In Henry and the Chalk Dragon, the artistic main character, Henry, has a knightly costume he’s fashioned for himself—a milk carton for a helmet, an aluminum-foil-covered raincoat for a suit of armor, a feather duster for a sword. He is a knight errant, after all—that is, a knight on a quest—wandering through the hazardous halls of a dragon-haunted elementary school. And written on the inside lining of his raincoat, so he won’t forget, are his rules of chivalry—such as “Be brave,” “Fight for the right,” “Eat your spinach,” and “Don’t feed girls to dragons.” These rules not only guide him in his knight-errantry, they help him with his friendships and his art as well. “Is there a chivalry for drawing things?” he wonders.
So I’ve been wondering, both as an author and as a creative writing teacher for kids: is there a chivalry for writing things? What are the ideal qualities of a writer errant (for writers are wanderers and adventurers in our imaginations, and we face many dragons of our own, real or not). Is there a code of chivalry that could guide us as wordsmiths (young or old) in our quests? Taking a cue from the vows of knighthood in the Middle Ages, here are a few “rules” I’ve come up with. If you like to write, heed them well! If not, perhaps you can sympathize with our clan’s unique perils.
1. Tell the truth. Whether you’re writing about real-life people you know or four-headed aliens from the planet Zorkon, your job is the same: to reflect the nature of the world as you see it. That means writing honestly about the inner truths of relationships, emotions, and conflicts. And that means imagining how you would feel if you were a four-headed alien.
2. Never trust an adverb. Don’t tell me the giant walked sadly (how boring!) Show me the glimmer of an ocean-sized tear in his eye as he trudges, hands thrust deep into his pockets, through a trampled castle. Paint a picture in my imagination.
3. Give a voice to those who can’t tell their own stories. As a writer, you have the power to put readers inside the skin of a character totally different from themselves—show them the world through a different set of eyes—let them hear the hearts of people (or creatures) they might never pay attention to in the real world . . . like four-headed Zorkonians. Use that power wisely.
4. Learn from the exploits of knights—ahem, I mean writers—who came before you, to find out how they did it. In other words, READ, READ, READ!
5. Persevere to the end of the first draft. Young adult author Shannon Hale says that when she writes a first draft, she reminds herself that she’s simply shoveling sand into a sandbox so she can build castles out of it later. I love that! The first time you try to write something, it’s going to be bad. I mean it’s going to stink to high heaven, I promise. But if you persevere to the end of that terrible battle against the empty page, you’ll have the raw material out of which you can make something awesome.
6. Do not fear rejection. Every writer faces it. Lots of it. Rejection is not the enemy: self-doubt is the enemy. The little voice inside you that says, “Your story stinks to high heaven; just quit now and bury your failure in a gallon of ice cream”—that’s the enemy. Rejection is a knight’s challenge, an opportunity to become stronger. Make the story better. Write a new one. Keep your sword swinging.
7. Think not of thy reward, for it rarely cometh. Kids ask me all the time how much money I make writing books; I tell them, “About enough to fill up a beetle’s lower lip, but that’s not why I’m doing it.” If you’re writing because you think it will make you rich, stop now and hire bandits to raid the king’s treasury instead.
8. Write for joy, not for glory. I secretly enjoy it when people praise my writing. But if I depend too much on that, I will become a ravenous, insatiable, approval-hunting, puffy-headed praise-glutton who instantly withers at the slightest criticism. Would you write even if there was no one around to praise you for it? Does it give you joy—deep down aaaaaaaah-I-just-squeezed-my-soul-into-a-story-and-it-felt-so-good joy? Then that, and that alone, is the reason for doing it.
9. Guard the honor of your fellow writers. We writers errant are on this quest together, jousting with words, searching for plots, and beating villainous self-doubts into submission as best we can, each in our own unique way. It’s an exciting and a perilous journey. Let’s defend and encourage each other.
10. Tie your shoelaces. It’s not enough to want to be a writer if you have nothing to write about. How do you get ideas? By putting on your shoes and going out into the world—watching, listening, meeting the four-headed aliens face to face, tromping though the trampled castles, riding the school bus, getting knocked down by foes, and rising up again. As Sir Henry Penwhistle learns in Henry and the Chalk Dragon, “It is a dangerous thing to open a door. But that, after all, is the only way to find an adventure.”
Originally published on the Word Spelunking blog.