by Anne R. Allen
The Harvard Business School recently did a fascinating study of toxic employees and their effect on a company’s bottom line. The researchers discovered the most difficult and costly employees aren’t the lazy ones or the gossipy ones.
It turns out the worst are the ones dead-set on following rules to the letter. According to the Washington Post, researchers crunched data from 50,000 employees at 11 companies to come up with a detailed personality profile of a “toxic worker.”
They found the most costly employees are the ones who said that rules should always be followed with no exceptions (as opposed to those who said sometimes you have to break rules to do a good job.)
And I know those “rule police” can also be toxic to a writing community. Especially when those “rules” are iffy.
Rigid Rule-Enforcers are Dangerous
The Harvard study said these people are dangerous in a work environment for two primary reasons:
1) Their rigid behavior causes high turnover and a hostile workplace.
2) They are most likely to be terminated for—get this—breaking the rules.
This may be partly because these are people who simply lie on the questionnaire because they think that’s what employers want to hear, and liars tend to make bad employees.
Rule Police are often Ignorant
But I think the rule enforcers may also be examples of the Dunning Kruger Effect. (That’s the study that showed that people who are most confident in their beliefs are usually the most ignorant)
People who cling to rules and enforce them with extreme confidence may be displaying their own ignorance of the subject.
I think this is especially true with some beginning writers. They hear about certain guidelines from agents or publishers or marketers, and in their minds these become “commandments” that every writer should be forced to live by. They never question the source or intent of the “rules” but simply follow them blindly and shame everybody who doesn’t.
Thing is, there are NO hard and fast rules in writing: only guidelines. (And of course, fashion. Writing styles go in and out of fashion and have nothing much to do with “right or “wrong”)
Inexperienced Writers Teach Each Other “Really Weird Rules“
Kris Rusch wrote a post a few weeks ago about how so much writing is sounding the same these days. She points out it’s written in what she calls, “the serious writer voice.” She says this is a voice that is “carefully bland” and “indistinguishable from any other voice.” In other words…boring.
The reason for this?
She says it’s because new writers, “have their friends (usually unpublished or poorly published writers) go over the manuscript. Those friends impose really weird rules on the writers. I’ve seen lists of these rules. The rules tend to vary depending on where the writer learned them… Some of the rules are truly idiosyncratic to some local workshop.”
But, as Somerset Maugham famously said: “There are three rules of writing. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are.”
And this is absolutely true: there are no rules for writing narrative. The most people can give you are tips.
There are rules of grammar of course, and they aren’t what I’m talking about here. But even those are more fluid than many writing policepersons realize. Lots of things differ depending on whether you’re in the US or the UK and Commonwealth countries. And MLA (Modern Language Association) rules for academic writing can differ from the CMS (Chicago Manual of Style) rules used in the publishing industry.
Rules vs. Tips
One of my old posts offering writing tips for newbie writers went viral last month. It got nearly 6000 hits in the space of a few hours. The post is called 10 Things that Red Flag a Newbie Novelist.
In it, I listed ten common things new writers often do that give away the fact they are just starting out. I didn’t say all writers should avoid these things—only that beginning writers gravitate to them and they are tough to do well.
Even so, some commenters got their panties in a bunch. They wanted to know why I forbade new writers from doing things that are perfectly okay for established writers.
They accused me of discriminating against new writers.
But that would be silly.
First, I’m allergic to dogmatic thinking. (When I step in dogma, I scrape it off my shoe.)
Second, what I think a lot of new writers fail to understand is that there is a learning curve to writing narrative.
When they see a list of tips for newbies, they think they are reading hard and fast rules all writers must obey, and if they have a “rule police” mentality, they’ll try to impose them on others.
Nobody is Born Knowing How to Write Well
Like any other craft, writing well takes time to learn. It’s not a case of “right” and “wrong” or “breaking the rules” but simply learning to walk a few feet without falling down before you try to run the Boston Marathon or climb Mt. Everest.
Being reminded of this seems to infuriate some people. I’m not quite sure why. They wouldn’t expect to play Carnegie Hall after the first year of piano lessons, or attempt to make a perfect Grand Marnier soufflé flambé the first time they turn on the oven.
But some new writers think they are being discriminated against when anyone suggests that a simpler project might be a good place to start. Saying you’re more likely to succeed if you start at the beginning is not the same as enforcing rules or “forbidding” anything.
Since these people couldn’t really hear what I was saying, I wondered if they might have their own personal “rule police” living in their heads.
When somebody suggests a nice batch of toll house cookies might be easier than a soufflé for a first cooking project, they hear “THOU SHALT NOT MAKE A GRAND MARNIER SOUFFLE FLAMBE, NOT EVAH! AND THOU MUST SHAME ANYBODY WHO TRIES.”
But Writing has No Commandments
Especially in the digital age.
We are living in an era when anybody can publish anything and try to find an audience for it. If you want to translate the Epic of Gilgamesh into Klingon and write it in Wingdings, you can. Nobody knows what’s going to go viral these days.
Wingding Klingon Gilgamesh could become the biggest thing since Gangnam Style.
But the corollary to that is: nobody owes you a readership. If you can’t even get your mom to read your opus, don’t spam everybody you’ve ever met demanding they buy it.
Ruth and I offer suggestions of what works for most writers on their journey to becoming professionals. We also warn against doing things that we did early in our careers that slowed down our progress, so you can learn from our mistakes.
But remember when we give you suggestions here, they aren’t hard-and-fast rules—they’re tips and guidelines to help you learn.
The WAS Taboo
My #1 pet peeve when it comes to silly writing rules is the one that says you can’t use the word “was” because it makes your writing “passive.”
I wrote a whole post about it in 2012: Should You Eliminate “Was” from your Writing?
I’ve heard from a number of writers who were unfortunate enough to meet up with an editor or agent who insisted they remove every instance of the verb “to be” from a novel. (Which usually results in unreadable—and sometimes comical—dreck.)
What most of the rule-enforcers don’t get (Dunning-Kruger at work here) is that the past tense of “to be” isn’t always “passive.” It’s also used to form the past progressive tense.
“I just sat there when the man punched me in the face” does not mean the same thing as “I was just sitting there when the man punched me in the face.”
We NEED “was”.
The “was” police aren’t wrong. But they’re making something a “rule” that’s only a tip for self-editing.
Beginners tend to overuse “was” because it’s the first thing that comes to mind. Unfortunately, using the first thing that comes to mind can make for flat, boring writing, so a quick search for the word can help you polish a manuscript and liven up your prose during the editing process.
But “was” can be an absolute necessity to communicate meaning. And what are “writing rules” for, but to teach us how to communicate more effectively?
