Do you know the “secret writing rules”?
by Anne R. Allen
Somerset Maugham famously said, “There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are.”
But pretty much everybody you meet in the publishing business will give you a list of them. (One is “never start a sentence with ‘there are'” —so watch yourself, Mr. Maugham.)
Some of the rules show up in any standard writing book or class, but others only seem to get circulated in critique groups, conference workshops, and forums.
They’re a secret to everybody else.
But you’ll run into them sooner or later. In a forum or workshop, somebody will tell you with schoolmarmish assurance that you MUST follow these secret writing rules to be a successful novelist.
Nobody knows exactly where these rules come from, or why so many great books have become classics without following a single one.
Don’t get me wrong: many “secret writing rules” involve useful tips, but if you follow them rigidly, you’ll end up with wooden, formulaic prose that nobody is going to want to read.
As Ruth explained to us earlier this year, we need to know basic writing guidelines, but not follow rigid rules. And I’ve written a number of times about ignoring the “writing rules police.”
It’s good to learn these rules—because it’s way more fun to break them when you know what they are. But then go ahead and smash them with gleeful abandon.
My Unfavorite Secret Writing Rules
1. Never repeat a word in the same paragraph
Would A Tale of Two Cities be improved if its first line read: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of historical eras.” (And Mr. Dickens, the “was” police will be all over sentence!)
Or maybe Anna Karenina should have opened like this: “Happy families are all alike; every morose clan is despondent in its own way.”
Thesaurisitis can be a much bigger problem than repetition. 🙂
2. Never use multiple points of view.
Multiple points of view in one sentence—or even one chapter—can be annoying and confusing to the reader. But novels with several points of view can be richer and have more depth.
A single “deep” POV is great for a simple, linear storyline, and it might be best for a first novel, but once you’ve mastered the craft of novel-writing, don’t shy away from several POV characters.
3. Eliminate “was”, “that” and “just.”
The word “was” does not make your sentence “passive.” The verb “to be” is used to make several tenses and voices in English. Here’s my blogpost about tuning out the “was” police.
“Just” also has many uses and meanings. Only eliminate it if it’s an unnecessary modifier. “I just got home, so I haven’t had dinner” makes sense. “I got home so I haven’t had dinner” makes no sense at all.
“That” is erroneously maligned, too. Sometimes it’s required for clarity. Use your own judgement, not some silly rule.
4. Don’t use contractions.
What the…..? This one is so weird it’s hard for me to use polite language here. But I’ve been reading about it all over the place. Where, oh where did this idiocy come from? If you’re writing a novel in English about human, English-speaking characters, you’re writing about people who use contractions.
Writing a book in the voice of Data, the Star Trek robot, or Andy Kaufman’s “Foreign Man” might be a fun tour de force, but it could get old fast. And if ALL your characters talk like foreign robots, you’re going to have a complete mess.
I have a feeling this “rule” came from students learning to write college essays, or maybe legal briefs. But fiction that reads like nonfiction—especially a legal brief—would be a massive snoozefest. There are also many different styles for nonfiction. On the Web, very few are so formal that contractions are a problem.
When you write dialogue, the #1 goal is to sound authentic, and losing the contractions will have the opposite effect.
5. Remove all adjectives and adverbs.
Seriously? Even when your POV character is, um, rather vague? The secret writing rules apparently say all characters should sound the same. But that’s just silly. Some characters will use adjectives and adverbs and others won’t.
Ultra-minimalist “austere” prose may be in vogue with some readers, but it’s certainly not the norm. Chuck Wendig has a hilarious take on this dictum in his December 12th blogpost. (Warning: strong language.)
6. Never use the passive voice.
Oh, pu-leez. The passive voice exists for a reason. A scene can still be “active” if the author uses the passive voice.
It’s better for your detective to say. “This woman was murdered!” than “A person or persons unknown murdered this woman!”
Pretzeling your words into 100% “active” sentences will make your prose awkward and unreadable..
7. Eliminate ALL cliches.
Unless your characters are wildly inventive poets, strange visitors from another planet, or children fostered by wolves, their dialogue and thoughts will include familiar expressions.
Don’t rob your Scarlett O’Hara of her “fiddle dee-dees” or deprive your Bogart of “doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.”
8. No prologues. Never. Nohow.
I’ve sometimes preached the no-prologue gospel because beginning authors tend to misuse them, but they’re standard in some genres.
