My Five Rules for Writing, a guest post by Tom Llewellyn

I’d start off with an intro paragraph here, but you’d probably just skip it. Let me just say that these rules only apply to me. And I’m an idiot. 

Rule number one: Cut out the parts that readers skip. 

This is one of the rules I stole from crime writer Elmore Leonard. I love his lean writing style and strive to replicate it, even though he writes for adults about heists and murder while I write magic-realism for middle-grade (think tween) readers. Those long flowery sections of descriptions? Eliminate them. As a reader, I skim them until the action or dialogue kicks back in. I’m confident my young readers do the same. So instead, I try to use the action and dialogue—the good stuff—to deliver the descriptions. I always look for ways to make words perform double duty. Can the description happen through dialogue? If so, then the reader not only learns about the smoky forge or the sweaty blacksmith or whatever is being described, but also learns about the character talking, in the way they’re repulsed by the scent of that smithy. “Can you make that thing smoke a little less? It’s burning my eyes. And maybe take a shower. There’s this stuff called soap. I could introduce you if you haven’t met.” Can the setting be described by action? Can we watch the hero swing through the jungle on a vine that’s cutting into her blistered palms, instead of having her just stand on a ridge and think about what a jungle looks like?

WHERE I LIKE TO PRETEND I WRITE: OUT IN THE WOODS, ON THE SHORE OF A LAKE.
Photo by Tom Llewellyn

Rule number two: If it sounds like writing, cut it out. 

Another Elmore Leonard gem. If my writing starts to sound like I’m gunning for a Newbery Medal, then I delete it. Hopefully, that statement didn’t just destroy my chances to win a medal in the future. I still want one. But not at the expense of lean writing. The showy, poetic stuff takes the reader out of the groove of reading. They may think, “Wow, what a beautiful sentence.” But, to me, that’s a fail. That means they were reminded they were reading. The real magic happens through short, sharp sentences that make the reader forget about the book in their hands and, instead, wholly enter the world within the book, body and soul. I strive to create a groove that allows the words to sweep the reader along until they begin to see through the character’s eyes, smell through the character’s nose, and forget they’re even turning pages. The fancy stuff? It may sound pretty, but it kills that magic. 

WHERE I ACTUALLY WRITE: SITTING AT A MESSY DESK WITH MY WELL-USED CHEMEX FULL OF COFFEE AND MY MAC LAPTOP PROPPED UP ON A STACK OF COFFEE TABLE BOOKS.
Photo by Tom Llewellyn

Rule number three: A spoonful of sugar helps the big ideas go down. 

I’m a pulp writer at my core. I like adventure stories. That’s what I write. My latest novel, The Five Impossible Tasks of Eden Smith, is a fantastical adventure about a girl who moves into a guildhall of master metalworkers. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think deep thoughts. This book takes on themes of equity, non-traditional families, and ageism. Instead of being an essay wrapped in the trappings of fiction, it’s fiction with some Big Ideas sprinkled along the spine. But the Big Ideas can’t just be tacked on. They must move the action. The Big Ideas must develop the characters that the reader loves or hates. Hardboiled legend, Raymond Chandler, is famous for saying that he tried to instill a quality that readers “…would not shy off from, perhaps not even know was there … but which would somehow distill through their minds and leave an afterglow.” I like that. I like it when the Big Ideas sneak up on you.

Rule number four: Every good story is a mystery. 

It doesn’t matter if the book is a literary classic or a love story or a fantasy novel or even historical non-fiction—there still should be a mystery that drives the narrative arc. How will Frodo destroy the ring? Who will survive the tour of Wonka’s chocolate factory? Will Meg and Charles Wallace reunite with their missing father?  I feel like I’ve failed if a book of mine doesn’t contain at least three mysteries. In Eden Smith, each of the five impossible tasks is a mystery to be solved, but there are also half a dozen other mini-mysteries that get revealed along the way. I firmly believe in this rule. I stole it from Jim Thompson, one of the great pulp authors. Jim said it this way: “There are thirty-two ways to write a story, and I’ve used every one, but there is only one plot—things are not as they seem.”