Point of View Police
This is also true with the use of the omniscient narrative point of view. Lots of writing teachers say you should never use it.
But there’s nothing wrong with the omniscient point of view. Some of our greatest novelists use it.
However, beginners tend to use it as a crutch because they don’t know how to show emotion from a single point of view, and they end up head-hopping, which leaves readers in total confusion. So whenever I see a newbie’s work written in the “omniscient” POV, I tend to cringe. Nine times out of ten, it will be the verbal equivalent of a fallen, soggy soufflé .
Also, it’s very much out of fashion. Something like 80% of contemporary novels use the third person limited point of view. Using a device that’s out of style can work against you. It’s a little like showing up to a job interview wearing 1980s big hair and a power suit with Alexis Carrington shoulder pads. You’ve got to be really good to carry it off.
But if you want an old fashioned tone and you’ve got the skills to use an omniscient voice without leaving readers scratching their heads, go for it.
Learn to Create a Professional Product
Readers don’t care about rules, but they do want a polished, entertaining read. They aren’t there to educate you or “cut you some slack” because it’s your first book. They don’t want something that’s confusing, boring, or obviously written by a novice.
One commenter on the “newbie red-flag” post said my suggestions didn’t apply to people who are writing in a second language. They thought that simply telling an agent they had difficulty with the language would get them a free pass for sloppy writing.
But agents aren’t teachers. Neither are readers. They won’t give you a gold star for effort. Either agents can sell your book or they can’t. (And remember that if they can’t sell your book, they don’t get paid.) If you need help with your skills in whatever language you write in, get it before you query or publish.
BTW, I don’t mean to discourage anybody from writing in a second language. In fact I think people who can do that are awesome. If you want to read about the benefits of writing in a second language, check out this piece in E-Books India by Sasha Palmer, who’s a regular commenter on this blog.
But you need to master the language first.
If you hire a plumber, you want one who can fix your toilet, not a novice who hasn’t learned to use a wrench yet. You also want a bus driver who’s got more than a learner’s driving permit and a lawyer who has graduated from law school and passed the bar.
Readers expect a book that’s for sale to be polished and professional. Their time is valuable. Don’t waste it. Give yourself time to learn to write.
But don’t do it by listening to dogmatic rule police, or you won’t develop your own voice. It takes time to develop your own personal style. As Miles Davis said, “Man, sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to sound like yourself.”
The suggestions and tips you get from the pros are ways to help you learn. But there are many roads and many ways to become a good writer. Write your story in your own voice. Learn how to write it in a way that’s clear and entertaining and doesn’t waste your reader’s time.
But it may help to remember this quote by grammarian Eric Partridge “Every worthwhile book contains many faults, and every worthwhile writer commits them.”
So ignore the rule police and keep writing!
***
What about you, scriveners? Have you ever been a victim of the writing rules police? How did you handle it? Have you ever been forced to remove all instances of “was” from your writing? What writers do you think write well in the omniscient point of view? Can you make a soufflé flambé?
By Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) February 21, 2016
Anne R. Allen is the author of ten books, including the bestselling CAMILLA RANDALL MYSTERIES and HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE, co-written with NYT bestseller Catherine Ryan Hyde. You can also find Anne at her Book Blog
BOOK OF THE WEEK
SO MUCH FOR BUCKINGHAM
It’s now in paperback! The paper version is available at Amazon, Amazon UK , and Barnes and Noble. This is a really elegant paperback from Kotu Beach Press, with bigger print, great design and better paper. I’m loving it!
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This comic novel—which takes its title from the most famous Shakespearean quote that Shakespeare never wrote—explores how easy it is to perpetrate a character assassination, whether by a great playwright or a gang of online trolls. It’s a laugh-out-loud mashup of romantic comedy, crime fiction, and satire: Dorothy Parker meets Dorothy L. Sayers.
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Yes, yes, yes and YESSSS! Writing is hard enough without so-called “rules” making it even harder. Style is looking like yourself on purpose. Voice is sounding like yourself on purpose. Takes a lot of time and a lot of words to gain the confidence to find and develop that voice: Miles Davis nailed it.
Ruth–I was so pleased when I ran into that Miles Davis quote in a Facebook meme just as I was writing this post. It said exactly what I wanted to get across.
Ruth,
You probably did not mean it like this, but your comment (“Writing is hard enough without so-called ‘rules’ making it even harder.”) is used WAY too much by uneducated newbies who have never been taught, or have never bothered to learn, even the basics of grammar, punctuation, or construction. They just want to “write the story” and get it out there with, perhaps (and only “perhaps”), a stated intention of fixing it later, after they get some reader feedback. And then they cry when they get one- and two-star reviews, as though we are supposed to give them a pass because this is their first book.
The opposite is also true: someone who has been a “word person” (such as an office secretary) for twenty years thinks that they know all there is to know about writing, and so how dare we criticize their book.
Peter–Do note that I spend a lot of time in this post telling people to take the time to learn how to write. I’m warning about those people who enforce “rules” that are bogus–rules made up by people who don’t know what they’re talking about. If you take the time to read the whole post, you’ll see I make a distinction between actual rules of grammar and the “really weird rules” that have very little basis in reality. If you take one phrase out of context, you can make anybody look as if they’re saying the opposite of the actual point..
We spend a lot of time on this blog telling people not to publish too soon. We usually say it takes three books. Don’t publish your first effort. It will embarrass you later on.
Grammar rules can be broken. A well told story and a well written story are not the same thing. While they can coexist, one doesn’t guarantee the other.
Most readers do not read critically the way writers, editors, and agents do. They read for the fun of it. A well written story has to be well told to find an audience. A well told story can have many written flaws and still be very successful.
Frank—Sometimes grammar rules can be broken but only very carefully. The other day I read a “look inside” of a book that interested me. The author kept using “Me and Jane went …” “Me and Dick ran ….” Deal breaker!
That wouldn’t be a complete deal breaker for me IF it was being used to set the mood or dialogue quirks of the POV character. But if it was just lazy writing, that would definitely be a no go.
It’s interesting what is and isn’t a deal breaker for readers. If anyone has broken that code then please let us all know. With a first person narrator I’d live with ‘me and Dick,’ provided it stacked up otherwise. I’d also live with ‘Dick and I,’ provided it stacked up otherwise.
Ruth, I’m not sure the average reader is even aware of most grammar rules that would make a writer cringe. Plus, I’m just not a fan of any hard rules in writing. If readers like it, who am I to say it was wrong?