If they work for your story, they work. Just don’t use them as a crutch or a receptacle for info-dumps.
9. Kids can’t die.
This is why Little Women has been such an obscure failure, right? Beth should not have died! Editor Jamie Chavez wrote a great post a few years ago about that. It’s a keeper
10. All novels must have happy endings.
Rhett Butler should not have walked out on Scarlett with that rude line at the end of Gone with the Wind, right? Another dismal failure of a book. Maybe Margaret Mitchell should have written that the South won the Civil War and changed the title to Sameness in the Breeze.
If you’re writing Romance, yeah, you gotta have that HEA, but plenty of non-formula love stories have weepy endings. As Ruth says, you just need to know your genre.
***
Here is a little verse I wrote about writing rules, based on Dorothy Parker’s hilarious poem, “The Lady’s Reward”.
Secret Writing Rules
Make it light but never funny.
(Humor’s too subjective, honey.)
by Anne R. Allen (@annreallen) December 17, 2017
What about you, scriveners? What are your unfavorite “secret writing rules”? Have you had to deal with the “writing rules police?
We’d love your nomination!
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***
Arrrrgh! I cringe whenever I see “no,” “never,” “always,” and “remove all” in so-called writing rules. Unless it’s a rule like “Never get discouraged.” Oops. Sentence fragment. That’s a no-no, right?
😉
Cute poem, Anne. You made me smile.
Kathy–I like that: The only absolute to follow is “Never Get Discouraged.” 🙂
Lovelovelove your poem. Most excellent! 🙂
As to the passive voice: In his great and classic spy thriller, The Tears of Autumn, Charles McCarry makes brilliant use of the passive voice IN THE FIRST SENTENCE. “Paul Christopher had been loved by two women who could not understand why he had stopped writing poetry.”
If somehow you haven’t read Tears Of Autumn, don’t miss it!
https://www.amazon.com/Tears-Autumn-Christopher-Novel-Novels-ebook/dp/B013JQMCDY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513536689&sr=8-1&keywords=tears+of+autumn
Also, don’t forget there’s a certain successful blog titled Passive Voice. 😉
Ruth–Thanks! And thanks for the book recommendation. One thing about being laid up with a bad back–I have time to read!
Really important to look at the sources for the information. A lot of these rules comes from beginning writers who are passing it to other beginning writers. It’s like they’re looking for a checklist to game the system.
My own pet peeve on rules: Don’t do a lot of description. Description is boring and doesn’t move the story forward.
No one seems to grasp that it’s HOW you do it.
Linda–You’re so right. So many of those forums are the blind leading the blind. And I never thought before that the “secret”ules are about gaming the system, but they are, aren’t they? “Follow these and you’re automatically out of the slushpile. ”
The description thing is what Chuck Wendig talked about in his post I linked too. He says austere prose has its place, but it’s not the only way to write. And brilliant description is what sets great writers apart from their peers.
So right! One of Stephen King’s biggest attractions is the brilliant use of similes for description.
Hey Anne – you’ve nailed most of my favorites. The one I’d add to the list is “Never start with dialogue.” One of my writing heroes, E.B. White, did just fine with his kids’ novel *Charlotte’s Web*, which starts with the dialogue line, “Where’s Papa going with that Ax?” Not a bad way to drop into a story about a girl saving the runt of the litter from the chopping block.
CS– That’s a goodie. I did put it in my little verse (and I had to put in an apostrophe instead of the second syllable because it wouldn’t scan otherwise. 🙂 ) .
Starting with dialogue is of those things that are perfectly fine when done right. And Charlotte’s Web is a great example of doing it right!
No contractions would sound so unnatural. Especially in speech.
I’ve used a prologue and it was at the request of my publisher.
And even my critique partners have asked me to sprinkle in a couple ‘ly’ passive words on one manuscript. (Because yes, I had eliminated them all.)
Alex–I do not have knowledge of what you speak of. What is unnatural about a robot? Haha. And adverbs can be our friends. People used too many of them in the 19th century, but that was a long time ago.
When I teach fiction and creative nonfiction writing, I stress knowing all the “rules” and the why of them… and then one can blithely break each and every one for specific reasons: mainly, moving the story forward in the best way possible. It’s only when we break “rules” we don’t even know about that we can get into massive trouble (as well as listening to nonsensical ones like no contractions!). A whole book written in passive voice would drag on its a**s, but using passive voice (or adjectives, or adverbs) because it’s needed in a specific place only enriches the writing.
