Breaking Writing Rules
Breaking writing rules might seem like a bold artistic statement, but it could also backfire. Here are some considerations for writers who are inclined to take their projects in a more experimental direction.
Stay on top of the trends in writing, submitting, marketing, and more in our membership community, Good Story Learning. We add new content every month!
Transcript for Breaking Writing Rules Video
Hi, this is Mary Kole with Good Story Company. Welcome to my YouTube channel. Today, we are talking about breaking writing rules.
This is a topic I love to talk about. So, I am classically trained as a writer. I have an MFA, and I'm also a veteran of the publishing industry itself. So, we have your craft on the one hand. We have your market on the other hand. And this is sort of the big uneasy intersection of the art of writing and the business of writing that a lot of writers struggle with. Now, the reason I bring all that up is because we sort of do this balancing act as artists and as people who want to see artists succeed financially. And I sort of straddle both of those lines with my clients where we want to make great creative choices. We want to be putting something of creative value out into the world but if you want to be working smarter not harder, you are ideally also trying to prioritize something that will actually get out into the world and reach readers.
So, I have done a lot of speaking over the years and one of the things that I always say is, "You know, you can write on a 150-page picture book. You can. You absolutely can, you know, go where your heart desires, just do it up if that's what you're being called to do." Of course, picture books are usually 32 or 40 pages. Now, getting somebody to buy, or read, or publish, or agent your 150-page picture book is going to be the tall order because that is just generally not what the market does. That's not what the market reads. That's not what kids are really into because that's a little long to be into in this age group, you know. There are a million reasons why and a 150-page picture book is just not gonna work.
So, we think, okay, on the one hand, this is the writing rule I really wanna break. That's how we get back to the topic, you see. This is the writing rule I really wanna break. You know, we don't write books in the second person direct address which is the “you”. Of course, there has since been a book called "You" that is in the second person direct address. And there are picture books like "Your Alien" that also use second person direct address. But for a while, it was like, "No, we don't use this to write an entire book. Are you nuts?" Well, that rule has been broken successfully but I would guess that rule has also been broken unsuccessfully.
So that's one thing that you have to realize. If you wanna break a writing rule, there is a rule you really wanna break. You wanna do all telling, for example, because you hate show, don't tell. So you wanna do all telling. Well, there are a couple of considerations there. First of all, why are you doing it? Are you just doing it to stick it to the man or are you doing it for a reason that makes sense with your strength as a writer and your premise, your story? Does your story somehow necessitate that you need to do this and write it in this way? If the latter, I think that you have a much stronger case to make for yourself. But don't get me wrong, you are making a case whenever you break the rules.
And so, I have writers who are rather new to the writing game. And they're like, "Well, you know, I just want to tell a little story without using punctuation." And I had a lovely client a couple of weeks ago who did just that. They had a chapter where there was no punctuation, no line breaks, no nothing. Even though there was narration, there was dialogue, there were all the elements of fiction in this project, but they had just chosen to do it straight up, stream of consciousness and I was like, "Okay. This writer either doesn't know any better, which is totally fine, or they're being experimental." If they simply don't know, which actually ended up being the case, because the second we started talking about it, the client was like, "Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, if this is impossible to read, and it's a lot of work, and it just like exhausts the reader to try and make sentences where there are no sentences, then screw it. I don't need to do it this way." And I was so happy. On the other hand, if the writer had been like, "No, I am making a point about our short attention spans and we need this, you know, 10-page long sentence to really establish ourselves back into our better selves." If it was sort of breaking the rules for the point of an experiment, or to make a point, or whatever other artistic reason, I would have said, "Okay. Well, you know the rules. First, we do use punctuation usually in 99.99999% of cases. You do know the rules. You are actively choosing to break them for reasons that you have."
So, how can we do that in the best possible way? You know, if you're like "I have this 150-page picture book inside of me. And it's absolutely not going anywhere, and I have to get it out." Then my job becomes, "Okay, you've consciously chosen to break the rules." How can we make this as successful as possible for you? So if you know the rules, you are consciously choosing to break them for a reason other than simply not knowing any better, which is totally fine. If you don't, I just hope you have somebody tell you. I'm happy to, by the way. That's kinda my job. But if you consciously desire to break the rules, one of the things that I will tell you is "Okay. You are breaking a rule."
And I think a lot of people who choose to publish independently, they're of this mindset because they're like, "Well, you know, I'm not beholden to anybody. I'm not answering to a literary agent, to a slush pile, to a publisher, haha." And not to say that that's like a bad thing. A lot of people choose to independently publish because it gives them more control over their entire process, their entire product. But the reality is the traditional marketplace has groomed your readers to expect certain things. We've been groomed by a very long history of picture books to expect a 32 to 40-page picture book. As readers, our children expect that. And so, even if you publish independently, you choose to break the rules. You have to know that your readers are going to be groomed by the traditional industry to expect certain things of your product when they buy it. They spend money on it. They are going to expect certain standards of quality. They're going to expect kind of in the writing to market practice that exists for a lot of indie writers. You have to learn the tropes. You have to learn the tropes of romance, which is that you have a happily ever after in most cases. If both of your romantic heroes die at the end and it just all falls apart, you're going to have some pretty upset writers because you did not fulfill their expectations. So you do have to realize that no matter what you want to do, your readers come into the party with certain things that they expect from your story, based on the category that you're sort of marketing your story as.
So, that being said, if you do want to break the rules, you know the rules, you consciously want to break them, be prepared for some blowback from the industry if you're trying to publish traditionally or from your readers if you're publishing directly and independently to them. Be prepared to justify why you made your choice and be prepared for the idea that it's not gonna be for everyone. I like to work smarter not harder. And so if I want to create something, I sort of want to do it with this viewpoint of, "Well, I hope more readers than not are going to eventually like this. I hope." If you break some pretty big rules in your writing, you may not fall into that category and your reach for your project, your potential audience for your project may be much smaller. If you're trying to publish traditionally, you may not get a response from the vast majority of agents and publishers because your odds of finding a champion go down the more sort of experimental that you get.
Now, you may think I'm a total sellout for this advice. You may think I'm "the man" or a cog in the machine and that's totally fine. You can do at the end of the day, whatever your heart desires. But you just have to sort of take some of the risks of breaking the writing rules with some of the benefits of experimenting and breaking writing rules. So, I hope that was helpful, some considerations for you.
This has been Mary Kole with Good Story Company and here is to a good story, an experimental good story.
I would love it if you joined Good Story Learning, our membership website where we have a ton of videos, a ton of printables, and resources for writers of any category, any experience level. It's just a lot of one-on-one teaching and conversations exactly like this, so I hope to see you over there.