Peter—Thanks for taking the time to comment. I won’t repeat what Anne explained so well. There are rules that need to be obeyed and rules that need to be ignored. Takes time to figure out which are which and when—and how—to break them! 😉
I didn’t mean to imply any thing negative about your comment (“Writing is hard enough without so-called ‘rules’ making it even harder.”). What struck me about it was that I have heard it used more than once, almost word for word, by people (not you) as an excuse to not follow the very first “rule” of writing that Anne said earlier: “Take the time to learn how to write.” Everything else follows from that, and yet there are many hopeless cases (I’m sure that you have run into them) who just don’t seem to get it. They do not want to take the time.
Love this post and love this comment! “Style is looking like yourself on purpose. Voice is sounding like yourself on purpose.” ❤️
Sarah—Thank you for the kind words! As to looking/sounding like yourself: Easy to say, not so easy to do, but well worth it.
I love it too!
The usual ab-fab Anne! I think this one goes well with your immortal warning on critique group-killers and how to avoid them too.
The idea of writing police reminded me powerfully of their equivalent in the RPG community, known as “rules lawyers”. It was hard to keep any enthusiasm for the storytelling of a game when one guy could catch the slightest inconsistency in a die roll, no matter how slight or unintentional. On the other hand, rules lawyers really DO know it all- the couple I met had photographic memory, could quote monster stats and saving throws, the whole nine yards. So it’s not that they were ignorant. It’s just they didn’t know the proper PLACE of the rules. I grew to appreciate their presence; they helped to keep me sharp (had to create original monsters, for one thing). And when you have to fight to keep the story uppermost- well, better story I’d say. So maybe the writing police have their place too. Mostly far away, please!
I think the goal is to prove you wrote it on purpose, whether it stretches a rule, obeys it, mocks it or shatters it and grinds the shards beneath its heel.
Will–A good point. You do need to know the rules to break them. But you need to break them on purpose. 🙂
I like to know what the rules are, because they help me to find weaknesses in my own writing. When you mention head-hopping, all of my past work flashes through my head. But helps to know what to look for, it helps to know what you are doing when you do it. I tend to use the omniscient POV, and *knowing that* is an extremely helpful thing to be aware of and to remember as it’s important to keep the reader grounded.
The rules are very much a part of the training, once you’re trained you’re on your own and it’s all up to you know as to what you do with it.
Louis–Yes. As I said to Will in the comment above, we need to know the rules first in order to break them. But we also need to know the difference between a rule and a self-editing tip and that’s what the rule police get mixed up.
This is one of the reasons I had to get off the writing message boards (now over a year, and I haven’t missed them). The rules police would focus on the rules and ignore actual writing. I remember one time just asking a question about what make a good dream sequence. I was going to put a 50 word one in the story, and I wanted to do it well. The character realizes something is wrong because he had the dream, and he later discovers he had it because he came in contact with a god. But when I posted the question, the other writers were horrified that I was breaking the rules and acted like I was clueless idiot. When it was apparent I wasn’t going to follow the rules, you could almost feel them backing away very slowly and very quietly.
I just read a short story by Michael Connelly. For the last scene, we’re in the viewpoint of one character, who is stabbed halfway through and dies. The story then switches in mid-scene to the second character’s viewpoint as he grieves the loss of his partner, and then the story ends. The rules police would point to that say, “Ah ha! He broke a rule! No head hopping.” The problem is that they don’t make the distinction of doing it well vs. doing it badly. For this story, it was a transition that made perfect sense when I went back and looked at it, and frankly, it was seamless.
So I’ve been “breaking a rule” in my book project. I’m head hopping and glad to do it.
Linda–Writing forums can be full of incompetent rule police. I know just what you’re talking about. “No dream sequences” is another thing that’s a tip for new writers, not a rule–that’s because they’re hard to do well. But a 50 word mention of a dream could convey meaning faster than anything else.
Great writers change POV all the time. One of the first times I met Catherine Ryan Hyde she read a story that had been shortlisted for several prizes and eventually became the title story for her first published book. It had two points of view in a very short story. Another no-no. But it worked! That made me realize what a fantastic writer she was.
The point that really resonates for me is your discussion of the vendetta against “was” and “to be” in general. I do watch for over-dependence on “to be” in my writing, but the nuance created by good choices in verb tenses can totally disappear when writers start twisting their sentences around to avoid it. The progressive tenses tell us something about the sequence and duration of events that can’t easily be communicated in any other way. I do sometimes suggest stronger verbs or more creative syntax to replace “location” verbs: e.g., “a chair was in the corner.” Maybe there’s something about that chair and its location that matters and that can be brought out in the verb choice (“a chair lurked in a dark corner” or “sunlight lit a chair in one corner. . . “?).
Recently in my critique group I got dinged for using informal language—I wasn’t allowed to say “a whole bunch of” whatever because the reader’s high-school English teacher hated such locutions.
Ironically, I just posted about “hypercorrectness” on my own blog (Just Can’t Help Writing, http://tinyurl.com/gvcrmnz). I consider this the tendency to try to sound “fancy” or “smart.” Sometimes it’s actually better to break a rule than to jar readers by guessing wrong or even by being right!
So right on, Anne! Here’s the rule: Learn the rules, but make them work for you!
Virginia–That’s just what I’m talking about. It’s a great tip for self editing to search for “was” and see if there’s a more interesting way of saying something. But the “was” isn’t wrong. Just bland. And searching for “was” is not a rule, it’s a tool.
But the kind of rule police who wanted you to get rid of “a whole bunch of” make me crazy. They want every character to sound like a PhD who never uses a preposition to end a sentence with. 🙂 Kris Rusch talks about one rule I’d never even heard–which is “No contractions in writing. Not ever.” OMG, can you imagine what stilted nonsense those people must create?
I get dinged on contractions all the time, as in I shouldn’t use a contraction in the narrative, just in dialogue and even then… The narrative comes from my POV characters who are NOT Commander Data.
Ron–I have no idea where that weird “rule” came from. I hadn’t even heard it until Kris Rusch mentioned it in her post. “All characters must sound like Commander Data” must have been invented by a robot. Unless you’re writing for other robots, fight that “rule” the way you would any other virus. It’s not just stupid, it’s dangerous. And dead wrong.
As a teacher, rules were a guide and they were good to use when you were unsure what to do.
I have experienced people having rules bigger than themselves. There is a point where you have to answer to yourself.
Thanks for your great and informative posts, you give so much good information. I have the same opinion as you on those pop-up windows. They are annoying.
Ann–Thanks for weighing in on those *&%! popups. I’ve been just clicking away. I figure if they want to block their own content, I’m happy to not look at it.
Teachers do need to teach the rules, of course. And as I said, we need to follow the rules of grammar. But these “weird writing rules” that have no basis in grammar or good English usage are a problem because they’re not really rules. They’re tools for self-editing. But the rule police don’t seem to know that.
Great post as always. We have a split-infinitive Nazi in our critique group. I’ll consider revising, but if its in dialogue, I usually leave it.
