I've commented along these lines before, so it was nice to see a Twitter thread by an author I like encapsulating the sentiments. A couple of captures from the Twitter thread. It looks like "kill your darlings" and "show don't tell," both oft-repeated and horribly abused "rules" of writing, started the whole thing. Initially, talking about rules that add up to a false narrative about what writing is legitimate and what isn't: and wrapping up: In short, and particularly important with respect to new writers, don't let people commenting on your work hem you in with "rules." Certainly, you want to consider well-reasoned critiques. Ultimately, you have to decide for yourself what's write for the story you want to tell, and how you want to write it. If you get writing advice that has no more depth than a shallow regurgitation of a writing rule, give it the consideration it warrants. Click the image below to see the whole thread.
Her points are the very reasons I eschew the use of phrases like "breaking the rules" or "get away with such and such". I eschew those terms because I personally feel that they come from a fallacious source in the order condescendi. Tools, not rules. "Getting away with..." is for criminals. I want to write with deliberation and intent.
Well stated. I agree. And I think it is OK for writers to write this way for day one, before they become more advanced in the craft.
My recent book starts with a prologue and then breaks into a waking up scene. Let you know how it goes...
I had never heard of Ann Leckie before encountering this thread five minutes ago, but I am now a big fan. I, too, reject the tyranny of "rules." I remain convinced that most of these so-called rules were invented and promoted by authors of how-to-write books because they're easy to talk about. Otherwise, they have to talk about mastering an art, and that's difficult to do - both the talking about it and the mastering. What set of rules did Picasso follow? Which rules led Beethoven to compose his Ninth Symphony? Joyce's Ulysses (as well as many other novels) are still in print long after their authors' deaths at least partly because they broke all the rules.
Thank you so much for posting that @Steerpike ! I have really quirky preferences as a reader, and many of them "break the rules." That makes following conventional advice really difficult in some instances...especially when one of the biggest pieces of advice is "write what you like to read" and "learn how to write from the books you like to read." It's a constant struggle, because I also want to get it "right" and learn how to do it the "right" way. The thing she said (paraphrasing) about practicing now rather than waiting til later made a hell of a lot of sense. Thank you. I will add my own take on it, though: it's probably best to break one rule at a time, rather than all of them at once. That way it at least looks intentional instead of like "bad" writing.
I have been writing just for a year, and I am 64 years old. Rules are tricky. I learned portrait photography. It took me seven years. I have something like 30 books about it. There are a lot of “rules”. Many good portraits break them. If you want to play it safe you stick to them. Some of them are collected wisdoms of several hundred years. Some of them are actually just what people like, what works. You want rules, but with an experienced teacher that explains why there is this rule, and someone that can show examples where it would have been a better picture if you had followed the rule. But also examples where the rules were not followed but it's still a great picture. I wish I could find that teacher in writing. What I don't like is young writers that get pressed down, that skip writing, that hesitate because of the rules. Even I, soon to retire, doing this just for fun hesitated several days before posting “The twins” that broke most rules. It was still a popular entry. Tenderiser said (if I remember right) It's bold of the author … So if you are eighteen years old and you have to be bold to write and when you do, someone says you need to Name your MC Mix action and dialogue and description Put the story in time and space Have a hook early on .. … Then I think the rules have been explained wrongly! (But I hate broken grammar rules that forces me to read again to understand what the author wants to say) Added comma for clarity
She's talking high level, right? I would agree with her on that. There are no rules at the high levels, only advice from people who have been successful. Kind of like she's giving now ("My advice to you . . . blah blah blah"). And you can't break someone else's advice. You can accept it or you can ignore it, because you know your intentions better than they do. Just make sure you're not being a teenager about it. Teens consider themselves avant garde, yet on average they break the mold with poor results. As an author, you're looking out from within, so you might see your writing as edgy when it is merely ragged. It's so hard to tell when you're standing so close. When it comes to shaping your words, you have to be really brutal on the page, and that means listening to others when you're sure you've already gotten it right, but not always. Confidence without conceit, if that's possible. I see it this way. . . Every high-level rule is actually expert advice. Suppose you had an irrefutable expert. Let's say, Mozart. Mozart tells you that he finds success by writing music with taste