10 rules for writing fiction

I've just finished reading the Guardian's article Ten Rules for Writing fiction in which famous writers such as Roddy Doyle, Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman and many more share their personal rules for writing fiction.

Some took a more tongue in cheek approach to the exercise such as Doyle who wrote "do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide." Colm Tóibín conveyed the importance of reading about ones peers, "If you have to read, to cheer yourself up read biographies of writers who went insane." Elmore Leonard took a more serious approach and focused on form and the pitfalls of using adverbs, exclamation marks and regional dialogue.

Some of the rules seemed more like rules for life than writing. 'Don't take any shit if you can possibly help it' and the more arbitrary 'don't have children'.

To save you trawling through I've picked out my top 10 and added the authors who suggested them in brackets.

1) Read, read everything you can lay your hands on (Michael Moorcock, Ian Rankin, Will Self (he actually says you should stop reading but only because you have read enough already), Zadie Smith (although she says you should read when still a child so this might mean inventing a time machine), PD James)

2) Don't just plan to write – write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style. (PD James)

3) Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. I was working on a novel about a band called the Partitions. Then I decided to call them the Commitments. (Roddy Doyle)

4) Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer's a good idea. (Richard Ford) N.B. This one assumes that you want to get married at all. If not ignore completely.

5) Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing life is that I have never kept a journal or a diary. (Geoff Dyer)

6) Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I ­always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something. (Geoff Dyer)

7)The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page. (Anne Enright) This is similar to rule number 1 but written in slightly different way so I don't think it's cheating.

8) You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up. (Margaret Atwood)

9) Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted. (PD James)

10) Read all of Neil Gaiman's rules because that man is a genius. See his list below. (Literary girl)

1 Write.

2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

4 Put it aside. Read it pretending you've never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.

5 Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

6 Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.

7 Laugh at your own jokes.

8 The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

So what did I learn from an article about rules? Write as you wish, just make sure you turn off the Internet.