I’ve been a little bit a a was police but only when something can be made active like was walking vs walked or the shoe was dusted with power vs. powder dusted the shoe.
And on more thing I’ve notice, which is a little bit the opposite of the “bland” writing, but the trend to be very wink wink, self-aware, author intrusion. I’m bored of authors who won’t be sincere, but maybe that’s just me???
Anyway. Another great post and one to share with my critique group and writer friends.
Thanks you.
~ Tam Francis ~
http://www.girlinthejitterbugdress.com
Tam–Actually “was walking” isn’t passive. It’s the past progressive tense. “I was walking down the street when the piano fell on my head,” doesn’t mean the same thing as “I walked down the street when the piano fell on my head.” They show different points in time. In the first, the guy is walking and gets clobbered by a piano. In the other, the guy walks down the street wearing a piano as a chapeau.
And sometimes you do need to use the passive voice. your example of “powder dusted the shoe” is a good example. If the shoe is more important than the powder, you want to emphasize the shoe and put it first. So either way is fine depending on your focus.
I haven’t run into a lot of author intrusion recently, but I know the Victorians loved it, and would often address the reader directly. You’re right that a little of that can go a long way.
Thanks for sharing the post!
Too true. I know I stressed about this before I published. Not so much now. I agree with the advice to learn the rules, so you can learn to break them brilliantly. You can get away with almost anything, if you do it really well.
Laura–Exactly. When you’ve been doing something a long time, you get a feeling for what works and what doesn’t. But you have to know the rules to be able to break them. 🙂
Thanks for another fine post. Some of my favorite non-rule “rules” have to do with how NOT to start a novel. All these have been shared with certainty by rule-following apparent mentors: Never start with dialogue, never start with action, never start with backstory, never start with a flashback, never start with the protagonist awakening, never start with lengthy narrative, never start with the protagonist in front of a mirror, never start with a weather report. Though there are bad examples of stories that start in these various ways, the bad examples are seriously outnumbered by countless “rule”-breaking bestsellers & award-winners.
CS–I think those how-not-to-start-a-novel “rules” are actually anti-cliche rules. And the problem is things become cliches for reason: they work. So the “don’t start with a weather report” rule comes from so many 1000s of earlier novels with “It was a dark and stormy night” opener. Ditto the mirror scene. I think every romance novel written in the 1960s and 70s started with the mirror. So they aren’t wrong at all. They’re just tired. So if you use them, you have to offer a fresh take on them.
Great post, Anne! I’ve heard pretty much every variation on these “rules” including at a workshop I attended where the instructors told everyone that “was” is always passive (it’s not, as you astutely pointed out) and pretty much told us to eliminate as many instances of “to be” from our work (which I disagree with). For POV, they discouraged us from using first person. Do you agree with that? Some of my absolute favorite novels are written in first person. They told us to avoid it “because it’s too easy” and because it can cause unnatural/forced scenes, including the first-person viewpoint character having to conveniently overheard a conversation that the bad guys are having as one example. What do you think?
Thanks!
Anita–I think your workshop people were dead wrong on POV. First person is just as popular as third. In fact YA may have more first than third person narrators. I write my Camilla books in first person for Camilla and third if there is a second POV character. And as for the POV character having to overhear the bad guys or find out what they’re doing through a third person–that’s true for ALL books that have a limited POV–which is 80% of books or more. Only an omniscient narrator can tell us what’s in the bad guy’s heads. But usually we don’t need to know. Wow. That’s exactly the kind of bad advice Kris Rusch was talking about. You were right to question them..
I almost got sidetracked from commenting on this post by the list of previous posts above. The one about titles grabbed me. In a moment, Sandy. Yes! Rule Police attack: a while back I got the worst review I’ve ever gotten on one of my books. Aside from missing the entire book (IMHO), the review’s author dissed me on my writing. I’ve never claimed to be a great writer, but I’m OK, at least. I’ve worked on it for twenty years, with a variety of editors and teachers. I use sentence fragments, sometimes. To create emphasis. Change rhythm. Keep the existing rhythm in a passage. The reviewer considered that bad English. It is, if you’re in third grade. But say an author was constrained to write everything in the Queen’s English. Every bit of emphasis would have to be accompanied with a subject, predicate, and verb. No lapses for style or voice would be allowed. Elementary school teachers everywhere would smile; the world was a better place because people followed the rules. Writing would improve and so would the righteousness of existence. Or would it?
Sandy–Oh, those schoolmarmish reviewers with their total ignorance of fiction writing! Kris Rusch talks about them, too, and blames them for some of this bland writing. Apparently there are reviewers who are dissing books simply for using contractions. Any dialogue that doesn’t make a character sound like Data on Star Trek is “bad”. I fear these “reviewers” are wannabe or failed writers who are demonstrating the Dunning-Kruger effect.
I’m now reading the Dunning-Kruger effect article you linked. Sounds like truly stupid people don’t know they’re stupid, so they act as if they’re smart. Some are truly damaging. OK. Time to stop fooling around and get started with my Dragon for Mac software. I will learn to dictate before my hands turn to mush, not after! Happy Sunday, all!
This is such a great post. After I wrote my first novel I let it cool off for a while and wrote some other things. When I came back to it, I was stunned how stilted and “writerly” it sounded. I immediately began reworking it to help it relax into its own voice. A drummer friend of mine used to say, “Practice, practice, practice, until you can play while out to lunch upstairs.” It takes loads of practice to loosen up.
Jan–I like your drummer’s advice. It really is about relaxing and trusting your own voice. Grammar stuff can be cleaned up later, but nothing can fix a stilted voice.
So true, but it takes a while to know that, I think. When you are a beginner, you are so concerned with ‘sounding like real writer,’ which always works against you. At least, this was my experience.
I’ve been lucky, in that I’ve never been clobbered by the thought police…the rules police when it came to my writing. Much. Granted, it took me being skewered and cooked to a burnt crisp with my first self-published piece of dreck (willing ASI victim here, and that dreck will never, ever see the light of day again. Except to the IRS), in order to get the initial point, then very good critique from writer friends and readers with the short story dreck I published on a short story blog.
The point I’m trying to make is that just like the real world, in which certain rules must be bent to pieces in order to effectively do your job, so must certain writing rules.
Btw, the last two books I published, one started with a telephone conversation, and the other started with one work asking a co-worker about how best to answer a work related question.
GB–Good critiquers are golden. When they can tell you what works and what doesn’t work for them, it’s always helpful, even if you don’t take their suggestions. A lot of what you’ll hear will include some of these rules. The important thing to remember is that they aren’t carved in stone. They are more like suggestions and tips. But it sounds as if you put your first stuff out there before you got it workshopped and critiqued. That’s one of the drawbacks of the digital age. People can publish their work before its time.
