{"id":395,"date":"2014-03-12T22:13:22","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T22:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uxtraordinary.com\/?p=395"},"modified":"2021-10-11T05:59:02","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T05:59:02","slug":"the-writers-vow-of-chastity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/the-writers-vow-of-chastity\/","title":{"rendered":"Habitual creativity: The writer&#8217;s vow of chastity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At SXSW I had the pleasure of sitting in on Andy Barr&#8217;s and Sarada Peri&#8217;s <em>37 Practical Tips to Help You Write &amp; Speak Better<\/em>. Much of these focused on simplicity of grammar and content, and reminded me of the writer&#8217;s vow of chastity my husband conceived back in 2007. Since then, my first drafts attempt to follow the below rules as much as possible. Only then do I go back and add anything more, trying to restrain myself to choices that add clarity.<\/p>\n<p>So here it is.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Just as Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg wrote the film maker\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dogme_95\" title=\"Wikipedia article on Dogme 95\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">vow of chastity<\/a> (also know as Dogme 95), so Bart has proposed a writer\u2019s vow of chastity.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20101119074812\/http:\/\/alexfiles.com\/dogme2007.shtml\" title=\"Archive.org capture of the writer's vow of chastity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">draft of the rules<\/a> as of August 4, 2007:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>The writer\u2019s vow of chastity<\/h3>\n<p>The writer will use no modifiers.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No adverbs.<\/li>\n<li>No adjectives.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The writer should act as a behaviorist.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No words describing emotion.<\/li>\n<li>The writer will not make the reader directly privy to a character\u2019s thoughts (no interior dialogue or interior monologue).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The writer may break these rules only when it is unavoidable.<\/p>\n<p>The above may be summarized as, \u201cNot doing the reader\u2019s work for them*.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>*The summary references advice from C.S. Lewis to his students:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"blockimage bottom-50\"><p>Don\u2019t say it was \u201cdelightful;\u201d make us say \u201cdelightful\u201d when we\u2019ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers \u201cPlease will you do the job for me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr>\n<p>Barr and Peri also provided a page with the 37 tips, on which I took copious notes. Here it is\u2014enjoy!<\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Alex's notes, Barr &amp; Peri SXSW writing tips\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/imagery\/blog\/sxsw-writing-tips-notes.jpg\"><br \/>\nBarr and Peri&#8217;s writing tips, together with the notes I took. I&#8217;ve found them helpful, and hope you do, too.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><em>Originally posted on alexfiles.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-395\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/the-writers-vow-of-chastity\/?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-395\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/the-writers-vow-of-chastity\/?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-395\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/the-writers-vow-of-chastity\/?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At SXSW I had the pleasure of sitting in on Andy Barr&#8217;s and Sarada Peri&#8217;s 37 Practical Tips to Help You Write &amp; Speak Better. Much of these focused on simplicity of grammar and content, and reminded me of the writer&#8217;s vow of chastity my husband conceived back in 2007. Since then, my first drafts&hellip;<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-395\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/the-writers-vow-of-chastity\/?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-395\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/the-writers-vow-of-chastity\/?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-395\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon no-text\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/the-writers-vow-of-chastity\/?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span><\/span><span class=\"sharing-screen-reader-text\">Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[16,103],"tags":[22,37,5,53],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration","category-writing","tag-blog","tag-habitual-creativity","tag-quotes","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9aciW-6n","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":661,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/context-the-writers-con\/","url_meta":{"origin":395,"position":0},"title":"Context, the writer&#8217;s con","date":"July 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Program cover for a writer's conference: a dragon, captivated by a book to the exclusion of the alien invasion and vampire drama raging around her.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;design&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/context-xix.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":375,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/habitual-creativity-turn-around\/","url_meta":{"origin":395,"position":1},"title":"Habitual creativity: Turn around","date":"November 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"For a little over two years, I left work and went to a particular bus stop on Elliott & Western in Seattle. So I spent a little time every day looking at this building, near the base of a hill leading up to the Queen Anne Hill area. One day,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;design thinking&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":733,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/ux-collective-published-my-article\/","url_meta":{"origin":395,"position":2},"title":"UX Collective published my article!","date":"September 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Even better, they tweeted it! Screen capture, UX Collective's tweet. See the article on UX Collective (or here).","rel":"","context":"In &quot;design&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":816,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/the-panther-rilke\/","url_meta":{"origin":395,"position":3},"title":"The Panther, Rilke","date":"January 21, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my all-time favorites. This German-to-English translation was written by my beloved, Bart Odom: The Panther From going through the bars, his gaze has become so exhausted that it holds nothing anymore. To him it is as if there are a thousand bars, and beyond the thousand bars, no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;writing&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":809,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/why-blog\/","url_meta":{"origin":395,"position":4},"title":"Why blog?","date":"January 15, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"So, I tell my beloved I've become a user on LiveJournal, and he doesn't get the appeal. It seems too much like a vanity project. Now, this is the man who normally is the first to \"get\" anything about me, so I started thinking. At the risk of rationalizing my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;psychology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":71,"url":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/zombie-ideas\/","url_meta":{"origin":395,"position":5},"title":"Zombie ideas","date":"November 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In 1974 Robert Kirk wrote about the \u201czombie idea,\u201d describing the concept that the universe, the circle of life, humanity, and our moment-to-moment existence could all have developed, identically with \u201cparticle-for-particle counterparts,\u201d and yet lack feeling and consciousness. The idea is that evolutionally speaking, it is not essential that creatures\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;psychology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":964,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions\/964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aeoneal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}