"So, I'd say a writer can break the rules if he has the skills"

- But are they rules? I'd say not. The minute you start having to qualify eg the comment about adverbs, it drops out of being anything like a rule and hardly even qualifies as a guideline. Because the bottom line becomes, 'don't overuse this device' and you could say that of any bit of language and who's to say what constitutes overuse anyway?

Actually I think getting erroneously hung up about one aspect of English - whether it's adverbs, the verb to be, take your pick really - hampers writers instead of helping them. It hampers them twice over, firstly because they become unable to read good published authors without accusing those authors of bad writing, and secondly because they find their own style artificially fenced-in, and that can add an unhelpful conscious overlay to what should be a natural and joyous process.

Something Terry talks about - or at least I think I remember him talking about - on another thread is the important thing is to be specific. (Tell me if I'm wrong, Terry.) I really agree with that.

The trouble with these threads about "rules" is they tend get absolutist and over-general.

I've noticed Terry's own crits tend to be very closely-read and detailed and fine-tuned to the piece he is looking at. However, some other espousers of "rules" (and perhaps some that see the worth of Terry's crits and aspire to that) talk about them as though they exist out of context (no adverbs, no POV switches, no authorial voice, whatever) and should be applied to all writing without believing it necessary to engage with the point, the intention or the style of that particular writing first before really working out which rules apply to it/or would be useful for it.

For myself I have said before that I think "rules" are useful if we see them as tools. Some will suit us, some wont. But at the end of the day, they should aid thought, not shut it down.

People talk a lot about learning to write well on this site, but there is also learning to be a good editor, and learning to be a good critic (whether for your own writing or other people's). Those are also skills that need to be learned and whilst I think knowledge of "rules" (I do hate this term) can be helpful, it has to be coupled with the ability to know when and where and if they are appropriate in a particular context in order to improve a piece of writing, rather than just turning one sort of writing into another sort.

I find myself agreeing with both Lammi and Terry. Lammi's point that to make something taboo by turning it into a rule can make your writing artificial and self-conscious (poor Casey's fidgeting characters came to mind!) and Terry's point about getting rid of habits and inhibitions. I think when rules are treated as dogma they jsut become cold habit and cause self-conscious writing. However, if we see them as something to aid thought, that we can take or leave, they can help identify problems in our writing and provide tools for thinking with.

I think its all about balance in the end.

Reading that through I realise it sounds like I'm saying Casey's writing is artificial and self-conscious - which I didn't mean at all! Sorry Casey! It was just your description of your characters desperately trying to avoid adverbs earlier made me laugh and seems like a really good example of a rule taking over too much.

No probs, Snowbell! Your comment made me laugh too and you're right, my attempt to avoid adverbs has made my writing a tad contrived, IMO - and at least i can see that now

Casey

Well I appreciate I'm very much at the extreme end here, but I don't believe there's such a thing as a stylistic rule, only an individual or perhaps contemporary preference. Any stylistic advice I can think of, any tip at all, immediately needs qualifying and by the time that's done, what's left? Nothing but the vaguest, most obvious statements: 'Don't write awkwardly'; 'don't write flatly'; 'don't write unmusically' and so on. And since those are all subjective points anyway, that leaves no one any the wiser.

Imo the rules that you need to know are the ones to do with punctuation, grammar, spelling and syntax; the rest, the style or voice, you learn by feeling your way through the language through a process of writing and reading (both for pleasure and analytically).

"Imo the rules that you need to know are the ones to do with punctuation, grammar, spelling and syntax"

- And I should add that you only need to know how to use these correctly, you don't necessarily need to be able to identify them in a technical sense, any more than an infant making up a sing-song nursery rhyme needs to know the precise term for the metre she's using.

It is so hard, though, Kate, as a relative beginner. The latest 'rule' i've latched onto (from George Orwell's editing tips, no less) is not to have your character noticing or remembering things, because it supposedly distances the reader. If you have the sort of personality which likes rules it is very, very difficult to ignore this sort of advice. MUST TRY HARDER!

Casey

But how then are you supposed to fill in a character's background? A significant part of my current novel's about a man who starts a new life having walked out of his first marriage, and a lot of the scenes are intercut with his memories of the mess he left behind.

If you come across a piece of advice like this, firstly ask yourself if it feels right to you, if it's working in your current writing, and then go check in books by authors you admire. One of the best novels I ever read was 'The Photograph' by Penelope Lively and she drops in memories all over the place.

Obviously massive respect to the Orwell, but I still say he's by and large listing tips which have worked for him.

It's a bit like a supermodel giving me advice on what kind of clothes to wear. Sure, Kate Moss stops traffic in drainpipe jeans and a crop top, but I'd look like a dog's breakfast if I tried the same outfit.

Two pages of 'The Photograph' I had to scan before I found 'I remember when my first boyfriend dumped me.'

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The very next page I turn to: 'When Oliver remembers Kath, that luminous quaity predominates.'

Terry,

I take your point about the David Beckham analogy - honed skills liberate a writer to produce magic. However, I can't equate the Rules with skill because I can't see legitimate grounds for the ones I've highlighted* and, like Lammi, believe they can fence in a writer's style and rob the writing process of some of its joy. And also, as Lammi illustrated earlier, make a writer doubt their own style and creativity - which I think particularly damaging to new writers. And for what?

(* I mean, at what point was it decided that adverbs (for eg) were bad, who said so, when and on what grounds?)

As you say, the overuse of any writerly device will make it wearisome but that's true of any writerly device, whether it falls within or without the wrath of the Rules.

On the infrastructure of story, that does have a historical basis and is what readers require, a beginning, a middle and an end (although not necessarily displayed in that order), vivid characters developing through a naturally progressing plot, so you'll get no argument from me there.

Shouldn't we be looking then at the bigger picture when we consider other writers' work - ie forget the nitpicking about adverbs, POV, telling etc, rather focus on whether their style works as a whole and overlays (although this can be a tricky one with novels on WW) a coherent story infrastructure?

Andrea

I love that analogy, Kate!

Yes, i know you're right and perhaps my only fault is that i don't read enough of other writers in my genre at the moment, maybe this would boost my confidence.

i shall soon be sending out my work which in terms of following supposed rules is so far removed from my first novel, which i wrote in a vacuum, on my own, and was full of backstory, tell not show, adverbs etc etc. I suspect my present novel has swung too far the other way and is stiffly all show, emaciated of backstory, anally lacking adverbs and totally lacking the MC's memory (can you tell i'm having a crisis of confidence today?)

I suppose, what i'm saying is, like yourself, a writer has to find a confidence in their own style and i suspect this comes with time.

Casey

One last post and then I'm done (I'm away in Otley for another week and a half).

Andrea, yes! We all have personal bugbears: I don't like too many short simple sentences, and I'm not fond of the second person. But I'd never hand these out as Tips for Writers because I know my response is a subjective one.

Even guidelines like 'don't over-use the same sentence structure' and 'cut out as many speech tags as you can' are blasted out of the water as soon as you start to read Raymond Carver. Nothing stands up to scrutiny.

Read! Write! Have fun! That's the only rule I'd hand out, myself.

Lammi, I can only agree with you on all points.

Casey, I loved your character anecdotes - mine have run their hands through their hair so many times it must be coming out by the handful by now

Andrea

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Lammi,

Cross-posted - and I agree again ;)

Lol, Andrea

Casey