Tattered Essence

The Guardian newspaper has done an article where they offered up eight rules authors should follow to avoid scandals. Here are those eight rules:

1. Do not use the word “memoir” unless you mean it.
2. If you’re not sure whether what you’re writing is a memoir or not, guess what? It’s a novel.
3. No more than half a page of plagiarism per book.
4. Don’t make up exact dates that you can’t remember. Instead, be general: “The most important day of my life was the day of my son’s birth, in the summer of 2005 . . . “
5. Just say no to sending a friend out in public with a wig as you.
6. If you’re in a flame war and you’re about to go sock puppet, take a 10-minute break and go to a coffee shop without a wi-fi facility. Maybe the walk will cool you down.
7. Go ahead and make up dialogue. Everybody except Tom Wolfe does.
8. Pick a name. “Benjamin Black is John Banville” is just not a good look.

You can read the rest of the article by visiting the Guardian site.