I have only two “hard and fast” rules:
1. Know the “rules” so you know when you’re “breaking” them.
2. When “breaking” a “rule”, if it works for you, it’s right.
A great little blogger named Anne
Does all that she possibly can,
To keep us on track,
Writing forward and back,
So our stories don’t become a sandman.
Susan–I like your rules! And your limerick is hilarious. Sounds like you’ve been hanging out with our limerick-master, Janice!
Marvelous post, Anne. I love it! Bookmarked it!
Elizabeth–Thanks!
Oh, this is so great, I want to freaking FRAME it. When I first started writing, I didn’t know I was writing women’s fiction and not romance. So, I entered many contests and got slammed! I found out later why but I thought, what? You mean, I have to introduce the hero by X page and then it HAS to have a HEA? What’s up with THAT? I thought I could write a book that someone might like to read. I didn’t know I had to follow RULES! Now that I’ve written 7 books and have a firmer stand on what’s acceptable and what’s sort of not acceptable, I feel calmer about shoving the rules where there’s little light to shine upon them. I love the way you’ve described how many of those rules are pretty non-sensical and silly. I believe that a good book can be written well and not follow any of the dang rules.
Patricia–The rules for Romance are pretty strict. It’s like writing a sonnet. You can be creative, but only within very precise guidelines. Some readers don’t want to read anything that doesn’t conform. Women’s Fiction, on the other hand, allows for a lot of creative leeway. In fact, it doesn’t even have to revolve around a love story. If you like breaking rules, Women’s Fiction is a great genre!
Hey Anne,
I think a lot of these rules come from specific writers and then somehow become some written in stone law for fiction writers, rather than a specific writer’s own ‘successful actions’ at the keyboard.
Frankly, I’ve never been much for rules and it seems to me the only rule a writer need follow is ‘does it make sense? could an ordinary person understand?’ rule. Everything else is up for negotiation.
As to your list, 3-7 seem to be the most popular ones of late and are ridiculous. To your list I might add the ‘never open with the weather’ and ‘never start with dialogue’ rules.’ There’s also this new thing going but I’m not sure I’d call it a rule – but it has to do with not using quotation marks around dialogue. Apparently, readers are supposed to intuit when characters are actually speaking with no help from the author. And I saw another recently about never using metaphors and similes – I guess they are as sinister as adverbs, eh?
All this rules nonsense come from what I believe is just a profound lack of judgment. Writers feel unsure and so cling to offhanded comments they see famous writers making, or perhaps their own little list of rules, that then morph into an ironclad law. And while there are times when every one of these so-called rules could be applicable, it’s doubtful that they would be 100 percent of the time or even the majority of time. And a lot of people just find it easier to use rules than their own judgment.
I think I’ll pretty much ignore these until or unless they come up with a writing rule that is indisputable, the way the ‘don’t put your hand into an open flame’ rule is.
have a good day and hope you’re feeling better soon.
Annie
Annie–Love this: “a lot of people just find it easier to use rules than their own judgment.” You’ve nailed it. People who don’t trust their own judgement love rules. Some people are naturally authority-motivated rather than self-motivated. We need to learn to recognise them, and then give them a wide berth.
Love, love, love the poem! The no prologues one super pisses me off, since I write in one of those genres where they are common.
Kassandra–As with so many of these rules, there’s some truth behind it: Newbies need to be careful of misusing prologues. But that doesn’t mean ALL prologues are bad. Especially in genres like fantasy, where they’re expected.
Hey Anne – sorry to hear you’re nursing a bad back – stop with the advanced yoga positions already! :O)
The only rules that work with humans in general are those like: fire burn, sharp pointed things hurt when stuck in you, and never ever run by a swimming pool. Writing rules seem to burden many of my clients, who fuss and stew over them and forget they are telling a tale.
My reaction to the ‘prologue=no-no’ rule is always to ask if the prologue contains material/info that couldn’t be included in the body of the story. If you can weave your prologue into the story, you don’t need the prologue. Oyes…and I also warn that many readers define prologue as ‘skip it’.
Thanks for the fun poem!
Maria D’Marco
in KC, where the birds think it’s spring…
Maria–As I said to Kassandra above, prologues are a problem only when they’re misused. But newbies do tend to misuse them. I agree that if the info can be put into the body of the novel, it’s generally better. That’s partly because readers do skip them.
