As I previously blogged about, some rules
are made to be broken. This is the Mother of Invention. Well, and
necessity. Writing, of course, has a lot of rules that we're told we
shouldn't break, because it's considered weak, lazy or amateurish
writing. And a lot of these rules are spot-on.
And of course some of them should be taken with a grain of
salt. As I've been reading about the craft and getting more familiar with
the "rules," there's some that I think they should be broken.
Or bent, anyway.
Here they are:
1) Write What You Know
Well, what if you don't know anything? Then you're shit out
of luck. If writers only wrote about what they knew, there'd be a whole
lot of one-dimensional novels out there. This is why research
was invented. This is why imagination exists. This is why travel in the name of research
was invented. I think we can start with what we know then find out
what we don't. And make up the rest (but only if you're a fiction
writer.).
2) Don't Start Your Story With
a Prologue
I never realized how controversial this particular story device
was until I started reading different articles and blog topics. This
apparently is considered a cardinal sin in some circles and to be avoided at
all costs. I say, if it serves the story, I mean REALLY serves the story,
why wouldn't you? Maybe because I read a lot of suspense novels and this
is somewhat standard in the genre, I don't think of this as a
hard-and-fast one. Prologues give you an intriguing set-up for the action to
follow, so I don't mind them. I say if it makes sense, go for it.
3) Develop an Outline
Some writers say you have to live and die by the outline, they
they consider them an absolute, no-way-around-it must-do for success in
writing, that you without-a-doubt, 100% must know where you're going and
how you're going to get there. I've heard of writers who churn out
detailed, ninety page outlines before they even write "Chapter 1."
Hmm.
I recently had the opportunity to hear
Gillian Flynn (that's a hard "G"), author of "Gone Girl,"
"Sharp Objects" and "Dark Places" talk about her writing
process. She termed herself a "highly inefficient writer," who
often doesn't know whodunit even when she's thirty pages out from the end
(she's winning all sorts of raves for her storytelling ability). In
"On Writing," Stephen King dubbed himself a "situational"
writer, eschewing heavy plotting in favor of intuition - "our lives are largely plotless,"
so says the Master of Horror. Why shouldn't books be? King
claims with one or two exceptions, the books he did plot felt like
"stiff, trying-too-hard novels" and that "a strong situation
renders the whole question of plot moot."
I hate outlines - always have. I'll do plot points so that I
have a general idea of where I'm going, but I'm not a stickler about it.
For me, half the fun of writing fiction is being surprised by the twists
the story takes, the characters you meet and the way it all ends.
Kind of like reading fiction.
4) Don't Start with Weather
Obviously, not starting with "it was a dark
and stormy night" or "it was a sunny day" is a given.
But done right, weather can set the mood.
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking
thirteen.” — 1984, George Orwell.
Sounds like weather.
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