The Rules for Writers--And Everybody Else

When I was ten, my father, who worked for the Federal Highway Administration, was offered a transfer from Salem, Oregon, to the Washington, D.C. office. My parents wanted to expose their children to “culture,” so they sold their five-acre riverfront property overlooking both the Willamette River and Mt. Hood, and hauled their five kids off to the land of politics.

Before we moved, learning manners had been important, but living inside the Beltway made mastering etiquette imperative. As my parents reminded us to keep our elbows off the table, chew with our mouths closed, and wait until we’d finished munching to speak, they’d often ask, “Would you do that if the president came to dinner?”

They also signed us up for cotillion. In Dallas, where I live now, usually only members of elite society attend cotillion. But back then and there, even middle-class kids went to learn the foxtrot and tango and social graces. In the world in which my church choir director also directed the Army Chorus, my seventh grade crush was a State Department brat, and my sister's best friend’s dad was a senator’s chief of staff, we had to at least know that, when making introductions, one presents the younger to the elder.

That senator must have been a big kahuna because one Friday night when we invited my sister's friend, Suzi Kane, to sleep over, she said she would let us know in a few hours. First she had to find out whether her dad needed to accompany his boss with the president (yes, the president of the United States) to Camp David for the weekend. (He did.)

Not long after that, the Kanes had our family of seven over for a lovely dinner. (No small undertaking.) As the salad passed by my mother, she took some and put it on her dinner plate. After she had handed the salad bowl to the next person, she suddenly realized she should have put the lettuce on her salad plate. She didn’t make a big deal of it, but she was embarrassed. Yet when the bowl was passed to our hostess, she did what any true model of gracious entertaining should do. She did exactly as my mother had done.

Later, when my mother thanked Mrs. Kane privately for the kindness of her gesture, Mrs. Kane shared her philosophy: “The purpose of etiquette is not to intimidate, but to put people at ease.” I share this little story as a preface to listing some rules of etiquette that I’ve seen either handled in an exemplary way or violated lately. As a writing professor, I require my students to write an interview article, and often students choose a high-profile subject. When walking into such interview situations, writers need to know a few rules of etiquette, even if only to put them at ease (whew! I didn’t use the wrong napkin). In listing some rules below, I want readers to know my intent is not to be a snob. And I don’t want my students to become snobby, either. Rather, like Mrs. Kane, I want them to put people at ease.

Here are some basics:

. If you’ve written something you want a published writer to read, ask permission before sending your masterpiece, either by snail mail or attached to an email.
. When asking another writer to provide feedback on your work, offer to pay for editing services. . If you correspond by email with an editor or profile subject, be careful to keep him or her from being added automatically to your personal newsletter list or funny-joke-I’m-forwarding-from-a-forward list. (You know the kind I mean—the one with all those >>>>s before each line.)
. Plan to arrive about fifteen minutes early for an interview.
. If you have asked someone to meet you for coffee or a meal, assume you are paying unless you have worked out a different arrangement beforehand. This is true even if you are meeting in the school cafeteria and you know your invitee is richer than you are.

Next time, we’ll talk about table etiquette. (When seated at dinner, do you know which way the food should be passed?) But for now, "At ease."