In my classes, I teach the rules of viewpoint, and then tell everyone, “Now that you know the rules, you can decide when to break them. But be aware that if you break them, you will lose something…usually reader involvement. Make sure you gain more than you will lose, by breaking that rule.”
I find so many beginning writers want to make a big splash quickly, and they hope to do it by ‘writing something differently.’ Being ‘clever’ in a way that no one has ever been before. I have to bite my tongue, and just say, “Please. Just tell me a damn good story.”
Melodie–That’s a great approach to teaching the rules. “Here they are: break them with caution.” Interesting what you say about the quirky writing from beginners. I didn’t know so many of them do that. I sure did. I really thought that a rank beginner could write a story with no dialogue tags or sustain a novel written entirely in the second person. Yes, they were awful. Luckily in those days there was no Internet and they stayed safely in my file drawer.
ahhh taking a welcome break from 3 edits after the happy notification of your blog being available!
First of all, I use ghostery to block pop-ups — great relief from all that crap.
On writing rules cops…well, as an editor, you might think I would wear a starched uniform and carry a giant book of rules that I sleep on so as to absorb the majesty within. Nope…I am a rebel at heart and believe rules exist solely to create security.
To be artistically useful, rules must be flexible and become tools that allow us to express things in our own unique ways. In the end, all writing rules are simply common sense. The great verbal storytellers of old knew all the rules one ever needed!
In fact, I believe the advice I give most often to first-book authors is to read their material aloud. If their story sounds boring, stupid, confusing or illuminating, fascinating, intelligent — it probably is!
Next after that advice is the question: can you hear the voice of the story?
My surprise about writing rules police is how rules that cover multiple aspects of writing are all lumped together and soundly proclaimed as equally important.
ah well…as always enjoyed the post, Anne. Time to return to 50+ word sentences and characters who spit, gag, urp, growl, and chirp (I kid you not) their dialogue.
thanks for the break!!
Tiger–Haha! Oh, yes, deliver us from those chirpy dialogue tags! I agree about reading out loud. I read every chapter out loud several times–to myself and to my critique group. I think it helps a great deal. And you’re right that these rules are really tools that we need to use in a way that works for us.
I’ve never heard of ghostery. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip!
Yes, totally agree. I think there is so much advice out there and editors/agents are trying to streamline writing…at the expense of creative writing. Books do seem the same out there…a formula to follow. And few are willing to push out with something different. They all want it…that unique book that will sell millions. But few are willing to try out of the box…or even look at out of the box. Thus, the writing is becoming generic. I recently do not the like the push towards few adverbs. I am pushing back. I love adverbs. It is what the classic world was famous for and is what makes writing beautiful! It is the one “rule” I am not going to follow with my style. I have a style and a unique voice. I will follow the rules of good writing…but I will not compromise on what I feel is “my writing style” for generic popularity. Like you said, there are trends. But there is never a trend for good writing, creative stories, and entertaining art!
Hi Anne. Epic post! I’ll use this as a reference for my upcoming library talk on writing. TY!
Plus great links! 10 Things that Red-Flag a Newbie Novelist (oof! #4), and How to Write a Publishable Memoir (bookmarked).
Also, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and STILL can’t make a souffle flambe!
Maureen–Thanks for spreading the word. And I can’t make a souffle, much less set fire to it. I only tried to flambe something once. Luckily there was a fire extinguisher nearby, but it cured me of every trying it again. 🙂
Anne, I once flambeed (with brandy) a mushroom and veal dish in an eletric frying pan (yes, I am that old) that was on the counter right beneath my paper towel holder. Not a good moment … and for my next birthday I received a bottle of cognac and a small fire extinguisher from one of that night’s dinner guests.
Maggie–That is a brilliant comic scene! I hope you don’t mind if I steal it?
Anne, even funnier is that the dinner guests were my former husband and his wife (we’re good friends) and she’s the one who rescued me from the burning paper towels and then gave me the brandy and fire extinguisher on my birthday. We always have a good laugh about this one at family get togethers.
And yes, feel free to use it!
Maggie–That makes the story even better. Thanks!
I’ve written exactly two full chapters. A professional author I know who had written about 60 cheap romances recently screamed at me, in a public library, right in front of the librarian, who is my friend, that the only way to get published is to write a “damned good book” and I had to know about story arch. I was shocked at that depth of knowledge and such a generous and complete course in book writing, given in a couple of sentences. And, did I mention loud?
Thank you so much for this lucid and provocative addition to my education! She said with a giggle.
Katharine–Oh, dear. Screaming in the library is bad behavior for anybody. That woman sounds as if she may have mental health issues. If writing a book were that easy, why would we have all these writing courses and workshops and conferences? She sighed.
Oh, yes, I forgot…according to her, I’ve been listening to too much “crap writing advice”.
It really was not a pleasant day for me. Good thing I have support at home. And the librarian took me to lunch a few days later. Made me feel lots better.
And to give the writer full credit, she is somewhat famous in her genre and just last year buried her husband. I think she just is terribly stressed.
But she was telling me all about story arch and I write nonfiction . . . magazine articles . . . and am a polled reader’s favorite . . . 😉
Katharine–That woman sounds like a narcissist. To them the world is made up of themselves and the generic “other”. All other people are interchangable members of their audience. She could not see you as an individual. So she really wasn’t even talking to you. People like that suck all the energy out of you because they have none of their own.
Also, it is my understanding that romance is a fairly formulaic genre. I could be totally wrong there. It is so not my cup of tea that I can’t even force myself to read one. But then I’ve never managed to get past page 5 of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wratb either.
Anne, thank you for this post,
and thank you so much for linking to my article on e-Books India — you’re awesome!
I have a thing for adverbs. According to the “rules” we’re supposed to show them no mercy. So, every time I read Bradbury’s stories I rejoice at all the adverbs he uses.
Here’s a good rule:
“Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.”
—Ray Bradbury
Sasha–Your piece was great. Love the Bradbury quote! Some of our greatest authors used adverbs brilliantly. There’s a reason we have them. 🙂
Thank you 🙂
Off topic: I’ve noticed that your new posts don’t show up in my Blogger feed (I follow blogs through my Blogger blog, not the WordPress one). I have to go to “reading list/all blogs” and click on your blog to get the new post. I don’t mind the clicking, but thought would let you know in case this is something that can be fixed. I wonder if other Blogger users that follow you have the same issue?
Sasha–Alas, there’s no way to get a WordPress blog to show up in a Blogger feed that I know of. It used to be a Blogger blog, but we moved to WordPress.org. The best way to get the blog every week is to subscribe via MailChimp. It’s one of the sacrifices I had to make when we made the move. It meant losing nearly 2000 Blogger feed subscribers, so I wasn’t happy about it, but the two platforms are not compatible.
