There certainly are rules of journalism, and for media-based fiction - 'where you put the advert-breaks affects the narrative arc of scenes within a tv script' was one I discovered last year. The demands of a particular medium do impose their own framework, eg (to give a very simple example) a magazine column needs a headline.

But that's not the same as telling a writer of fiction not to start with dialogue. That's someone's personal stylistic preference. Like me wanting you to wear my jacket, or you wanting me to have your hairstyle.

Oh, I didn't think I could post to this - but presumably this is part of the public part and I can.

Was going to say there is sortof an equivalent to some of this stuff when learning to draw and paint that I was discussing with Casey. At certain points you are told to "draw what you see not what you know". This is to get past certain preconceptions the artist has about what things look like and drawing schematically rather than really really looking (exercises for this might include drawing an object through only drawing the outline of the negative space for example. It FORCES the artist to look.) Then, you get to another stage and you are told, confusingly - "draw what you know, not what you see". But this is not actually contradictory so much as about applying techniques and knowledge to the looking - so, for example, you might look at the shadows on a body and see that where flesh touches something warm like flesh - you put purple for shadow, where flesh is next to something cold like a wall or floor - you might put green or blueish tones. This is knowledge informing the eye.

The point is that these aren't rules, they are techniques for learning. And - tell me if I'm wrong here - but I am getting the impression here that Nessie is talking about similar techniques for learning for writing rather than cast-iron rules.

The problem is so many of us on WW have had these "rules" thrown at us as cast-iron, without modification for context, genre, personality or anything else.

I suspect most of the rules that Nessie is talking about were originally designed to make us think more carefully about the choice of words - not to be lazy. The point is though that these techniques taken as dogma stop us thinking about what they presumably should be making us think about.

I think, whether you are an advocate of rules or not, it is the thinking that is the key thing. Even if that thinking is running phrases through your head seeing how they sound.

I don't think they should be called rules or even guidelines, but should be exercises and techniques that people can pick up and play with and think about and try out. Just as with painting you might limit a palette to three non-primaries to see what effects you can produce and you may find a more imaginative and original choice - but you don't then stick to that for the rest of your life but apply it where it fits to the work that you are doing.



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I do partly think that we concentrate so much on stylistic rules on WW because the really meaty stuff: tension, drama, pace, story, theme and character - are harder to discuss.

But what is the writing equivalent of the artistic processes you describe?

It's what makes writers choose 'stood up' rather than 'stood', or 'was swimming' rather than 'swam', or 'laughed carelessly' rather than 'laughed in a careless way'.

Lammi, these don't all make sense to me - or rather, I might not always choose them - in the same way that the examples in the article you posted a few pages back didn't.

Not sure what you mean, Myrtle. Can you give me some more info?

Well in the article it suggests using 'he ran' rather than 'he walked quickly' - but to my mind walking quickly and running are not the same thing; and a whisper is different to speaking softly. And then when I read your list about 'what writers choose' I didn't know whether or not you meant that those were always the 'correct' choices.

But what is the writing equivalent of the artistic processes you describe?

Hmm. I suppose the processes I described are designed with in mind the stages people do actually tend to go through with painting. For example - most people do start drawing schematically - stick people, round heads, eyes high up the face. Even when trying to draw realistically people tend to be influenced by these schemes - people do not realise how low down the head the eyes come for example until they really are forced to look without the schemes they already have in their head. But it is hard to look properly, because these schemes are already in our mind and inform what we see. That is why negative space exercises, for example, can be so useful.

So, I would have thought that beginner writers might tend to over-describe the way people say things (hence the rule about tags) or go into clumsy exposition because they aren't sure how to handle information, or think it is something just to get over with quickly (hence the rule about show don't tell) and hence these "rules" spring up to get through these common traits. But, as I said, I don't think rules are a good idea and I think this has cropped up through so many books etc promising the secret of getting published (which noone can promise really.) But rules aside, if we don't treat them as rules, they could be interesting exercises and techniques to think about - a set of questions to ask yourself: is this over-explained? expositional? etc? But I think a question is so much more useful than a rule, because it forces us to think about it and consider what we are trying to do with our writing. A "rule" shuts down thinking altogether.

