In a recent post, John Fox examines 20 writers and their stories that broke the legendary rules of writing. “Any time some well-intentioned writer tells you, ‘You can’t do that’ in your story, please send them this article,” he writes. “If you’re a beginner, I wouldn’t recommend trying to pull off these techniques. But if you have some writing experience under your belt, then experiment with these advanced writing techniques. Read the books, see how they do it, then be playful in your writing.”
The rules and their violators include:
- The hero saves the day. In H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, the aliens are defeated, but not by humanity. Basically, humanity is doomed until the aliens are killed by earth germs.
- Protagonists are active. In Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, the main character’s friend accomplishes a climactic turning point and tells the hero about it after.
- Heroes have flaws. And yet, Prince Myshkin, in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot has physical frailties but no flaws. The story works because everyone hates Myshkin.
- Novels need multiple scenes. In The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker spends 142 pages on a single conversation in an elevator.
- Novels need a single POV. In The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver switches between first and third person POV in alternating chapters.
Click the link below to read the rest of the rule breakers, including writers who head hopped, mixed genres, played with chronology, mixed tense, and worse!