Once I click on your blog, the new post appears in the feed. I just need to put it there manually.
I didn’t realize that .com and .org don’t work the same way: I follow a lot of WordPress blogs through Blogger, but they must be .com blogs.
Thank you for the MailChimp tip — I’ll subscribe 🙂
While I did manage to avoid most head hopping, I did rely a bit on passive phrases. As I got better, I found I could remove most of them. But not all. Sometimes was or were just fits best. Sometimes a word that ends in ly fits best. You just have to know when those best times occur and that only comes from a lot of practice.
Alex–You’re absolutely right. Passive construction can be the best choice for clarity in many cases. And adverbs can add clarity sometimes, too. We need to learn to spot those cases and–as you say–that takes practice.
“Was” is also a linking verb, which is likewise distinct from passive voice.
Also, something that newbie writers tend to not realize: omniscient point of view is from the perspective of a single “head”: that head just so happens to be omniscient. That affects verbiage and phrasing, in ways that newbies usually don’t know. (Ex. “The table” vs. “a table” vs. “his table” all have significance relating to the point of view. The rare few newbies who do recognize this are all voracious readers, themselves.)
I believe part of the problem is that “rules” are easier to teach and explain…and even to see. Experts often skip basics that newbies don’t know, believing those things to be “common sense” when they actually need explaining.
So many newbies learn that advanced stuff without the foundation, invent their own foundation that ends up making the entire thing flawed…but at that point, they believe themselves advanced and that anybody who says otherwise is missing the point, below them on the totem pole of knowledge.
(I’ve seriously had folks pitch fits over my editing, because “Sentence fragments are fine to use!” and “As is a perfectly fine word!”—ignoring my point of “Not when they’re overused or ambiguous modifiers.”)
One thing that helps—well, helps those who are willing to be helped—is to point out that writing “rules” are actually “rules of thumb“.
Carradee–I’m very old, so when I went to school we didn’t call them “linking verbs”. Instead we used terms like “the past progressive tense”. 🙂 So I’m saying the same thing: Past progressive is not “passive” in any sense. It simply uses “was” to create the tense.
I like your insight that newbies often learn advanced information without knowing the reason behind it–then they pass this stuff on without explaining the context and the “tip” becomes a “rule.”
Linking verbs have nothing to do with progressive tense. The “was” in a progressive verb is called a “helping verb” or “auxiliary verb”.
Passive voice (subject is the target of an action): The cat was killed. (Note that this is useful for dodging responsibility.)
Linking verb (applies modifier to subject): The cake was moist. (Note that “The cake tasted moist” is also an example of a linking verb.)
Auxiliary verb (a verb that is used to help form a particular verb tense or mood): He was running home.
🙂
We called them “auxiliary verbs” in my day. You use the auxiliary verb “was” to make the past progressive tense. “was walking”.
I was raised by two PhDs who were both grammarians. I learned this stuff at my mother’s knee and other joints. 🙂
Years ago, someone told me to remove all the gerunds in my manuscript to “tighten the writing.” Had I listened to that advice I can’t even imagine how long it would’ve taken me to get published. I’d probably still be sinking in the slush pile.
Sue–Oh, the gerund police! My critique group had one for a while. His mission was to eliminate gerunds from the earth.. I never understood what he had against them. We gotta ignore those people, or they can make us crazy.
Oh man, this is a great post. I read a LOT of that grammar police stuff when I started out and I’d go through my entire ms and take out all adverbs and the word “was” and on and on. It wasn’t very helpful in making my book interestingly readable. After six books I’m still learning, just as you said.
Patricia–It DOES get easier, doesn’t it? Or at least there are new problems. But all those writing rules can really stall a new writer’s career. Spending months weeding out the adverbs and “wases”.can make you give up on a book–and it’s often unnecessary busy work.
I have a great editor who has helped me enormously, but one place I submitted to with reservation involved the use of adverbs. He cut EVERY single one. I had not used many, but he insisted on cutting them all. I’m liking the read, but the mood being conveyed is different. I’m a bit dissatisfied with that. Hmmm.
Susan–Wow. I would not be happy with an editor who cut all my adverbs. The narrator of my mystery series is overly polite and tends to try to soften things by adding adverbs. I would have to change her entire personality if I worked with an editor like that. I don’t know if your editor is assigned by your publishing house or if he’s an independent editor, but if he’s somebody you’ve hired, set him straight. You don’t want to lose your voice.
Great post, Anne. I discuss the “rules” when I teach fiction writing only so my students have a guideline and so, as Will Hahn pointed out, they know when and why they are bending, stretching or breaking them. I do have one hard and fast rule that everyone has to adhere to in my class (we do exercises in class and share so everyone learns from our successes and failures): “There is no one right or wrong in writing; if it works for you, it’s right.”
The operative word, of course, being “works”.
My job as both teacher and as an editor is to make each writer’s own unique voice as strong and clear as possible. Thanks for a great post on how NOT to do that, by being the rule police…
Susan–You’re absolutely right that we have to know the rules. Otherwise it’s no fun to break them. 🙂 That’s an excellent point about what “works”. It’s not what works for you and your adoring mom. It’s what works for readers generally. Clarity is a must.
Ugh! I had a coworker who was a rule police and it was not fun working with her. When she was let go (for yelling at the boss) the tension in the kitchen vanished.
I’ve always heard that you should learn the rules only so you can learn when to break them.
Patricia–Great story that illustrates the problem perfectly. That happens so often–one bad apple can create tension in everybody in their environment.
I like to call them guidelines. Before I learned when to break them, I needed to learn to use them however.
Redd–The trick is to learn what’s an actual rule and what’s just a tip for self-editing. We need to work at prioritizing the advice so we know what we need to follow and what’s just a suggestion.
Great post about viewing the rules as guidelines. I always suggest to fellow authors that they should read widely, not just how-to-write books. Read the good and the bad, to see what other authors are doing. There are plenty of wonderful books out there with opening dream sequences and head-hopping (and plenty of not-so-wonderful ones) that can be pretty enlightening.
ED–You’re absolutely right. Reading is so essential to good writing. And not just the classics. We need to know what’s selling right now–yes, even if it’s “badly written.”
This is a topic I’ve been thinking and writing about a lot lately. Like many newbie writers, I first set out to learn how to write a novel. I searched far and wide for the rules. What I got was a lot of contradiction and more than a few rules that seemed to make no sense at all. When you’re first learning a skill it’s smart to look for advice but for a new writer, the sheer absurdity of what you will find can be crippling.