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Ugh - please excuse the very strange sentence at the beginning of this post. I hope you get the gist anyway. Feel free to scatter some commas on it!

The article about writing 'he ran' instead of 'he walked quickly' I posted as an example of someone believing there was a rule that you needed to avoid adverbs and applying it, with appalling results. Walking quickly isn't the same at all as running, or whispering the same as speaking quietly; what that lady said was just silly. The article demonstrated what can happen when someone gets hold of a 'rule', and what damage it can do to their writing.

The other list:

It's what makes writers choose 'stood up' rather than 'stood', or 'was swimming' rather than 'swam', or 'laughed carelessly' rather than 'laughed in a careless way'.

was me saying that either version could be appropriate - it depends on how you want the sentence to sound, how many syllables you want, where the stresses fall etc. So on one page I might go for 'laughed bitterly' but on another I might choose 'said Egan in a careless manner'. There is no right or wrong version. It's what suits your style, and the tone of the piece, and the pace and all kinds of other factors.

It's not something you're consciously aware of when you're writing, but it's the impulse that makes you add an extra adjective to a line, or take one out. It's a 'feel'.

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Sorry: that was to Myrtle.

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And anyway, Egan might choose to betray his bitterness in some other manner - a line of action, say - rather than my pin-pointing the tone of his laugh. But I have a choice. I don't always have to avoid a particular construction.

Thanks, snowbell.

But I think a question is so much more useful than a rule, because it forces us to think about it and consider what we are trying to do with our writing. A "rule" shuts down thinking altogether.

- Totally agree.

But I think a question is so much more useful than a rule, because it forces us to think about it and consider what we are trying to do with our writing. A "rule" shuts down thinking altogether.

Yes. That's what I meant but put much less well when I said rules are binary - a do or don't. Nothing really worth worrying about in writing is as simple as that.

Emma


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PS Snowbell, we miss you so much! Hope things are going well, and come back soon.

It's not something you're consciously aware of when you're writing, but it's the impulse that makes you add an extra adjective to a line, or take one out. It's a 'feel'.

Yes, totally agree. Phew! I see what you mean now about the choice - I thought you were saying that only one was correct but I see now that I misread you. I probably shouldn't have had that glass of wine at lunch.

a 'rule' shuts down thinking altogether

The irony is, that the effect of this thread is to tell people that 'rules' per se are bad. And that is becomeing a 'rule'...that goeth something like this "thou shalt no listen to rules".

All I can say, is that when I started writing fiction, I had a couple of close misses with the first pieces I wrote.

I then discovered that there were things called advice. Guidelines. Rules. Call them what you will.

With the knowledge that those gave me, I went back to the work, and saw the flaws. Rewrote, and got them published.

Now, I dont know what that proves, but to me it looks pretty much as if the advice was sound.

What was the advice?

That the short story I was trying to write needs to have a coherent, clear theme.

That structure is important. That endings tie together the threads, shed light back on the text. Add something, not just finish it.

That dialogue is important. That dialogue has tags. That generally, tages need to be used with care.

That an exchange of dialogue can be more successful than exposititon when writing a scene.

That I could vary sentence lenngths to get different effects.


That generally, many many adverbs can be done away with if the prose is vibrant, and 'shows' rather than 'tells'. (although this needs a whole book...)

I learned that my prose was 'baggy'. That it was sharper without modifiers.

I learned what madifiers were.

Want me to go on? Nah!!!


So I got those bit published. Fine. But more im[portasntly, I assimilated some advice that has served me well.

I understand that some people dont like a dvice from others, that they want to carve their own way. That they find advice like that stultifying. All I'm saying is that it worked!! For this writer, that is...it seems to have worked.

vanessa

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oh gaaad.

maybe one of my rules needs to be 'learn to type...'

v

The irony is, that the effect of this thread is to tell people that 'rules' per se are bad. And that is becomeing a 'rule'...that goeth something like this "thou shalt no listen to rules".

Well I think to use a quote from me to illustrate that is unfair, Nessie. And maybe - if we are to get all clever-clever about this illustrates what I was saying about how removing things from context stops thought rather than generates it.

You removed my quote from the careful context in which I had placed it which - I thought - had pointed out the value of a lot of what you were saying in the context of learning, as long as it inspired questioning rather than became something enforced without thought.

Anyway - stuff that clever-clever rubbish. You are obviously a person who thinks a lot about things and has used these rules and advice to do so. But, just as people earlier were talking about confidence in order to ignore the rules, I think your approach also shows a lot of confidence. My worry is when you come across the attitude (and I have come across it on this site) that goes X, Y or Z are "wrong" because the "rules" say so. Not because it doesn't work with the piece. Not because the person has looked at it and thought about it. But just because of the "rule". That does not encourage thought or creativity or good writing, to my mind. It encourages anxiety.

You don't do this. But some people do. And I think that isn't helpful to anyone.

I think all these "rules" are interesting and worth discussing and can be used as many "rules" of painting (which I would call techniques and methods) to work out why something might not be working etc. I think, though, that - as in painting - a picture falsely constructed from a basis of these "rules" is usually a horrible soulless thing.




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Anyway. It strikes me that your original question has got lost in all this arguing ;)

You asked when did a writer break away from the rules.
What do you think the answer is? You obviously feel there needs to be a jumping-off point somewhere in the process. Do you think there is ever a danger in a writer not being able to find their own voice through the process you describe or do you think there comes a point where it just happens? Or do you think there needs to be a conscious decision made at some point?

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Vanessa - you also just rewrote a lot of the rules so that they weren't absolute, so that they took stock of context and so that they became advice. I don't think anyone on this thread has objected to advice. It is just that "rules" on this site can so often become thoughtless prohibitors rather than advice that stimulates thought. I think I already said that I don't get the impression you are the kind of person who uses them like that but this is probably why we are all so sensitive about the term "rule".

You probably think I'm being nitpicky and I really don't mean to - it's just I'm trying to explain why I react against the idea of the rule presented as a cut n dried rule. (This is why I originally entered this thread by the way because I didn't think you were looked at them in a cut n dried way.)

It's idiotic to argue that beginners need rules, because what do they do as soon as (and it will be very soon) they meet writing that doesn't follow them?

Emma, it seems to me that you are coming to this from the perspective of a writing course there students are encouraged, if not forced, to read. Whereas the majority of newbie writers are not on courses, and don't bother to read. In such cases, they will peruse a few craft books for a set of rules to write by. At some point they wil read some good stuff and compare that with their own writing and wonder where they went wrong...

Just thought I'd throw that observation into the pot.....and watch it sink.

- NaomiM

things called advice. Guidelines. Rules. Call them what you will.

But they're not the same thing at all.

Advice is good, because you're free to ignore it, and a confident writer will. Guidelines, ditto. But rules? I think inherent in the word 'rule' is the notion that not following it is a bad thing, and that's why so many of us refuse to acknowledge them.

Nessie, I notice that the way you describe what you learnt, (and I learnt too, at various stages) isn't prescriptive. You say, 'generally' 'I could vary' 'many... can be done away with'. That's advice, to my mind, or guidelines.

Rules are prescriptive: literally, I think I'm right in saying, they're things written before, they control what may be written. I think that's what most of us are balking at: the idea that these things come before what we write and read, and control it.

And of course rules are also proscriptive - they tell you the other side of the binary system, what you mustn't do.

Emma

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Naomi, I didn't do a writing course of any description until I had an agent and four novels under my bed, and then it was a short one. On my MPhil no one would have promulgated a 'rule' without being taken apart by everyone on it, tutors and students together. I don't actually know what beginners' writing courses are like, except from what I hear informally on the likes of WW.

Emma

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Just to add to the added, if a writer doesn't read, that's the first lesson they need to know and a teacher who doesn't start with reading as much as writing in class isn't doing their job.

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"until I had an agent and four novels under my bed,"

Well, the novels were under my bed. The agent was the other side of Peckham Rye! ;)