Go with your heart and write your story. Don't write what you think other people want to read--it will satisfy neither them nor you and leave your work sounding plastic and fake.
How about; There are no rules! Write as you will. Let the traditionalists squabble over what is acceptable or not. Sorry; I'm in a bit of a rebellious mood today
I was once told by one of my English professors that the point of learning "the rules" was so that you knew how to break them later. He was a great fan of William Faulkner and Barn Burning and A Rose for Emily were both mandatory readings...if you ever want to read a man who became famous for breaking rules, Faulkner has to be king.
That's probably the writing rule that's helped me the most over the year. It can be a hard one, but nonetheless a good one to know and practice.
Yeah, it can be a hard one. Once during a writer's group meeting, a former student pointed out that a particular passage in my story was clever but didn't move the story forward. I started to protest, but he cut me off with, "You said in class that if it doesn't move the story forward, lose it." Damn, I hate it when students quote me to me.
I love this advice. Hooking the goldfish by the mouth--and keep them hooked--is ultimately all that matters. Presentation, provocation, soul, whatever else, are extras.
I also believe that’s a good rule of thumb. But I will add, I very much admire authors who can pull off word repetition. The ones talented enough to use the same modifier twice in one sentence, or three or four times in the same paragraph. If they can do that I know I’m in good hands.
"Write how your characters see the world, not how you see your characters." Not sure where that's from... probably Self Editing for Fiction Writers.
I've brought that to other areas as well. I remember when I was involved in hang glider design, we tried hard to engineer our gliders so that it was impossible to set them up incorrectly. We didn't always succeed; as the saying goes, 'Every time you make something idiot-proof, along comes a more clever idiot." But I'm sure that that design philosophy saved a few lives.
It's the principle of Test to Failure. Give the new toy to a bunch of rambunctious kids and tell them if they can break it, swallow a part of it, or suffocate on it, they get a lollipop. Well, maybe not quite that. But put your newly-designed luggage in a cage with a gorilla and start teasing it to piss it off...
I don't fully agree with this, but it is the only rule that does not interfere with the only rule stated so far that I truly believe is unbreakable. "JUST WRITE" I am struggling in my writing right now, and a big part of it is trying to follow all the "rules" out there, always do this never do that cliches are bad, except when you do them well Be original, but in a way that's familiar. I want to be clear I'm saying the rules are wrong, but I am so in my head trying to follow the rules I'm not doing the only thing that matters, writing.
I found a fine guideline today that fits in with my own philosophy of writing. It is from 1 Corinthians 13:1. If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not clarity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. Brilliant, right? Alas, when I reread the sentence, I realized it said charity, not clarity. Ah, well, my misreading is still good writerly advice.
The only rules that matter. In my currently confusing life it's tough to have consistent habits, as much as I try. But I keep plugging away. Most of it is crap, but at least the ideas are there. Which brings up the other important rule - rewrite, rewrite ,rewrite, rewrite.
I guess this is what people mean when they talk about the obscurity of cymbalism in writing. I never really got what cymbals had to do with it. But that passage always calls to mind the final scene of Robert Benton's 1984 Places in the Heart. The scene is okay (if conventional) without context, but its simplicity becomes more powerful in the context of all that went before. Then again, that's an essence of good writing, to take something conventional and make it meaningful. Code: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IugyK8XZDDE (The film uses a different translation common in Southern Baptist churches.) (And I had to use a code box to keep the link from blowing up into a nearly full-screen preview.)
