Lists of dos and don'ts for purist fiction writers

Scarlet Thomas, celebrated below, worked with some writer buds in England around the turn of the century on this Dogme-like list of strictures:

LITERARY PURITANS MANIFESTO

1. Primarily storytellers, we are dedicated to the narrative form.

2. We are prose writers and recognise that prose is the dominant form of expression. For this reason we shun poetry and poetic licence in all its forms.

3. While acknowledging the value of genre fiction, whether classical or modern, we will always move towards new openings, rupturing existing genre expectations.

4. We believe in textual simplicity and vow to avoid all devices of voice: rhetoric, authorial asides.

5. In the name of clarity, we recognise the importance of temporal linearity and eschew flashbacks, dual temporal narratives and foreshadowing.

6. We believe in grammatical purity and avoid any elaborate punctuation.

7. We recognise that published works are also historical documents. As fragments of our time, all our texts are dated and set in the present day. All products, places, artists and objects named are real.

8. As faithful representation of the present, our texts will avoid all improbable or unknowable speculations on the past or the future.

9. We are moralists, so all texts feature a recognisable ethical reality.

10. Nevertheless, our aim is integrity of expression, above and beyond any commitment to form.

A "Guardian" critic misinterpreted these rules as an arrow pointing straight to Raymond Carver-esque minimalist constipation. I look to the Godfather of Pulp Fiction for their true antecedents.

I disagree strongly only with 5 and 7. I love the timeline tricks in the extremely unpretentious crime novels of Richard Stark and the ingenious fake product names in the films of Quentin Tarantino. I'm not puritanical enough to want to purge those delights.