My online critique
partner has been trying to follow all the “rules” for writing fiction but is
having trouble when they conflict with each other or don’t further her story.
That made me wonder how hard-and-fast they really are. Here is what I came up
with.
In my opinion,
there are only two inflexible rules for writing fiction to be read by others. (If
you are writing merely to please yourself, you can ignore them, too.) These two
higher-level rules are:
·
Respect your reader, and
· Stay
true to your story.
Most of the lower-level
rules are really guidelines designed to help writers respect their readers. