Did they actually spoil their enjoyment? (Did they actually spoil mine? No).

Once your head gets round DB's style, I find he just fades away. Which is something to be admired in a writer, a certain invisiblity, isn't it?

My editor said much the same to me - that people like historical fiction because it makes them feel a) sexy (clothes, high drama) and b) clever (this is stuff that the world pays to learn at university)

I think a lot of people find it easier to swallow more intellectual (i.e. potentially difficult) material in fictional form. You see it all the time when you mix with historical fiction fans, and I'm sure that's one of the reasons some readers are so ferocious if you get your history 'wrong': they want to feel they can trust you to deliver 'real' history, that they can safely get their historical kicks in fictional form.

I, on the other hand, get my fictional kicks in historical form. Though my reasons aren't so different, if I'm honest: the politics are more fun and the frocks are prettier.

Emma

I wouldn't describe TMOL as pulp, and the writing is clearly superior to that of Mr Brown's. I admire his cleverness though, his ambition to combine historical speculation with high adventure - even if he isn't so hot on facts and can be terribly one sided. I agree about the invisibilty thing actually, and I must say I found his style fine for a novel of this kind. I've read worse. The way people discuss it as if it is high art, however, is ridiculous.

JB

I wouldn't describe TMOL as pulp,

Just as well, JB m'dear, if you want to stay in one piece. I can live with many opinions of TMOL - some people think it's too romantic and comprehensible and therefore not literary, some people think it's alarmingly literary and therefore must be difficult... But not pulp!

But I think to know DVC for what it is - a lucky combination of clever idea, evergreen themes, (romance, thriller, conspiracy theory), and competent writing - you have to have read an awful lot else. If you haven't, then I can imagine it might seem remarkable. The only thing I regret about it is that it makes more people believe the non-fiction nonsense it is (or isn't) based on.

Emma

Hmm, let's not go there Emma. I think Dan Brown used Baigent's research in quite a peculiar fashion personally, but I still find the basic idea compelling.

I like the idea of writing a pulp novel, and maybe I already have without noticing.

JB

This is kind of a rant, and obviously anyone on this thread can take it or leave it. But I have to say, there's a certain smug complacency that sometimes emanates from these threads concerning the breaking, or not, of the rules. An air is adopted by some, of being in a position to make free with good writing practice, which is an implication that the rules are so well understood, they can be broken with ease. Well, from what I've seen of everybody's writing on this thread – mine included – there's no one here who displays such a thorough grip on the rules that you could trust them to break them. And to suggest that beginners can do so is not only plain wrong, it's a disservice to people who are genuinely trying to learn the craft.

Dan Brown is a red herring, really. So is JKR. They're commercial writers, just like Girls Aloud are commercial singers. Within that analogy, the Roches are far better vocalists than Girls Aloud – masters (well, mistresses) of their craft. The fact they sell a tiny fraction of the records GA sell is irrelevant. You don't study GA to learn how to sing. But you also don't assume that because you've done a bit of singing yourself, you can break the rules and go atonal, or whatever the hell rule-breaking singers do (analogy in serious danger of breaking down here).

I agree with Andrea (and Philip Pullman, as it happens), that good writing is invisible: the reader just gets the story, the way the writer intends it to be got. All of us here have a long way to go before we're in the position of being able to do that consistently and perfectly. Until then, breaking the rules – or good practice – will only end in delusion on the part of the writer and a ruptured read on the part of the reader (unless, of course, he's an uncritical fan of the writer; it does happen). Yes, a lot of classical music was written to give the musician a chance to show-off his technique; and I suppose some writers do the same thing. This is called intellectual appreciation; and if that's what you want, fine. But give me a story full of passion and excitement and insight, in which I'm totally unaware of the author's brushstrokes, any day.

Terry

I just wanted to say that surely the point of these guidelines, rules, whatever you want to see them us is to make us BETTER writers.

Halleluljah to us all wanting to be better writers, but what I was getting at is it wise to take these 'Rules' on board without questioning them? What authority do they have? They certainly don't have any historical authority. I think it's important - as in everything - to question the Rules before we agree to apply them.

