The Rule About Rules
And the rule about having rules about rules
I read on TwiX last week that someone was offended, upset, appalled that authors are saying ‘write everyday’ when some people can’t manage this, and it got me thinking. The first thing it got me thinking about is why get so upset about someone else offering up a ‘rule’ that works for them if it doesn’t work for you. There’s nothing to be gained from getting annoyed about it. And then I moved on and thought about writing rules, and the way people say ‘the rule about (writing) rules is there are no rules’. So let’s set the record straight on what rules mean for us when we’re writing.
The rule that there are no rules is total bollocks. There are rules, of course there are. But here’s the thing - you don’t have to apply those rules if you don’t want to, and that’s how the shorthand confuses things, because it suggests we can get away with making things up for ourselves. So here are my rules about the rules:
The rules are actually principles about what works and what doesn’t work. If you consider that a principle is a foundation block, the corner stone if you like, for behaviours and beliefs about writing, then we do need to know and understand those principles - I’ll come back to principles in a mo.
Saying that the rule is there are no rules presumes we know what the rules are in the first place. When I didn’t get some of the rules of writing, my work was nowhere near as good as it is now, since I’ve discovered rules, such as story structure. I find it’s best to familiarise myself with rules and absolutes so that I can then determine what might work for me.
Those who innovate are not ignorant of the rules - it’s most likely that they’ve learned them, played with them, honed them, and then decided which rules work for them, and which ones don’t, what happens when you turn a rule on its head or approach it from a different angle. That’s what enables them to innovate This can apply as much to rules around the craft of writing as it applies to the process of writing.
When a writer tells you an absolute, they’re more likely using it as a shorthand for a process. For example, if they say that you MUST write every single day, they’re probably actually saying ‘you need a routine that works for you, and hey, writing everyday works for me’. If you only have one day a week where you can squeeze in a quick 30 minutes of writing, then that’s your routine. Does it work for you? Then go with it. If not, what other routine can you develop that might work better for you? Maybe write in the 10 minutes before you go to bed, or the 10 minutes when you first wake up before the chaos commences. The point is, take someone else’s absolute (you must do this, never do that, always do … etc) and look for the message hidden within the absolute. You might just find a nugget within.
I said I’d return to principles - I’ve come up with a handful of useful principles that might work for you. If they don’t resonate, consider what your principles for writing might be. You don’t need to do what everyone else is doing - you can choose what’s right for you.
Learn the rules of the craft of writing, play with them, practice using them, and only after you’ve got to grips with them, decide which you will keep and which you will ignore.
Be open to constant learning, even if you think you’ve already learned about something. When we raise our level of awareness and knowledge, we’re often open to learning more about a basic concept that we thought we already understood.
Another person’s measure of success doesn’t need to be my measure of success.
There is always a reason for resistance - to write, to edit, to make changes, to learn, to relax. Find the reason, release the resistance, get the writing done.
We are guaranteed the results we believe we deserve.
The feedback we receive from others is the cheapest form of learning we can get - even when we don’t agree with the feedback.
Success is possible (to the point within our control) when we choose it to be.
Absolutes are absolutely not necessary - most things sit on a continuum, and you can choose the best place for you at this time, on the proviso you are ready to move along the continuum as you develop and grow.
Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it, and there are consequences - when you query agents you’re going to get rejections; once you get the publishing deal you need to adopt the ways of the publishing house, which might mean writing to order; once you’re writing full-time, you’ll only earn if you write, and that might mean writing things you don’t want to write, such as articles and features, and it means you write to deadlines.
And you know, if you don’t want to use any rules or principles, you can adopt the rule of there being no rules - just be clear that you’ve not selected that route in order to avoid the hard work that improves your writing, gets you an agent, gets you the publishing deal, gets you the success you want from your writing.