WHAT I LISTEN TO WHEN I WRITE: THE ALBUM, EVERYBODY DIGS BILL EVANS BY BILL EVANS. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. IT SERVES A PAVLOVIAN DUTY. WHEN I HEAR IT, I NEED TO WRITE.
Photo by Tom Llewellyn

Rule number five: The best writing feels like the hardest therapy. 

Or, as one of my heroes, memoirist Anne Lamott, says, “Writing is an act of self-discovery.” Every novel I’ve written has been a therapy session for me, where I’ve dealt with the fact that my dad died when I was five and I still haven’t fully recovered. It’s therapy for my characters, too. Case in point: I’m a middle-aged white guy with insomnia, while my latest hero, Eden, is a thirteen-year-old Black girl with an eye patch. But dear, courageous, one-eyed Eden and I are dealing with the same central struggle—losing a parent. She spends the entire book trying to rebuild a version of family that makes her feel whole again. I’ve spent my entire life doing the same. Eden also happens to solve mysteries, make swords, and fight mechanical birds. But her real impossible task is belonging. That’s my impossible task, too. Belonging is the goal of the therapy that I happen to call writing. 

Related side note: I had a little epiphany while editing this book (under the brilliant guidance of editor Kelly Loughman from Holiday House). I was frustrated that I wasn’t enjoying the process. Then my agent, the esteemed Abigail Samoun, shared a quote with me from dance legend Martha Graham. Martha said: “No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” I’m not a dancer (ask my wife). But this quote from a dancer smacked me in the face. I don’t have to enjoy writing. That’s not the point. That’s never been why I do it. I felt this sudden freedom. 

When I’m at a cocktail party and mention that I’m an author, people ask me, “Does it make you a lot of money?” I laugh, roll my eyes, and say no. Then they say, “Well, I’m sure you enjoy it.” I used to lie and nod my head. But this Martha Graham quote—this epiphany—helped me recognize that writing, for me, is almost never fun. I rarely enjoy it. It’s doubt-inducing and soul crushing. I write because I must write. I can’t not do it. And yes, us writers do feel more alive than, you know, them.

That’s the end of my rule set. I’d finish with a conclusion here, about how rules are meant to be broken and how you should march to your own drummer, but who needs that clichéd nonsense? You’d probably skim past it, anyway.

Meet the author

Photo by Andrew Mitrak

Tom Llewellyn is the author of four novels and one picture book for children and young adults. His latest novel, The Five Impossible Tasks of Eden Smith, was just released by Holiday House. His books have been translated into five languages. 

Along with Lance Kagey, Llewellyn is co-founder of the street-art team, Beautiful Angle, and their award-winning letterpress poster project. 

Tom graduated with honors from the University of Washington’s creative writing program. He was born in Tacoma, Washington and lives there with his wife and kids. 

Follow Tom on X @tommyllew or read his poorly managed blog at tommyllew.com

About The Five Impossible Tasks of Eden Smith

Challenged by a secret society of metalworkers, Eden must do all she can to save the only family she has left in this fantasy adventure.

When Eden Smith moves into the beautiful and bizarre old mansion housing her grandfather, she discovers a strange society of elderly metalworkers whose mastery verges on the magical. Deadly mechanical birds, a cavernous chamber full of dirty dishes, a highly dangerous game of Machinist BINGO–life at the guild is not only strange, it’s also dangerous.

Eden’s grandfather, Vulcan Smith, the most gifted of all the metalsmiths in the mansion, has just been sentenced to live out the rest of his days locked in a tiny basement room for rebelling against the guild. To save him, Eden will have to complete The Five Impossible Tasks, a series of deadly feats that have already killed off many of Eden and Vulcan’s ancestors. With the help of her new friend Nathaniel and a cast of eccentric old silversmiths, blacksmiths, and inventive machinists, Eden sets out to do the impossible before her newfound grandfather is lost to her forever.

In The Five Impossible Tasks of Eden Smith, Tom Llewellyn has crafted a wholly original world of wild contraptions, roguish characters, and perilous feats perfect for fans of Karuna Riazi, Laura Ruby, and Lemony Snicket.

ISBN-13: 9780823453122
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication date: 01/02/2024
Age Range: 10 – 14 Years

Filed under: Guest Post