{"id":6897,"date":"2017-11-15T07:17:59","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T12:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6897"},"modified":"2017-11-15T07:17:59","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T12:17:59","slug":"creative-writing-rules-an-oxymoron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6897","title":{"rendered":"Creative Writing Rules: An Oxymoron?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Handwriting,<\/a>

photo: David Hall, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

A friend of mine (two friends, in fact) complained to me about a \u201cmystery writing\u201d class they were taking. It turned out to be a critique group of inexperienced writers and no formal instruction. Then, coincidentally, I met the course instructor of heard his rationale for this approach. He believes there aren\u2019t rules for writing and that creative people violate the supposed \u201crules\u201d all the time.<\/p>\n

This puts him on the same page as Somerset Maugham who famously said, \u201cThere are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

That viewpoint, of course, negates the huge number of useful guidelines that authors and editors\u2014sometimes out of frustration or even desperation\u2014have compiled. While established authors may have internalized them, they are especially useful for writers starting out. The most useful to me currently is Donald Maass\u2019s The Emotional Craft of Fiction<\/a><\/em>, packed with rich examples.<\/p>\n

In the blog Criminal Minds<\/a> last month, mystery\/crime writers talked about the usefulness (or not) of online sites offering writing advice. Author Paul D Marks wrote, \u201cThe thing with all advice is to take it with a grain of salt,\u201d which would seem to support the class instructor\u2019s point of view, except that Marks follows it up with \u201cFirst, learn the rules\u2014you need to know them before you can break them.\u201d In other words, budding writers have to start somewhere, and that\u2019s what the instructor\u2019s students seemed to be missing.<\/p>\n

The very number of sources for writing advice can be a problem in itself. New writers need some means for separating the wheat from the chaff, the good advice from the irrelevant, the workable idea from the dead end. They need to be able to separate writing advice (structure, characterization, motivation) from editing advice (redundancies, overwriting, flaccid verbs). In their first draft, they need the former. In all the subsequent drafts, they need both. (Here I\u2019ll share a list of powerful editing tips from Repo Kempt<\/a>. If only I could get its full benefits by tearing it into tiny pieces and eating it.)<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the panel of bloggers seemed to agree, the first key to good writing is lots of reading\u2014reading in the genre the author wants to write in, seeing what works and what doesn\u2019t. If they are reading some of the better advice columns and books along the way, they\u2019ll be a bit more critical (in a good way) when they read. If a particular plot or characterization or passage of dialog really works, or falls flat as roadkill, they can take a moment to figure out why then look for a place in their own writing to use that insight or avoid that same carnage.<\/p>\n

Novelist and creative writing professor Colum McCann<\/a> wrote a fine essay of encouragement for aspiring novelists earlier this year, drawing from his recent book. He acknowledges the instructor\u2019s \u201crules are there to be broken\u201d mantra yet provides enough orientation to the craft that a would-be writer is not snow-blinded by the blank page.
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine (two friends, in fact) complained to me about a \u201cmystery writing\u201d class they were taking. It turned out to be a critique group of inexperienced writers and no formal instruction. Then, coincidentally, I met the course … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Creative Writing Rules: An Oxymoron? You have to know the rules before you break them.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[174,29],"tags":[1178,771,28],"class_list":["post-6897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing","tag-colum-mccann","tag-donald-maass","tag-writers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Nf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6898,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6897\/revisions\/6898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}