and finesse. Don't use two notes where one will do; that sort of thing. That doesn't mean all music must now be written by his rule, but it doesn't mean his rule is wrong, either. There is immense value in understanding his expert opinion. If you choose not to follow it, you didn't refute it, because it cannot be refuted. It's a truth from one man. If you try to understand WHY it worked for him, there is always something to gain in studying it. That's why we study the masters in music, art, writing, etc. Even though styles change, the truth of their moment endures. The danger with "there are no rules" is that at the low level, there definitely are rules. They fade as you reach higher writing structures. Language/writing is the communication of a message. The rules keep the message intact. vocabulary -- grammar -- style/rhetoric -- discourse -- story -- voice ^-------RULES---------^ I hope that lines up right on-screen . . . And yes, I left out a lot. Style/rhetoric shapes the grammar. Discourse aligns sentences according to intention rather than literal meaning. Story is the complete world (even beyond plot). It holds the characters and they definitely get their say too. Voice lives above it all. The levels of vocabulary (words) and grammar (the sentence, basically) have rules. If you break them, the meaning is lost. I can't say "chow mein" when I mean "babushka." That's a vocabulary rule. (Though I'm pretty sure it's not in any book. haha) If I break it, the message is lost and I haven't gotten my point across and the story will fail. Likewise, I can't write: "Break lost is point, if the I it?" and still have meaning. It's some sort of grammar, but it's not following the conventions (rules). Most writers seem okay with choosing the right words, but a lot dig in when it comes to the grammar, because it's harder, I guess, and we don't learn languages by learning grammars. They're too formal. Though even grammar isn't absolute. It changes based on who you're talking to. Whatever . . . Personally, my advice is that grammar is critically important. I'd even call that a rule. The problem is that with the trillion-trillion ways a point can be shaped, what gets to live in the sentence and call it home? Only the author can really say, because only they understand the story (that high-level structure shaping the world below it). As the author, just try not to be a teenager. Listen to all elder advice (the paternal surrogates, the author pros), and figure out the WHY of it. It takes a lot of self-reflection and humility. You want to be open-minded but not malleable, because at the end of it all is STORY and VOICE, and that's completely you. The craft of writing has conventions, shapes, and understood structures, but the art of writing wants to be free.
Rather than rules, I like to think in terms of reasons. What is the reason for the writing choices you make? What can these choices do to help your story along? Just make sure they have the effect you actually want. As @Wreybies said, don't think in terms of rules. Think in terms of tools. Learn to use your tools. Also learn when certain tools are not appropriate. Ask yourself questions like: What will a first person point of view do for my story? What are the limitations to first person? Can I work within these limitations? What will multiple POV characters do for my story? Will they present the reader with many different angles to consider, or will they make it difficult for the reader to identify with each one? What would a prologue do for my story? Will it launch the story off in the right direction, or will it bog the story down with unnecessary detail? What does dialogue do for my story? Will it make the story easier to read? Will it make scenes flash by too quickly? Will it build personality and situations, or just fill space? What can flashbacks do for my story? Will they give necessary insight into the present, or will they yank readers out of the story too often? And etc....
Actually, no. She says not to wait to practice until you reach a high level, because her theory is, how else will you ever get better and become more savvy at knowing which rules can be broken without practice? She says (without sarcasm) just don't expect to be good at it right away. In other words, you have to be ready and willing to fail at it. Although I didn't agree with that before, I do now, because life is short, and artistic expression isn't only for the elite. It's the difference between having a guitar teacher that has you learn by playing songs, and a teacher that has you learn by only practicing finger exercises. Yes, you'll play the song badly, but you will learn it, and you'll be ready for another one, and there's no reason you can't learn finger exercises and how to play a song at the same time. At least you won't get bored, so you'll be motivated to keep on learning all of it rather than giving up in frustration. I would also add that not every musician studies the masters. Some start out playing "House of the Rising Sun" and are pretty damn happy with their careers, because "House of the Rising Sun" got them exactly where they wanted and needed to go for what they wanted to do. I'm not saying don't learn the rules, but I'm also warming up to the idea that the baby steps method is, for some people, not the way they learn best. Some people learn better through diving into an immersive learning experience and just going for it and being willing to make a lot of mistakes.
Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. ^^^^ Do you realize, that for someone like me, who's dyslexic, the above "rule" (which I can only assume it is, because I can't comprehend it) is unreadable? It's complete gibberish to me. I literally have no idea what that line of words says or is supposed to represent and can only assume it's a rule, because the context around it tells me it is. Despite that, I can compose a sentence, and on a good day, I can even edit it. ETA: I even Beta. Could I pull out the parts of speech or diagram it? Hell no. I ask for a lot of explanations and clarifications when my stuff is critiqued or edited, because I don't process the information the way a lot of people do. People learn in many different ways, and not always from the bottom up. Sometimes they even have to read a book backwards before they go forwards. Sometimes you have to stand up and fall flat on your face, and that's OK. You get it eventually.
I think this is BS, and gets partly at what Leckie is talking about. She says in her thread if you find rule violators and people say “oh, well those are exception,” then they’re not rules. There are exceptions for all of these.
Learning to write by reading and studying writing books is like trying to get into an orchestra by listening to music and watching YouTube tutorials. Unfortunately, there is a lot of noise, and some otherwise good writing advice fails because of imprecise words or the failure to explain the reasons behind the advice. I feel like I could learn to write well a lot faster if I paid an established expert 75 bucks to read and comment on my stuff for an hour each week. Then I wouldn’t have to develop the skill to discern what advice I should be taking, and could get straight into it.
No-no-no! Rules are important, need to be understood and mastered. A professional doesn't break the rules so much as bend them to his will. It's an easy out for the amateur writer to discard such rules in favor of stylistic gobbledygook; go with your gut, they'll say, let your inner voice free and the words will fall where they may. Well, my friends, more often than not they fall very poorly. There's no getting out of the hard business of learning to write! As I've read Ms. Leckie's, Ancillary Justice I'll not go on about the rules of writing. It was certainly well written. But what Ancillary Justice lacked, was an engaging plot! Another ideas/concepts based SF that forgot to wrap itself around a rip-roaring good tale! I lost track of how many times I dozed off while listening to the audiobook presentation. Ann Leckie might reconsider our golden rule... Show, don't Tell. The work of Iain Banks (his Culture series) covers much of the same territory as does, Ancillary Justice. However, Mr. Banks never forgot that it's the story that rules!
Bollocks. No one is talking about getting around learning to write. It’s about discarding the idea that there is only one way to write.
Hmm. . . interesting approaches. For me, writing is craft and art. The craft involves shaping phrases, sentences, paragraphs (the low levels). The art is shaping the scenes, arcs, story, and voice (high levels). I practice this by reading books, talking to others (this board, et al.), reading the works of genre pros, yesterday's masters, even newbies. I revise my own work and anything else I can get my hands on. I write non-stop. For me, every so-called rule has value. But I don't think of them as rules; they are advice. It doesn't matter if what's being said is correct, or if it's applicable to my style. The reasoning behind the rule is where the value is. I may or may not use it. Even something as awful as "don't end a sentence with a preposition" has value if you look into its reasoning. It's strange to me to see an author basically say "Here's some advice, ignore all advice." What do you do with that? If you can't express what you've done and share it, then you've undermined the whole purpose of language. So IMO, of course writers are going to have rules. All I'm saying is that when someone says "here's a trick that worked for me," you should try to understand why that advice might work. And then use it or don't. I'm surprised that's so controversial. I guess I'm a little different in that I accept every approach to writing as having value. It can be technical or artsy or whatever. I assimilate all advice, including what's in this thread, so I never quit learning. There isn't one target for writing. We're all going to end up somewhere unique, and that's good because there is no one perfect form. But there are some styles that are vastly superior to others and you should want to shape yourself into one of those. Never be content with where you are. Don't dismiss advice from anyone who has found success, even if they call it a rule.