So it’s warm in KC? Here in CA, we’re tinder-dry, hot and on fire. Crazy weather.
There’s a great movie called, The Book of Henry. Henry dies early on in the story. It broke my heart and the don’t kill kids rule but heck it was a good movie.
Leanne–There are lots of books that deal with the death of children. I think that’s a silly rule.
Iris Johansen, a NY Times bestselling author whose writing style pulls me deep into her stories, loves to break all those rules. I just scanned the openings of five of her novels. Two start with a prologue, one of which begins with dialogue. (Double whammy. LOL) Two others kick off with attention-grabbing dialogue. And another starts with a “was” statement: The phone was ringing.
I’m a relative newcomer to this writing world, having three novels and two novellas on the market. The “rules” can be stifling. I’ve got a novel about 60% complete, yet I’m afraid to proceed because I don’t know if I’ll turn off my audience because witnessing a child’s murder is the central point of my main character’s angst.
Ah, what to do, what to do.
Irene–With 3 novels and 2 novellas you’re not a novice. You’re at a point where your readers are going to trust you, so don’t pay any attention to these rules.
Go for it Irene! It will be great!
Thanks for the encouragement. You guys are the best!
Spot-on and encouraging as always Anne. I was out all afternoon or I’d be standing up and shouting “Testify” along with everyone else today.
Your point about multiple PoV hits me right in the cockles. My series with three heroes concludes with shifts in PoV from paragraph to paragraph in places. As you say, beginning writers… but I think it was the right choice in this case, we’ll see what the readers think.
And Prologues… :: spreads hands :: An epic author’s gotta’ do what an epic author’s gotta’ do. Lousy Bogart impression, but the scope and reach of some tales utterly requires that sort of discontinuous look-in at the kick off. Sometimes!
Will–An experienced author like you knows how to change POV without simply head-hopping. The rule against it is for novices who don’t know how to write in a truly omniscient voice.
But omniscient is the norm in epic fantasy. And so is a prologue. Each genre has its own set of rules. (And they’re usually not secret 😉 )
Love your poem, Anne.
Leanne–Thanks! 🙂
Thank you Anne! The poem especially was so fun.
Eve–Thanks. I had fun writing that.
Got a kick out of the “was” rule, Anne. Seems to me “Jeremiah was a bullfrog; Was a good friend of mine” went over just fine. Then 3DN immediately broke another sacred rule and changed tense. BTW – Hope you’re feeling better and Joy To the World – Merry Christmas everyone!
Garry–Right! That’s why that song never made it, right? Merry Christmas!
Forgot to say how awesome your poem is – perfect 🙂
Thanks Anne for a terrific blog post. Rules? There are rules? Thank goodness I don’t need to follow them.
Brad–It’s more fun if you know them so you can have fun breaking them!
Excellent post Anne! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I have to admit, I have broken many of these rules and never felt bad about any one of them. And my editor is a big fan of contractions. 🙂
Debby–Since most of these rules are bogus, I think all good writers break them. The contractions thing is just silly.
That was almost as much fun as a barrel of monkeys! Thank you Anne for sharing some writerly wisdom.
Mark–Thanks! Glad I could give you a laugh.
It’s a challenge to write a comment that adequately praises this post in the space most comments occupy. I love it! 🙂
John–Thanks! 🙂
Good advice, Anne. Or is that good advice about advice?
I can’t say I’ve mastered the rules as I didn’t come to writing the formal way. But I learned the rule of moderation. I use a good grammar-checking tool and it will always points out the “passive voice”, the adjectives, and the repeated words. I find that very useful as a review but If I followed all the recommendations, the writing would be boring and wouldn’t make sense.
Too me, variety is the spice as long as clarity isn’t lost. Even in non-fiction, it doesn’t have to be dry.
David–If you’d studied English at the university level, you still wouldn’t have “mastered” these rules, because most of them are bogus. Not rules at all. .They are just tools for writing business letters or legal briefs, not novels. Ignore them all, or you’ll have a hot mess.
Just some passing thoughts about the rules of writing.
Adverbs – In my book, there’s always a creative place for an adverb when called for. Although I agree with Roy Peter Clark in his book Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer’ with his view that adverbs are better employed when they attempt to change the verb rather than simply amplify.
