This blog is a firm believer of the tenet that rules are made to be broken. This includes the alleged rules of writing. Name a rule – don’t use adverbs, never use sentence fragments – and you can find 10 writers who break it with aplomb. We don’t advocate for sloppy writing. You have to know the rules first before you can decide how and when to break them. But break them you can.
In a new post, Anne R. Allen says the rules are only guidelines. If you follow them, you have a better chance of being published. On the other hand, Delia Owens’ successful novel Where the Crawdads Sing breaks almost all of them. “There’s head-hopping, long paragraphs of description, numerous flashbacks, and even a ‘Magical Negro’ to save the day,” Allen says. “Plus there are an abundance of clichés in story and characterization.”
“And guess what? Readers do not care. It’s a great story with a protagonist so compelling, readers can’t help feeling personally involved in what happens to her.”
We’re taught to avoid cliché, but readers like the comfort of their favorite tropes. They prefer what’s familiar and like to have an idea of how a story will end. You can be certain that the protagonist of a series won’t get killed off mid-scene.
“Formulas and tips and writing rules are only useful up to a point,” Allen says. “After that, it’s all alchemy. There’s some kind of ‘magic’ that makes one book more compelling than all similar books, and nobody can explain it. Not even the author. Maybe especially the author.”
Some writers, especially beginners, get stuck on rules to the detriment of their creativity. “People start following them for their own sake, forgetting that the main goal is to entertain the reader, not to please some writing teacher in your head,” Allen says. “Writing rules are never one-size fits all. They are at best guidelines — tips to help you control your story, not laws to control you.”
