✍️Makitia’s 6 Writing Rules
📖The Ones I Actually Use
Writers love rules. We collect them like cats collect sunbeams, we don’t really know why, but they make us feel warm and slightly superior.
You’ve probably heard all the classics: Write every day. Show, don’t tell. Kill your darlings. And sure, those have their place. But here’s the thing nobody says out loud: most writing rules aren’t laws. They’re just someone else’s coping mechanisms dressed up as commandments.
When I started writing, I tried to follow them all. I thought if I stacked enough “good writing advice” on my desk, the book would practically write itself. Spoiler: it didn’t. What I ended up with was half a manuscript, a pile of guilt, and a sneaking suspicion that I was doing it wrong.
So I did what any stubborn writer would do: I threw most of those rules out and made my own. Rules that actually fit the way I think, write, and occasionally procrastinate by watching videos of raccoons stealing hot dogs.
These aren’t rules that will work for everyone. They’re just the six I swear by, the six that have gotten me through every book, short story, and “what if” idea that’s ever kept me up at night.
And I promise: they’re a lot more fun than “kill your darlings.”
1. Write Everything Down, Even the Ugly Bits
Every idea you’ve ever had? Write it down.
Every bad line you think you’ll “fix later”? Write it down.
Every metaphor so weird you’d be embarrassed to show it to another human? Yep, write it down.
Here’s why: your brain doesn’t hand you pure gold. It hands you gold dust sprinkled into mud. The only way to keep the gold is to scoop up the whole mess and sift through it later.
I have a document on my laptop called Graveyard of Chaos. It’s not an outline. It’s not organized. It’s just… every stray thought I’ve ever had while working on a story. A villain’s weird pet. A half-baked joke that made me laugh once at midnight. A paragraph describing the smell of rain that didn’t fit anywhere (yet).
Do I use all of it? No. But here’s the magic: the ideas I do use often start as the ones I almost threw away. The awkward dialogue, the “that’s too random” scene, the half-formed image I didn’t know how to describe, they find a home later.
One time, I jotted down this clunky, embarrassingly dramatic line about “the moon dripping like melted silver.” I hated it. I kept it anyway. Two years later, I reworked it into one of my favorite passages in a completely different novel.
💡 The takeaway: You’re not just writing for today’s book. You’re stockpiling for every book you’ll ever write.
2. Binge Your Characters
Imagine your character’s life as a TV series. You’re not just watching Season 3, Episode 5. You’re watching from the pilot episode, the one where their awkward childhood haircut makes its debut all the way to the finale, where they’ve either found peace, revenge, or a suspiciously well-timed plot twist.
When I “binge” a character, I mean I want to know everything about them. Their favorite breakfast cereal. The sound that makes them flinch. The three things they’d save if their apartment caught fire. The fact that they once got into an argument with a vending machine and lost.
Why go that deep? Because when you know a character inside-out, you stop forcing them to do things. They start telling you what they’d do. You don’t have to think, “Would she run into the burning building or call for help?” You already know the answer.
I once had a character, a gruff, stoic type who, in my outline, was supposed to stay completely silent during a certain scene. But while writing, I suddenly heard him mutter, “Don’t you dare die on me, kid.” It wasn’t planned. But it was him. And it ended up being one of the most quoted lines in the book.
📺 Think of it like this: You’re the showrunner of your own little TV universe. The more you “watch” your characters’ lives, the easier it is to write them naturally.
3. Never Plot an Emotional Scene
This is my hill, and I will die on it.
I don’t plot emotional scenes. Not the big tearjerkers. Not the confession scenes. Not even the screaming matches.
Emotion isn’t neat. It doesn’t follow bullet points. It shows up messy, ugly, and at inconvenient times. If you try to plan it like you plan a dinner party, it ends up feeling staged.
When I know a big emotional moment is coming, I only give myself three anchors:
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Why the scene exists
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Where it’s coming from
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Where it needs to lead
The rest? I write it in the moment, raw. If I cry while writing, good. If I have to stop and pace around my room like I’m waiting for bad news, even better.
Readers can feel when an emotional scene has been lived instead of engineered. They might not know why it hits them so hard, but they’ll know it’s real.
One of the rawest scenes I’ve ever written came out in one sitting. No outline, no plan, just a rush of typing that left me with puffy eyes and sore wrists. When my editor read it, she only left one comment: “Do. Not. Touch. This.”
🔥 My rule: let emotion drive the bus for a while. You can take the wheel back later.
4. Let Randomness Live in Your Story
Not everything in your book needs to serve the plot directly.
Yes, I said it.
Some of my favorite story moments are completely random. A character stopping to watch pigeons fight over a french fry. A conversation about the smell of old libraries. A scene where nothing “happens” except two characters laughing so hard they can’t breathe.
These moments don’t just add flavor, they add truth. Because real life is full of randomness. You don’t walk around experiencing only plot points. You live little side scenes all the time.
Here’s the trick: those random moments often pay off in unexpected ways. That french fry scene? It became a running joke that showed up in a tense moment two hundred pages later, breaking the tension perfectly.
🎯 The point: A little randomness makes your story feel alive. Don’t plan it out of existence.
5. Write It How You Hear It
If a character has an accent, I write it. If they misuse grammar, I write it. If they say “ain’t” or “y’all” or “bruh,” I write it.
The number of times I’ve had someone suggest “fixing” a character’s voice is staggering. But here’s the thing: those so-called mistakes are often the most authentic part of the story.
I once had a reader tell me they could hear one of my characters in their head because of the way I wrote his dialogue. That’s the goal. I don’t want perfect English. I want personality.
And yes, that means sometimes I leave in things that look like typos but aren’t. It’s a trust exercise with the reader. Once they get that it’s intentional, they roll with it.
🗣 Rule: Don’t clean up your character’s voice so much that you bleach out their soul.
6. Stop Chasing Drafts That Don’t Help You
Some writers swear by multiple drafts. Five, six, twelve. They thrive on it. That’s great, for them.
Me? If a draft isn’t helping, I’m not doing it. I’ve written books that needed only two solid passes and books that needed nine. The difference was purpose.
When I stopped rewriting just for the sake of it, I started finishing more books. I also stopped resenting the process. Rewriting is a tool, not a penance.
So if your book feels ready after three drafts, trust yourself. If you need twenty, that’s fine too. Just make sure each pass is moving the story forward, not keeping you stuck because you’re afraid to call it done.
These are my rules. They’re not neat, they’re not universal, but they’ve carried me through every project I’ve loved.
At the end of the day, writing is about connection. Not to rules. To people. To the imaginary ones in your head and the real ones who read your words.
The best writing advice I can give? Make your own rules and keep the ones that keep you writing. For more writing tips you can visit The Minds In Design Store and browse a few of my workbooks that offer far more insight into various topics.
- Makitia
#Mindsindesign #Makitiathompson #Makitia #Themiduniverse #Midcontent #MID #Themindsindesignstore
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