Where appropriate, passive sentences offer the writer the ability to decide what is to be emphasised and can offer elegant contrasts with the active sentence. Something I remember from Virginia Tufte’s excellent ‘Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style’ .
Prologues: In the novel I am currently working on, I hit on the idea of having the story begin with a prologue. However, after hearing so many people-in-the-know weigh in with their considered opinion that prologues were poor form, I kept my own prologue tucked away in my folder like a dirty little secret. That was until recently, when I sent my current draft out to a critical reader who thought that my prologue was superb. Suitably chuffed and vindicated, I am now happy to leave it in. I think what makes prologues work is when they add something special into the mix, a X-factor so to speak. In my case, the short prologue sets up a mystery, a question to be answered.
One rule that I tend to follow is the use of the word ‘that’ over ‘which’. Something I picked up from my undergraduate days. ‘Which’ just sounds limp compared ‘that’ with its crisp consonant at the end.
Stay well.
Richard–Remember this is a post about “secret” i.e. BOGUS writing “rules”. These are not things you’d learn in a university-level English course. They are bad advice that’s passed around writers’ conferences and online forums.
Choosing “that” over “which” or vice versa is simply a stylistic choice. One is not superior to the other. As is eliminating the word “that” altogether, which is one of the “secret writing rules.”
Follow the REAL rules of grammar and you’ll be just fine.
BTW…The power of rules is so strong that a writer posted the list itself as if it were a checklist to follow on Facebook….Ignored the actual title of the post…
Linda–That is TERRIFYING!! Is that in a closed group? If you’re able to comment there, I hope you can set them straight. Tell them these are NOT rules. They are bogus, and if you follow them, you’ll have a boring, ridiculous, hot mess instead of a novel. Thanks for the heads-up!
I think they all have their place but sadly some writers use a handful of these examples to exhaustion and that’s why they become distracting! Though the cliche I WOULD fire into the sun is having a character “notice” themselves in a mirror so the author can describe them. Ick.
Icy–These “secret” rules are basically bogus, and following them will get you in deep doo-doo. But you do want to avoid storytelling cliches because they’ll snoozify the reader who’s seen it 100 times, like the mirror thing. The kind of cliches I’m talking about are the ones your characters use in dialogue.
I read a book where one character literally only spoke in cliches but the author pulled it off because that was the point. Proof the rules don’t always work!
I do love your blog though 🙂
Icy–The thing is, these are not rules. They are advice. Some of it good and some of it bad. If none of your characters used cliches, you’d have a bad book, because it wouldn’t sound authentic.
Ah, great post. Glad I found this today!
Lisa–Thanks for stopping by!
Anne,
While most of these rules I had heard of (and happily ignored once I found out WHEN they applied and WHEN they didn’t,) the one I ran into recently and has kept me baffled is the POV one. It’s the second time this week I hear such hogwash and, well, at least you’re debunking it.
Just yesterday I was reading a book published by Readers’ Digest where the author, among a bunch of actually good advice, states that if one is to use mutiple POVs in a chronological story one should always either:
1- Dedicate the same amount of time to each and jump among characters on an established, set order (thus always going from A to B to C to D) with the jump happening between chapters OR
2- Write parallel storylines.
The author, for all her experience, apparently had never heard of looking for the POV that better suits each scene or of scenes that contain not one, but several POV characters. Or if she did hear of it, she apparently never read a book where it worked.
I just turned myself off for that part of the book, because while I understand those things might make it simpler for some authors, they’re just absurd for others. Sure, some authors do this with success (most recently, G. R. R. Martin), but also some of my favorite authors (Pratchett, Sage, King) apparently never heard of this and it never hurt their writing. Why would somebody make up such a weird rule?
I myself wrote the entirety of my first (published) novel jumping between points of view (although almost never in the middle of a scene – head hopping is indeed bad!) and I wouldn’t change it. The freedom to fly all over the place, picking which scenes to show and which ones not to without constraining myself to an absurd order is, for me, what makes third person omniscient mixed with deep POV work. I’m working on my second book and just as well, while I try to always switch the POV between scenes I don’t follow a rigid path. After all, unlike in this author’s books, my characters do collaborate and meet with each other. Some of them even dare to be friends. Keeping their storylines separate or forcing myself to jump between their heads in a set order would detract from the story and damage its pacing.
