Don’t Be Enslaved by the Rules of Writing
As a new writer eager to learn everything about storytelling, I pored through endless resources, most of which offered the same advice:
- Show don’t tell.
- Use the active voice, not the passive voice.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs.
- Use the first or third-person point of view (POV) and avoid the second-person POV.
…and a thousand more.
They’re useful advice… if you follow them wisely. Unfortunately, wisdom and I were at loggerheads.
'Writing rules' are helpful but strict adherence to them will only stifle your creativity.
John Gardner succinctly summed it up in his brilliant book, The Art of Fiction:
When one begins to be persuaded that certain things must never be done in fiction and certain other things must always be done, one has entered the first stage of aesthetic arthritis, the disease that ends up in pedantic rigidity and the atrophy of intuition.
Aesthetic arthritis—a disease I suffered from as a young writer.
Adverbs became my enemy. And while I yearned to use stronger verbs, they wanted nothing to do with me. So all I had were weak verbs and no adverbs to support them.
