If you love reading legal thrillers, then you know that John Grisham is an authority on writing fiction. With several bestsellers under his belt, John Grisham has earned his place as one of the greatest in the genre and his opinion on writing fiction is therefore respected.

John Grisham published his first novel, A Time to Kill, in 1989 which went on to become a massive success. As of 2017, he has written a total of 40 books that have sold hundreds of millions of copies. Several of his books including A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Client, The Chamber, A Painted House, The Runaway Jury,  The Rainmaker, Skipping Christmas, and The Pelican Brief have been adapted into films.

He has won several accolades for his work, including a Galaxy British Book Award. With the amazing success of all his books, it is safe to say that he is an authority on what to do and what not to do when writing a novel.  His top do's and don'ts extracted from an article he wrote for The New York Times are as listed below.

Do:

1.  Write at least one page a day. This way you get to write at least 200 words a day, which translates to a minimum of 1000 words a week, guaranteeing that you will have a long enough novel after 2 years. Stick to this discipline of at least a page a day, no matter what.

2. Write each day, in the same place and at the same time. It does not matter what time of the day you pick, just make sure it is the same time every day and the same place.

3. Use quotation marks with the dialogue. This is a basic rule, but a very important one.

4. Read each sentence at least 3 times in search of unnecessary words to cut because chances are that you used too many words. This happens even to the best authors.

Don't:

1. Write the first scene until you have the last scene. Use an outline to plot out your entire story. This is to avoid pursuing a story that will eventually fail to work. Almost all writers hate this part but it saves you from wasting time on stories that you will never complete.

2. Write a prologue. According to John Grisham, prologues are gimmicks meant to hook the reader and should be avoided.

3. Keep a thesaurus nearby. This is to avoid the temptation of using complex words. Many new authors make this mistake. There are 3 types of words to an author. The words we know, the words we should know and the words no body knows. Never use the last category of words and do your very best to avoid the second category. Using complex words is phony and frustrating. Readers do not enjoy trying to work out what the author is trying to say.

4. Introduce too many characters in the first chapter. Do not confuse your readers with endless names in the first chapter. Stick to about 5 characters here and introduce the rest as the story progresses.