Having a set POV can work great for a detective or romance novel, that I get. For some other novels, however, multiple POVs can add a lot. And when using multiple POVs, it’s better to always go with what the story needs than with a set order just because some author once thought it was the only way to write. I’m currently shuddering to think what my writing would have been like had I read that book earlier on my career and taken that particular piece of advice as valid.
Tizzy–POV is one of the hardest things for new writers to do well, which is why there is so much advice to stick with one. But once you’ve mastered it, multiple POVs enrich the story.
When you’re talking about Martin and other fantasy authors–and especially humor writers like Pratchett, they’re almost always using an omniscient POV (the god-like over view.)
This allows a voice like Pratchett’s to be a kind of stand-up comic’s voice–which is perfect for humor. (Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen also use omniscient for comic effect.)
It is can also work as the voice of an old-fashioned, storyteller–which especially works in epic fantasy. Every genre has its own conventions.
But the “rule” about separate storylines that don’t even intersect–that’s a weird one I’ve never even heard of. It sounds like somebody trying to mash together two novellas, I can’t imagine readers going for that.
Thank you so much for such a timely, relevant, concise, and useful post! I cannot STAND critiques that nitpick about the “you can’t use the same word in close proximity in the same paragraph” comments, or nitpicks about “was,” “that,” “just,” and other things that sometimes are necessary! I’m all for eliminating boring prose and getting rid of repetitive wording or other things that bog down one’s writing that should be excised, but these “rules”–especially the one about “never use adverbs or adjectives under any circumstances” drive me nuts and make me want to pull my hair out. It can make sentences so awkward if they are omitted in many cases! This reminds me of that hilarious episode on “Friends” when Monica reminds the annoyingly nitpicking grammar policer Ross: “Sometimes it’s who!” (and she’s right! Many writers get confused and use ‘whom’ all the time but sometimes ‘who’ is correct! LOL) Thank you for this post!
A. E. –Exactly. If you have your country bumpkin character use “whom” in dialogue, you’ve got a bad book, because you’re not being authentic. I depends on who is talking and what POV you’re using.
What a great post to get my New Years resolution going early! Loved the poem. (Now to maintain momentum and keep up with Anne’s blog and books. ????
Cathryn–Good to see you! I hope you’ll be able to keep those New Year’s resolutions!
Your poem is awesome. I break many of these rules, though I have searched for THAT in my manuscript and found some very unnecessary ones. Happy Holidays, Beth
Beth–Thanks! Beginning writers tend to go overboard with descriptive words, so it’s good to keep that in mind when editing. But NO descriptive words would make a novel pretty boring.
Awesome post and poem! 🙂 Sharing…
Bette–Thanks for sharing!
Such a terrific post and you are so right about all of it!!! Will share on social media.
Patricia–Thanks for sharing.! 🙂
All I can say is — wonderful.
Southpaw–Thanks! 🙂
Faulkner liked the word ‘was’ so much that he wrote a short story called Was.
Robert– I didn’t know that!! Thanks for the great literary tidbit! Love it.
This is very good. I loved the poem at the end.
Robbie–Thanks!
Great post. Rules should be used for guidance not adhered to so rigidly that they kill the story stone dead. Thanks for a most entertaining read.
Loretta–This is why I don’t think robots will ever be able to write readable fiction. Stories need some “rule-breaking” and personal quirkiness to become alive on the page. Otherwise, they just sit there, reminding you the refrigerator needs a clean-out and it’s time to polish the silverware. 🙂
I LOVE this post – so much refreshing common sense! I can add another stupid rule – ‘mothers in children’s stories must always be nice’. This was suggested by someone in my critique group after reading chapter 1 of my WIP. Admittedly my MC’s mother is an absolute nightmare, but if she was a Mary-Sue character the story just wouldn’t work. Why should mothers always be Mary-Sue characters, anyway?
Annabelle–Oh my goodness, that’s a stupid one, isn’t it? Especially since the best children’s literature usually has absent or terrible parents. I’ve been watching Stranger Things on Netflix, and thinking how it’s a great template for children’s books. The parents are all useless for different reasons.
The kid can’t be a real hero if the parents are on the job taking care of things. In Stranger Things, the Wynona Ryder character is a good mother, but she’s so emotionally fragile that nobody believes her. I think that’s a good way of making the mother “nice” but mostly unable to help..
