You're a Writer And You Love to Make Lists...

John/Jay, what's the difference?

"Low-Stress". Right.

One of the first concepts you run into when you pick up Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing A Novel in 30 Days is that of a writer's Magna Carta. Two, to be exact.

In the book, Baty implores writers to make two lists. Magna Carta I is a list of everything you like about stories. Magna Carta II is everything you don’t like about stories. Then you pin them to your wall or write them on post-it notes or put it in your writing notebook – anywhere you write so that you can read them each time – as a frame of reference. You like this, so write about it. You don’t like this, so you better not write about it.

First, what is a "magna carta"? Thanks to our friends in England, we think of the term nowadays as any crucial set of laws that spell out the rules. For writers, we might cringe at the mention of rules. Most make it a point to break them. But what about those you set for yourself, not your craft? What's true for Ernest Hemingway probably isn't true for you.

Magna Cartas are, in my opinion, the best way to start if you're a first-time writer. (They're also handy for non-first-timers, because a human being is capable of changing their minds.) What you want to accomplish when making your Magna Carta is full-disclosure about yourself. These are the rules of your land. You can choose not to follow them as supreme ruler, but that might cause a rebellion from your muse. It would be a good idea to remember them, just to be safe.

Magna Carta I

This one is a list of all things that you enjoy reading about. It might sound easy, but I find most people have trouble listing more than five. I recommend looking beyond what the average reader would say. You’re not the average reader. You’re also a writer.

Let’s look at mine:

• Unexpected alliances
• Endings I can’t predict
• Cliffhanger chapters
• Believable heroines
• Realistic-sounding dialogue

These are pretty common, or at least not too much to ask for, I think. Here’s the rest of it:

• Foreshadowing that I pick up on the 2nd reading
• When I am taught something new
• Greyscale villainy
• A child as part of the main cast
• Character-driven plots

The second half of my list is, for lack of a better term, more writer-y. These are things that I’ve had to think about over the years. Notice they don’t really have anything to do with genre, age group, or medium. That’s because I try not to discriminate. There might be a western shoot-em-up graphic novel for 10-12 year olds that would satisfy most if not all of the above list (there probably isn’t, but how cool would that be?).
That doesn’t mean you can’t list “Whodunit” or “YA” to your Magna Carta I. The cool thing about writing technique is that it’s customizable to each writer. What works for me might not work for you, and vice-versa.

Magna Carta II

Where making a list about what you like to read isn’t all that easy, making a list about the elements you dislike (or hate, in my case) is so much easier. These are things I would never write about because I don’t enjoy reading them. That isn’t to say that a story containing anything from this list will make it a bad book in my eyes, but in my experience I haven’t read any of the following that I truly enjoyed. That’s why they’re on my second Magna Carta.

• Love triangles
• Vampires as a fantasy element
• High school as the main setting
• Romance as a main plot
• Cliché anything (dialogue, plot, characters)
• Villains who are evil for the sake of being evil
• Female characters written without depth
• Manic pixie dream girls
• Irrelevant details

These two lists have changed only slightly from my first draft. I’ve left out a lot, but you get the idea of what this is trying to do. These are my earliest guidelines for anything I start to write, and that takes some of the pressure off answering the question: “What am I going to write?”

What would be in your Magna Cartas?