Harsh truth for a young writer: adhering to writing rules can’t actually help you find your voice.
Avoiding cliches, “showing” instead of telling, using the active voice instead of passive voice…all this stuff…can’t help you create work with depth.
They’re GOOD to know, but good storytelling goes beyond basic writing mechanics. Way, way beyond.
Which often makes me wonder about people who go around dissecting prose like they were experts. I see these a lot in beginning writing forums or places like Wattpad. The only “experts” I’ll believe are probably too busy writing their own novels. Not saying it isn’t helpful to point out a few things someone is doing wrong if they go asking for help, but there are people with a holier-than-thou attitude when it comes to writing that is just so very confusing.
For example…
Someone went to a friend’s novella on Wattpad and decided, out of the blue, that it needed editing. He broke down a paragraph of her piece by piece to “improve” on it using common “writing rules”. The result: something that completely killed the flow, pacing, and atmosphere. Maybe the paragraph is now “correct,” but the magic was gone.
About twelve years ago, I went to a writing forum and was beaten over the head with my lack of adherence to some standard writing rule I can’t remember anymore. I think it was my “lack” of description. Because I only describe things that are necessary, and don’t feel the need to bog down the narrative with unnecessary stuff.
When I tried to explain my reasoning I was told (I believe rather condescendingly, though it’s possible I may have simply overreacted) that I should learn the rules first before attempting to break them. Never mind that I had been writing for twelve years by this point and knew exactly why I was doing certain things.
Now, another twelve years later, I’m still going against the grain. My writing has been called anything from “not really a novel” to “experimental.” I test the readers’ patience. “Different” is what people call it…not necessarily bad.
But…
I am having conversations with people about these characters. They are alive. They stick. “I have a strange crush on Enosh.” “Stop hurting Kefier!” “I liked Enosh at first but Kefier grew on me.” And knowing these people have impeccable tastes in reading means I can at least trust that I got that part of the equation correct. Which was why I chose to write certain things the way I did–it was, for the most part, an exploration of character, which is another reason why I write novels that immerse you into the whole thing. You are being dragged into the character’s experience, and you’re there for the ride. It’s a bad thing, it’s a good thing. It’s just a thing.
Of course I didn’t hit it all perfectly. For God’s sake, Jaeth’s Eye was a novel I started when I was 17. We don’t really know how our novels will be perceived until we’ve released them into the world, and writers are allowed to improve and keep trying.
Which brings me back to my first point. If you’re a beginner, just go and tell your story. And then again. And then again. And then again. You’ll figure all of this out. Try to do it without taking away the magic. Lots of people won’t understand–that’s okay. The ones who do (like my 5-10 fans :D) are the ones that matter. And most importantly, if you are expressing the story that is genuinely inside you, if you, the writer, is happy with what you are producing, then everything else is just white noise.