The important thing is that the parents can’t be there to save the day, for whatever reason (usually that they’re conveniently dead) so the kids can be heroes. A Mary Sue mom would kill any story.
But having a not-nice mom is a great way of allowing the kids to be heroic. Go for it!
Awesome, Anne. I was told by a writing coach years ago to write chronologically and it’s one that’s still hard for me to break. Learning the “rules” is important, but sometimes they must be broken!
D. Wallace–Oh, the old “linear time” thing. Yeah. Well, it’s easier to read. So if you’re writing pop fiction it’s probably best to keep it simple. But if you want to engage the reader’s mind a little more, playing around with the timeline is always more fun.
I had a problem with that in my third novel of a trilogy. I wanted to start at a certain point, but I also had a lot of back story to fill in, so I had to devise different ways of using flashbacks, so that it wasn’t confusing or boring. It was an absolute nightmare, but worth it as that aspect has been praised in several reviews and no-one has said they were confused!
Jr–Most writers use flashbacks. But beginners tend to overuse them and use them badly. That’s how the “rule” got started. But since you’re not a beginner, it sounds as if you used them correctly.
absolutely love that post–so many rules that don’t fit! (there i’ve already trashed several). will reblog this post on my own for Sunday, the 7th–and i’ll be subscribing. thanks!
Rosepoint–Thanks for the reblog in advance! And welcome!
Great post, Anne! My fave no-nos are contractions, passive voice, and (No.1) POV! Contractions certainly are part of natural speak and fictional characters should be allowed to use them. Passive voice in portions has its place everywhere. I believe in multiple POVs in stories; I think it makes characters more involved with the reader when used in non-confusing switches. But a writer has to be careful with this one to make certain the switches fit and don’t off-put the reader. It’s fun if done correctly.
I’m a real writing crank when it comes to non-use of adjectives and adverbs, too! Why are they words if we can’t use them?? Dick Francis is a fine example of entertaining writing that includes these monsters. He used the adverb “chatteringly” in “Proof” and I’m still laughing years later!
All of life is not a happy ending; stories don’t exist to tell all happy endings, either.
You gave wonderful examples of reasons to take all ten of these secret writing rules tongue-in-cheek, and the poem tops off the reasoning with engaging humor!
ba–No contractions in fiction is just nonsense, pure and simple. It has to be somebody’s misremembered rule from the seventh grade teacher who was trying to tell them how to write a business letter. And no adjectives or adverbs is impossible. You end up with prose so lean it’s skeletal.
I’m glad you liked my silly verse!
I write historical fiction (including time travel elements) and I wonder whether the ‘no contractions rule’ evolved from historical writers, because in some past eras they would not have used them, or at least, not the same ones. For example, ‘it’s’ would have been ”tis’ or just ‘it is’. I have heard this advice given for writers in the historical fiction genre. It’s useful for me as not using them when a medieval character is speaking helps to distunguish them from ‘modern’ characters as well. But historical fiction is a special case, I suppose.
Jrlarner–Historical fiction is a special case, yes. And different parts of the British Isles and the Empire used contractions. They were just different from what we use now. I remember reading Robert Louis Stevenson as a kid and being stymied by expressions like “Ha’s th’ bin” Many years later, I heard older people in Yorkshire saying those exact words. I finally realized it meant “how hast thou been” (How are you) Haha.
But that seems unlikely to be the source of this newish “rule”. I think it’s much more likely to come from advice to nonfiction business writers.
My (former) publisher told me metaphors and similes weren’t allowed anymore. As a result, my book, Miami Morning, is almost unrecognizable to me. I admit to overdoing it, but had no problem with bunches being cut, but to be told these literary devices were no longer available floored me. Apparently George Orwell said don’t use metaphors. His book, Animal Farm, is one big metaphor! Sometimes this stuff gets crazy. And you can’t switch from one location to another without having a space break between paragraphs, even if the characters are walking or driving from one place to another – not to mention that even when the narrative announces backstory, again the break is mandatory. That makes for some pretty choppy chapters.
I’ve read a book recently that suddenly took a hiatus to build suspense, when it was already there, and the re-hashing was so tiresome I almost stopped reading. I’m sure she was told she needed to ramp up her plot arc at that point. It was ridiculous. Sometimes a writer has to say no.
Refreshing post, Anne.
