpoint to the protagonist.
9. To find the deep meaning of my story, which must be revealed at the moment of climax, I will focus on what makes the difference between the moment in which the change in the character occurs and any of the others before or after.
10. I will look for a narrative reason for every event I include in the story, even if I want to talk about chance. What I intend precisely is to simplify real life so that I can analyze it in more detail and, perhaps, if we’re lucky, find meaning in it, or at least find a consistent nonsense in it.

• Mastery of the basic structure of a story

• Writing a story with a beginning, middle and end is not difficult, in fact it is something organic, which we have inscribed in our genes, like human beings who have been telling stories around a bonfire for millennia. But this does not mean that we should not practice it, because in the same way that it is something natural in us, we also have resistance to our stories evolving, just as we resist our life changing even if it is inevitable that it will.
• So it is convenient to have written a few short stories with this classic structure to delve into a Book Marketing Agency, which is structurally complicated by being divided into chapters, having different subplots, etc.