Recently, I read a blog post about character traits to avoid. The examples used by the author of the piece were all from incredibly popular works. Only in writing do you see people advise not doing something that has been successful because of some imaginary rule set.
From all of my study I’ve learned there is only one rule to writing, do what works for you. I recommend reading as much as you can on the craft and the business. You can’t know if something is going to work for you if you don’t even know it’s an option. You just have to keep your mind open and be willing to move on if something isn’t working even if every other writer out there tells you it’s a rule to live by.
Frank–Lots of wisdom in your comment. This is so true: “Only in writing do you see people advise not doing something that has been successful because of some imaginary rule set.” We do need to find out about the rules and suggestions from the pros, but draw our own conclusions.
Great article, Anne. (as usual)
Yes, I HAD an editor who was a “rule-enforcer” – we went round and round about passive voice – I now write WAS all the time, and break as many rules as I can.
(Not really)
I cannot make a soufflé flambé…
Sidenote: I love the word DRECK and must find a way to incorporate it in my next book.
😀
Sharon–I fear a lot of editors are rule policepersons. They can get rabid on the subject of passive construction, especially if they don’t really get the distinction between passive and progressive. It IS fun to break those rules, isn’t it? I started my new Camilla book with the weather, just to prove I could do it. 🙂
Lol…and I started one of mine with a dream!!
Cliches exist for a reason: they worked! If you use one you need a fresh take, but they’re not “wrong.”
Just got through the post and comments. Started rewriting a piece because someone thought the beginning was overused, but after reading the blog and comments…Screw them. It works to set the mood and scene and, most importantly, the main character. He’s not a shiny hero. In a different story he would be the protagonist, but the protagonist is the hero of his own story. And he believes in breaking the rules for what he sees is the greater good.
Ron–Having an unsympathetic protagonist is a no-no to the rule police, too. But they forget that Scarlett O’Hara was a complete b****, and many “heroes” of our most revered novels were seriously flawed. Beginning with the first novel, Don Quixote. The rule police say everything must be cookie-cutter predictable. But I don’t think that’s what readers want.
Anne-Thanks for the reply. I totally agree. I think one of the hardest things to learn is what critique to accept and what to ignore. I, personally, don’t care if novels have a “cliched” beginning. I get tired of reading the same novel with the same protagonist that’s going to end in the same way. I like the anti-hero. I like the hero who fails, who doesn’t get the boy/girl in the end. My favorite character in the Dragonlance Series was Raistlin, even though he was dark and unlikable. He was real. He was the human frailty.
Also (re: contractions comment above), if I want to read something written in formal English with perfect grammar that follows the rules, I’d read the Professional Scientific lit. Contractions are a great tool.
I cringed when I read this, as it reminded me of an incident when I suffered from following the rules at the expense of common sense. That was 30 years ago, but I quickly learned that experience, or perhaps maturity, provides us opportunity to learn the rules, and when to follow and/or break them. And yesssss, the same goes for writing. I suffered from a rainbow of editing marks (one for each read-through) on my admittedly feeble first attempt at a mss. A simple, “This isn’t ready for such a high-level review yet” would have saved us both some pain. It was either karma for my earlier misbehavior, or she was just showing off!
Jen–I had a similar experience at a writer’s conference workshop. He handed me back my pages bleeding with corrections. Luckily that was just two pages. This is why I always tell new writers to use critique groups and beta readers before paying for an edit. Most newbie work shouldn’t go to an editor until after it’s been revised many times. Maybe not at all if it’s like my first efforts. 🙂
Haha. NOW I read this good advice, but I’m sure others will benefit. 🙂
Super post & advice, Anne! Can I steal “I’m allergic to dogmatic thinking. (When I step in dogma, I scrape it off my shoe.)? Love that line 🙂
Garry–Quote me all you want. Just spell my name right. 🙂 I’m thinking of putting that one on a T-shirt! I’m glad you like the post!
I think this post is great, and I really loved reading the “10 Things that Red-Flag a Newbie Writer” too. I’m glad it’s gotten so many hits. It’s got a lot of important info and good advice for newbies.
Lexa–Thanks for your comments on both posts!
I much prefer guidelines to rules. Guidelines are adaptable. There are a number of sites/blogs that contain ‘rule police’ that seem to have a ‘woe betide you if you don’t follow my rules’ attitude. They don’t have much proof, if any, that their rules have resulted in success either!
Thankfully there are also blogs like this one where I learn new things, discover new resources and have a laugh along the way. That’s a much better way to work!
Mark–I agree 100%. When it comes to creating art, there can’t be any hard and fast rules. People can say, “This usually works” or “this has been overdone so people are tired of it.” But it’s not a case of right and wrong. Unfortunately some people turn them into rules–maybe because enforcing rules makes them feel more powerful.
Oh Miss Ruth and Miss Anne thank you for another interesting post. I love sharing my morning coffee as I read your posts. They are so “girl lets rap about writing.” You mentioned something about finding your voice I am always having a question about my voice…. When I read a few of my stories the other day both for enjoyment and to figure which one to continue and finish I saw there were a few different stories which had humor to them,,, I dont mean I purposely set out to make people laugh but the way Characters came off in their actions and words without thinking.
So my question then is how do you know when you have found said voice? This has always been a hard one for me to get more that POV ( and I still never know which is the right one to write in there ) thanks.
Debra–Thanks! That’s an interesting question and I don’t know if I really have an answer. For me, it was just that something “clicked” and the writing got easier once I was in that flow. If the stories that click with you are ones with humor, you may find your best voice is a humorous one. Play around with it and see what best seems to “flow” for you.
Thanks Anne. I didn’t realize I was writing humor or that it was becoming a pattern until I read a few different stories and found it was theme or continuous thing…. When a writer can reread their own things and still enjoy them its always a good thing and sign they are on the right path…
I remember my very first rejection for Sugar & Spice. An agent told me I had too many character POVs and should re-write the story from the POV of just one main character.
Which was rather hard to do given the storyline involved several main characters whose paths only later enmeshed.
Had I been a novice writer I might have taken her advice, as a reputable agent, and totally emaciated that storyline to conform to one person’s view of how a book should be written.
Another agent rejected Anca’s Story on the grounds that as a man I could not possibly write a narrative from the perspective of a twelve year old girl and I should go back and make the main character a boy.
In neither case, of course, had the agents got past the sample chapters, so were simply imposing their own pre-determined rules on how I should write. based on the synopsis.
Both books went on to make a lot of readers very happy.
I guess those readers hadn’t read the rule book.
Mark–Thanks for sharing those stories! Since your two books went on to become huge bestsellers (in many languages), that’s a perfect example of why you should stick to your guns. Unfortunately, a lot of agents (or their interns) have been schooled by the rule police and they try to shoehorn every book into a handful of cookie-cutter molds.