Mary–Oh, how awful. I hate to deal with dictatorial editors like that. Luckily I’ve only run into a few. But I had one agent who said she’d only take me on if I cut out the entire main storyline and changed my literary mystery into a category romance. No. Thank you. (On the same day, two publishers made offers on the same book.)
I hear you about the contemporary books where you can see the editor’s heavy hand at work. I usually stop reading. Life’s too short to read a ruined book. But what a shame for the author.
Yay! I love an author/editor who’s both sensible and daring. The overuse of ‘that’ can be maddening but also confusing if omitted when needed. I feel as if a weight has been lifted after reading this. Thanks so much, Anne. Happy New Year, my friend! ❤
Tina–My mom was a professor of English at the University of Connecticut and she hated that taboo against “that”. She loved to send me examples of writing where taking “that” out totally confused the reader.
I’m so glad this post helped you. Happy New Year to you, too!
Anne, you hit every one of the ‘rules’ that I’ve come to hate! Especially the one about passive voice. I can;t imagine any writing being as boring as some with only active voice,
Noelle–People who tell you not to use the passive voice–and don’t even know what the passive voice is–make me crazy. Definitely a pet peeve. And of course we need the actual passive voice in our writing. If we didn’t need it we wouldn’t have invented it.
I used to obsess over rules. No more. My WIP has multiple POV, one in 1st person, the others third, starts with a prologue, and has the antagonist about to murder his disabled son in chapter one. I’m a rebel!
Thanks for a great post!
Tammy–Rebels are the ones who stand out. J.K. Rowling didn’t copy anybody or follow anybody’s rules, and she didn’t do too badly. 🙂
I don’t entirely agree with the idea of never starting a book with dialogue because sometimes doing so can hook the reader just as much as if it is started with any other sentence. It opening with someone saying something is different to dialogue provided that at least one or two non-dialogue sentences appear after them doing so. Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles opens with Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson discussing a walking stick. But someone can open a novel by saying something even if nothing is said immediately afterwards.
Tom–Exactly “Never start your book with di’logue” is one of the lines in my verse, even though I didn’t list it as one of the “secret” writing rules to ignore. As many commenters have pointed out, lots of great books start with dialogue. That’s definitely a “rule” to ignore.
Unfortunately some of this is coming from agents – I see them posting a lot of these “rules” on Twitter and newbie writers are blindly following them because of course agents generally mean the difference between getting a traditional publishing deal or not. One even recently admonished writers on Twitter to take out ALL adverbs and adjectives. This was an agent from a large publishing house! He was excoriated and took the post down, but never explained or apologized. Some of this is flat out because agents are, simply, not writers. They’re not even editors. And yet they have been pushed into the editorial position by an increasingly lazy and broke publishing industry. Additionally, agents read hundreds of queries a week. No doubt they get fatigued with conventions they see popping up over and over, or misused. But most people are reading a book or two a month, IF that. Your average reader isn’t tired of prologues, or weather openings, or dialogue tags or passive voice (provided they are used properly, of course – and many of the most popular books of the past couple of decades have improperly used them.)
Charlotte–I have seen this stuff coming from agents, too. Usually junior ones. I once had an agent say my opener was too “passive” when I had used the past progressive tense and she didn’t know the difference. I found out later that she almost destroyed a friend’s career by sitting on a book she said was unpublishable. The friend got a new agent and that same book–unchanged–went on to become a #1 NYT bestseller and a major film. I’d dodged a bullet.
My feeling is if an agent is handing out lazy “tips” as “rules” then you don’t want to work with her. But you’re right that agents are part of the problem here–for all the reasons you mention.
An indie publisher requested my novel. I went to its website and one of the founders had this in his blog, “Remove all active tense and make it action tense.” I didn’t submit.
Agents are self-selecting. There’s no equivalent of medical school to become an agent, especially a junior one. You’re lucky if you get an agent who has an English degree from a good school.
Luckily my agent and publisher didn’t have any of these “rules” in their brains when they took on my book. And no wonder so many books sound like business pamphlets these days.
Sorry there’s no edit button. I meant to write “Remove all passive tense…”
I would like the name of the book you have used in your photograph. The illustrations is like what I would like to use in my book.
Marcie–I have no idea. I just did a search in WikiCommons for “book of magic spells” or “book of secret spells.” It’s in the public domain, so it’s probably long out of print. But I believe those flowers are real flowers that have been pressed, not drawings. You could do a search for “images of pressed flowers.”