As i've said before, i enjoyed DVC and found it liberating as a writer to read something which so blatantly defied the rules

So have I. And the important thing is he got away with it in the eyes of the

reader

. And who else are we writing for?

but Dan Brown proves that "the industry" would publish pretty much anything

Perhaps what he proves is that readers don't care for our Rules (and that the Industry knows it)? So if the reader doesn't have a problem with his adverbs, then where is the problem? Again, who else are we writing for?

HP and DVC are getting something right for millions of people - something really basic and important about why humans like fiction. We could all have a look at what they're getting right and learn from it - storytelling? accessible history of art/magic/theology? - even if we then chose to do the same things different ways.

Exactly.

Once your head gets round DB's style, I find he just fades away. Which is something to be admired in a writer, a certain invisiblity, isn't it?

Yes, he does and it is.

So if the Rules don't have any historical authority, the Industry doesn't feel tied to them and the Reader doesn't even notice them, why are we focussing so heavily on them?

Andrea

Well I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't take these rules as gospel. I enjoy reading them, and if they make sense to me, I'll try to use them. I certainly wouldn't start striking out adverbs in a piece I was happy with just to satisfy the rule. But if I had written a piece, and felt that it didn't quite work, and couldn't put my finger on why, and someone said to me "Too many adverbs", I'd give it serious consideration.

I've recently enjoyed reading Fifty Writing Tools from the Poynter Institute. They are journalistic, and American, but there's a lot of handy tips to be found in there. I'm not going to follow them slavishly. But they're useful to know about.

Hello Terry

There's a certain smug complacency that sometimes emanates from these threads concerning the breaking, or not, of the rules.

I think there is in saying, 'I'm now so skilful I can afford to break the Rules'. How can you judge that yourself? How can you say you're entitled but the novice can't, if they have an aptitude for, say, the well-placed adverb? Are we sufficiently objective to judge their aptitude if we already have in mind Adverbs are Bad!

Good writing practice has changed historically and will change again in the future. Is our current perception of it hindering individual creativity and expression? The Industry says it seeks the unique narrative voice and surely there's a risk that too dogmatic an attachment to the Rules will dilute it's uniqueness?

Dan Brown is a red herring, really. So is JKR.

I can't dismiss DB and JKR as red herrings when so many readers have loved them. They must be doing something right. Do we call them bad writers because they break our Rules, or for some other reason?

All of us here have a long way to go before we're in the position of being able to do that consistently and perfectly.

Will any of us ever reach that hallowed state? Have any authors? In which case, when will we ever be free of the Rules and are they worth, in their current form, adhering too?

But give me a story full of passion and excitement and insight, in which I'm totally unaware of the author's brushstrokes, any day.

Amen to that, but are there other ways - outside the Rules - of achieving that, better ones perhaps?

I'm fascinated by the craft of writing and passionate about improving my own - which is why I'm wondering about this at all. I know that you are too, so I know you won't mind my hurling questions at you.

Andrea

Griff, you're so right. When did any of this stuff become rules, anyway? Not in anything I've ever posted, though I am about to do a report on a manuscript, and no doubt I shall be scribbling 'too tell-y' on it at regular intervals. It's useful shorthand for a way in which writing often fails, but nothing more.

In my grumpier and more elitist moments I do wonder whether the rules are spawned by the attempt to reduce writing to something that can be 'delivered' by a non-writing English lecturer in a one-term module aimed at the weakest undergraduates at a university that will take any students it can get. That and the confluence of self-help books and creativity books: in those, of course, everything has to be reduceable, not to a one-hour lecture, but a half-page boxful of bullet points.

Emma

Hiya, Terry,

Interesting viewpoint. Speaking for myself, it's not smugness when i talk of breaking the rules ( apart from anything else, i still consider myself a novice) but it's an awareness of the 'rules' and the confidence to know that, in my genre anyway, there is a flexibility, certainly with regard to adverbs and punctuation.

When i first joined the site i learned these rules and followed them avidly. All i'm saying now is - and it's taken a long time to reach this point - i have gained more belief in my own style and have given up counting adverbs and exclamation marks.

Of course, let's not instigate the old chick lit debate, again

Best,

Casey

Oh, hurray to the last three posts (and many of the others, too).

