It is said so often, isn't it, in one form or another... Learn 'the rules of writing' so that you know them without thinking. Only then can you break them'

I certainly wasted a lot of time and heartache breaking the rules before I'd learned them properly!

But my question is this... How does a writer know when they have learned enough to start doing their own thing?



Vanessa

I don't think rules exist, and writing teachers who peddle them as rules ought to know better, or possibly be shot at dawn. But I do believe in guidelines, because they're usually the distillation of some basic good sense about how to get your story accross.

It's not a matter of deciding you're qualified to depart from the guidelines, therefore, it's about understanding them. As soon as you know why any given guideline exists and why it so often works - why writing teachers bang on about it - you'll know when you don't want what it does. Then you'll do something else quite naturally.

Emma

Couldn’t have put it better myself- or even as well!

Dee

I certainly wasted a lot of time and heartache breaking the rules before I'd learned them properly!

Interesting. Care to expand?


Juliet

I don't think rules exist, and writing teachers who peddle them as rules ought to know better, or possibly be shot at dawn.

- God, yes. How many times has this come up in the last year? There's no such thing as a stylistic rule. You might as well make up a rule about how many words one ought to write per day, or whether or not one ought to plan. There are individual stylistic preferences, that's all.

There are rules about grammar and spelling, but those are a different kettle of fish altogether.

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Oops, sorry; that first was supposed to be in italics.

http://www.writewords.org.uk/groups/102_138478.asp

Thread on speech tags and other 'rules' here that might be relevant (hope it's ok to link to a group's discussion).

Oh, I know there is no such thing as stylisic rule... but I do think there are a lot of mistakes that are made when we are learning,which, if we had a handle on some 'guidelines' (call them what you will) would save a lot of heartache.

vanessa

Nessie, i feel the same as you - i know nothing about the supposed rules for novel 1 - lots of tell in it, lots of adverbs, multi POV all over the place...

Novel 2, stuck to the rules i suddenly learnt when i joined WW plus read 'how to' books - hardly ever used an adverb, wrotes strictly from one POV, all show no tell.

Got Cornerstones report + repeatedly told by Emma and Kate not to worry about rules so much....

the result:

Now re-writing novel 2, breaking some so-called rules but from a position of knowledge and control (i like to think) - telling on occasion, more liberal with adverbs...and i think this is all part of finding one's voice - my cornerstones reader felt i needed to chill, that my writing was stilted...

I think as time passes and a writer finds their own unique voice they naturally worry less about the rules but not forget them altogether.

Of course there will always be the writer who is never formally told about the rules but follows them instincitively, but i suspect they come from an academic/journo/writing background anyway and are naturally competent writers.
I feel the rest of us do need to be told.

Casey

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Lord, the grammar in this post is awful!
See, i'm much more laid-back now;)

I think as time passes and a writer finds their own unique voice they naturally worry less about the rules but not forget them altogether.

- My concern is that, if a beginner gets told there are rules about, say, adverbs or the number of times you're allowed to use 'was', or verbs ending in 'ing', or whatever it is, then that writer may well have greater difficulty in finding his or her own natural voice.

Of course there will always be the writer who is never formally told about the rules but follows them instincitively, but i suspect they come from an academic/journo/writing background anyway

- Not necessarily. I was talking to Erica James about this a while back and she had none of the above. She just read stacks and stacks, which is the best preparation for being a writer there is.

Vanessa, it would help if you could give us some examples so we know what we're talking about.

So what is the thrust of MA's in creative writing and Arvon courses, then? Are these supposed rules not mentioned?

David asked recently if there were any questions we'd like him to ask in the interviews - wouldn't it be interesting to find out how many writers had indeed studied the art of writing?

Casey

I can't comment on MAs as I know nothing about them - I was never formally trained in creative writing at all.

At the Arvon I taught, and the two I've been on as a student, it was about doing writing exercises to stimulate a student's own ideas, and about considering the effects of certain stylistic devices, eg looking at the way one writer uses description and another doesn't.

I never heard the word 'rule' mentioned during my MPhil, I don't think.

Most discussion sprang from individual comments about individual work: 'This feels very detached. Is that the effect you were after?' was far more likely than, 'It's very tell-y'. And no one would ever have said, 'It's a rule that you should show not tell.' Even thinking about it makes me hear a sharp intake of collective breath...

Emma

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considering the effects of certain stylistic devices, eg looking at the way one writer uses description and another doesn't.

Surely this is the key - what people will keep calling 'rules' are just a handful of devices that work well quite a lot of the time. But I or any competent writer could immediately reel off half a dozen examples where they're not what's wanted.

I don't think you can train people to write. I think you can show them the possibilities, give them a tool-kit, and wait for whatever they have to emerge. The nearest you'll ever get me to recognising a 'rule' is agree that something is a good tool.

I suppose, personally speaking, my next round of submissions will prove as to whether rules improve writing or not.

I haven't read avidly in the last year, if i've read much it's often been books about writing - so, if novel 2, in general, gets a much more positive reaction than my 'fly-by-your-pants' written novel 1.....well, there you go - although i'm sure just the act of writing in itself helps.

If novel 2 gets no better response, then i'm in trouble.

I think The Rules are like Trinny and Susannah's - stick to them (more or less) and you'll be decent but you won't stand out - ignore them and you'll be dire...

Casey

The nearest you'll ever get me to recognising a 'rule' is agree that something is a good tool.

I agree, Emma - but a good tool that you do need to buy - doesn't mean to say you'll use it all the time.

I think The Rules are like Trinny and Susannah's - stick to them (more or less) and you'll be decent

- As you know, I can't go for this at all, given that my basic premise is There are no rules.

Reading good fiction (and maybe some bad stuff!) is the best teacher of writing. I'll go to my grave asserting that.