No, but it appears we're talking about taking shortcuts. Indeed, if you were to see the books I have around me you'd understand my approach to learning the craft and artistry of fiction writing. Next to Clive Barker's Abarat sits Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Pullman's The Subtle Knife up against Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Oates' Mysteries of Winterthurn side by side Kipling's Jungle Book Stories. I love and learn from them all. And those rare times I put down on the page a passage of words that do exactly what I want them to do-- I shake a fist at those piles of books... See there, I'm as good as any of you!
And even here we differ. I'm a fan of Raymond Chandler, because of the brilliant way he broke the rules and packed such vivid description into so few words and so few pages. Other people can't stand his writing. And that's OK. It doesn't mean any of them are bad...just a different approach. edited the last sentence for clarity
I might use the term "skills" and "standards". It's useful to have the skill of beating egg whites to the standard state known as "soft peaks". It's useful to have the skill of writing in accordance with strict standard English as defined by, say, the Chicago Manual of Style. And there are rules for the standards. Stiff peaks are not soft peaks--neither of them are breaking a rule, but each one does break the other standard. Now, I get twitchy when a standard isn't defined sufficiently to be a standard, or when the standard just plain incoherent or internally inconsistent. "Never use adverbs" is a standard that can be clearly understood, and a person can choose whether to follow it or not. (Well, it needs a few more words, because there are things that are technically adverbs, but that standard is not intended to forbid.) "Show, don't tell" is not a standard that can be clearly understood. "Don't use passive voice" is a standard that can be clearly understood and obeyed, even if I think it's stupid. And recognizing passive voice and flipping it to active voice is an associated skill that can be mastered. "Don't use 'was' because it's passive voice and passive voice is bad." is an incoherent and inconsistent standard. But the existence of a standard, and the ability to follow it and use it, doesn't mean that that standard should always be used. So I feel that's a bit of the split here--the idea that you can work long and hard and precisely on a skill/standard doesn't mean that you always have to use it.
I think this makes the most sense to me. It ties in with the "tools, not rules" approach in that tools are no good unless you understand what they do and know when (and how) to use them. I think this is partly because I like to think of writing in the long term. I don't like to think I'm writing a book as a solitary thing... I'm writing another contribution to my oeuvre, if you will! I use some techniques more in some books, less in other books, and there are techniques I haven't used at all yet (#!@#$% omniscient third) that I really want to use once I figure it out better and have the right project for it. Sometimes my eggs will be beaten to soft peaks, sometimes they'll be hard boiled. But in order to choose the right kind of egg for the project, it's helpful to know the pros and cons of the different techniques. But even knowing the pros and cons isn't enough if I don't have the skill to actually achieve the standard I'm hunting for (#$@$%^ omniscient third!).
Side note: Have you read The Signature of All Things? I only got a few chapters in before I got distracted, but it's one of the few omniscient third POV books I've liked. And if I recall correctly, the author (Elizabeth Gilbert, and therefore interviewed EVERYWHERE) occasionally discusses her choices re the POV.
Right, been using it for decades now as a non-fiction writer... I think where you and I may differ is that I no longer believe the skill and the creative rule-breaking can't be learned simultaneously, in order to prevent boredom. It's just that the rule-breaking stuff isn't going to be as good in quality. But if someone isn't engaged by what they're learning--if they're bored by it-- they're not going to progress either way and they're just going to stop. People learn in different ways. To take your egg white metaphor, because attending le cordon bleu was an early goal of mine, at le cordon they do have you use those egg whites to create something tasty at the end, as opposed to just standing there beating egg whites, and those lessons move along at a pretty damn rapid pace. I fact they're designed to be difficult and slightly advanced of where some students may even be, to filter out the best of the best, so that they can withstand the high pressure of a professional kitchen. Edited punctuation
Oh, I totally think they can be learned simultaneously. I think that the rule-breaking pieces are extremely likely to need repeated editing as the more formal skills grow (unless the writer is breaking the rules within his existing skill bubble, which is also plausible), but that doesn't mean--to me, anyway--that you're not allowed to do the rule-breaking early.