I'd never heard of these ruddy 'rules' till after I was published and started frequenting writing forums. I can't tell you how surprised I was to hear that "adverbs are bad" etc. Immediately I rushed off to check with the authors I admired, and found they use adverbs* as and when they need them; some use several per paragraph, some fewer than one per page. It depends on an individual's style. But you know, I had a real wobbly moment when I thought, My God, have I been doing it all wrong?

Writing needs adverbs, they perform a vital function in the language. If a few beginner writers over-use them, that's no reason to broadly declare them Off-Limits.

(Let's clarify here, as well. Adverbs are words that give information about a verb, so 'I'll see you tomorrow' contains an adverb, as does 'Then he saw her.' You cannot possibly write without using the adverbs of sequence like 'next' and 'first' and 'yesterday', never mind adverbs of frequency such as 'daily'. It seems to be only adverbs of manner which get some people steamed up, the words describing how an action was done.)

But give me a story full of passion and excitement and insight, in which I'm totally unaware of the author's brushstrokes, any day.

seems to me you can get your kicks any way you like. Lots of times the brushstrokes are the biggest part of the kick eg Austen, Dickens, Wodehouse, Hemingway, Amis(M), Ellroy, I mean there's loads of writers where you get all excited just about picking up the book and diving in and knowing you'll get that hit from that style. Wouldn't want to be without that.

Andrea, perhaps 'skills' would indeed be a better word than 'rules'. There are skills that are absolutely necessary for a writer to have if he wants to create magic in his work. And I'm sorry, but I'm going to give a football analogy here. Some years ago, David Beckham created a moment of magic in a game between Manchester United and Wimbledon. He had the ball just inside his own half, and the 'rules' said he should pass it to a colleague nearby. But he looked up and saw the Wimbledon goalkeeper a few yards further from his goal than he should have been. So he sent the ball in a high arc, over the goalkeeper, and into the goal. No one had ever done this before; even the great Pele had just missed when he'd tried it. Beckham was able to do it because he'd spent years practising the skills of football. Having the skills gave him the vision to see something as possible that an unskilled player wouldn't even have looked for. Then he broke the rules by shooting instead of passing.

So, I'd say a writer can break the rules if he has the skills. Except that he's not really then breaking the rules, as such, he's elevating the moment; creating magic. What I was ranting about before was the assumption that those skills are so firmly in place that rules can be ignored. I just don't see the evidence of it here, and I've seen examples of most people's work on this thread (and again, just so there's no doubt, I include my own here).

Besides, I think some people are not appreciating the freedom that a good set of skills can deliver. Having skills means you can build a solid infrastructure for your story: the middle section won't disperse because the beginning didn't set down the right foundations; the main character won't suddenly develop a new and unbelievable personality because his need wasn't established early on, and so on. With the skills infrastructure in place, your creativity can fly and surprise, even you.

So, no, of course adjectives are not bad; they're not even rules. But overused unintentionally they will usually dilute or confuse or obfuscate. Tell rather than show is also not bad; it all depends if the writer has the skill and the intent to make telling magical. If he doesn't have the skill and intent, he's better off sticking to show, because at least that won't display his hand so much, and will let the story breathe more.

Andrea, it's good to battle these issues out. They need tussling over – it shakes us out of the complacency that's always ready to bog us down. It's not really writing, as such, we're discussing at core here. It's the question of how can we break though our inhibitions, barriers, habits, misconceptions, lazinesses and vulnerabilities, to be able to express the wonder about life that we want so much to communicate to others through story.

Terry

Immediately I rushed off to check with the authors I admired

That, of course, is the sanest thing to do. After half a lifetime of schoolteachers and relatives and smart-alecs of every stamp and hue telling me "you mustn't start a sentence with 'But'" I remember noticing one day that my great hero P.G.Wodehouse had done exactly that. And the sense of liberation was fantastic. Hurrah! All these knowalls were talking through their collective hats! If it was good enough for PGW it was good enough for me.

(NB I am now terrified that it wasn't Wodehouse at all. Or that particular grammatical rule. But I know what I mean, even if my recollection is completely fictional.)