That happened to me with The Gatsby Game, which is about a famous Hollywood mystery. They wanted me to remove the whole mystery aspect and turn it into a category romance–basically lobotomizing the story and turning it into a generic Harlequin story. I said thanks but no thanks, and luckily had offers from three small publishers within weeks.
Thank goodness readers don’t read the “rule book”!
I was in an ‘effect’ v. ‘affect’ debate last year. Ten of us went for ‘effect’ I went for ‘affect.’ The writer went with the majority. I’d have re-written the sentence.
Jamie–Affect vs. Effect actually does have a right and wrong, so “majority rules” wasn’t the best solution for that writer. “Affect” is usually a verb and “effect” is usually a noun. That is, except in the jargon phrase “effect change” where it’s a verb. “Affect change” would mean “influence change” but “effect change” means “bring about change”.
But I agree with you that it’s best to rewrite the sentence if you get into sticky word dilemmas anyway. Why not simply say “bring about change” and not worry about it? 🙂
VERY interesting, about the uptight rule-adherents being the “toxic workers.” Makes sense though. Great analogy to the writing world. We aren’t here to serve the rules; the rules serve us, and we can stretch and bend them once we learn how. 🙂 Not good to be too rigid about just about anything!
Carol–Isn’t that fascinating? I was so glad somebody came out and said it. I always find those people unpleasant, but I didn’t know they actually cost employers money. The trouble with the “writing rules” is so many of them are just plain wrong.
Hand in hand with the rules police go the publishing police, telling everyone how they did it and you should too….I LOLed at your stepping in dogma statement. I’m sharing this post on WiDo’s Facebook page.
Karen–Thanks for sharing this with the WiDo family! And yes, the publishing/marketing police are going to get their own post. They are even more bats*** crazy than the writing rules police.
I have to smile about some of the rules, because you’ll always find an editor with a different opinion. I once had an editor who complained I didn’t use the passive voice enough, and another who insisted on using “that” as much as possible. Everybody has different tastes.
Ann–That’s so true! Many “rules” are based on personal tastes and fashion. My mom was a university professor of English and she was old school. She did not approve of removing “that”, which she often though was necessary for clarity. And I learned a LOT when I worked for a Canadian magazine and then a UK publishing house and had to re-learn dozens of punctuation “rules”.
As usual, Anne, what you have to say makes good sense. Still, I have to ask something related to an essay I was asked to comment on. In the first sentence, the writer encourages writers to produce their “most unique stories.” I commented that this usage–modifying “unique” with most, or least, somewhat, etc–was wrong, because something unique is one of a kind, etc. My dictionary seems to support either point of view, but more than once I’ve seen people in the business–agents and editors–treat any modification of “unique” as a sign of ignorance. What do you think?
Barry–There are “weird writing rules” and then there’s standard usage. “Unique” has always meant “one of a kind,” (there’s that tell-tale “uni” in there that’s hard to ignore) so I agree that modifying it shows ignorance of the word’s meaning.
I suppose that may be changing. I haven’t heard of the change, but standard usage does evolve. We used to be mortified if we used a plural pronoun to refer to a singular noun, but now “Every person should return to their desk” is considered standard. (Still kind of makes me cringe though.) If I had a fictional character say something was “very unique”, I’d be trying to show that character wasn’t well educated. But I may be showing my age there. 🙂 I’ll have to pay more attention.
Some things like that drive me absolutely bonkers. One is using “less” instead of “fewer”, but I fear that’s a battle that’s been lost. Another is the insane need of so many Americans to mispronounce the word “anesthesia” and “anesthetic” with a hard “t” instead of a “th” sound. I scream at the TV when newspeople do it. I suppose it comes from so many foreign born doctors in the US who can’t pronounce “th”, and now native speakers are copying them.
I taught college composition for 15 years, published several op ed columns and a couple of academic papers, was an academic editor for three years, and have a master’s degree in theory and rhetoric.
But when I started writing my first book, I realized I didn’t know how to write a novel.
It’s a completely different animal, and I threw out my first 100 pages of single-spaced clap-trap. Only after two-years of dedicated novel writing did I begin to feel like I knew what I was doing (so then it was time for yet another massive rewrite). A handful of rules couldn’t cover what I needed to learn.
The problem arises when people oversimplify a very complex process. I’ve helped a few friends develop their novels, and they approach it with, “If I can read a book, surely I can write one.”
I liked your piano playing analogy. Just because I can play chopsticks doesn’t mean anyone at Carnegie Hall wants to hear me do it.
Trish–My mother was a professor of English Literature and had similar problems. It took her many years after she retired to get novel writing. At first, all her characters sounded as if they had PhDs.
And I agree that oversimplification is the major culprit in creating those “weird writing rules.” The “was” rule is a perfect example. Searching for “was” is a simple way to help you weed out a number of awkward and lazy phrases, but if you don’t know how to see why those phrases don’t work (and which ones do) the simplistic trick becomes a barrier to good writing.
And oh, deliver us from the “If I can read a book, I can write one” people! Actually I think they are about 90% of the population. I think that’s the percentage of people who “think they have a novel in them.” They think it’s easy to “just write down the words.”
Love the article! Probably because I hate rules – and writing rules are like FDA food guidelines (what was good and healthy ten years ago will kill you today, and vice versa). I’ve gotten to the place where I don’t listen to too many people. It’s not that I’m stubborn, or don’t always work to improve my craft but like you said … there are too many opinions. A huge perk of indie publishing is that I can write the stories in my head, not the ones that follow rules and guidelines that will likely change in a decade. If I want to use ‘was,’ ‘that,’ ‘whispered,’ ‘shouted,’ or even the occasional word that ends in ‘ly,’ I will. If it works for the story. 🙂
Kristy–Ha! Love it. So many writing “rules” ARE just like the FDA guidelines. They change every ten years. Maybe “was” and “that” will come back into fashion, like fat and eggs. So much of it really is fashion, not what is actually “good” or “bad.”
WordPress has installed a new improved update that no longer allows automatic notifications of new comments on the blog. So I’m going to have to subscribe to comments on every one of the 500+ posts. Don’t you LOVE “improvements” in tech?
Wow, this was all really interesting! It never occurred to me that writing from a limited point of view might be easier than writing from an omniscient point of view. I also didn’t realize that a limited point of view is more common in contemporary fiction….Now that you mention it, I can’t think of a single contemporary novel I’ve seen recently that was written from an omniscient pov, but I didn’t notice this on my own.
Amy–Omniscient POV is definitely considered old fashioned these days. But if you write historical or high fantasy fiction, that “old fashioned” vibe can be just right.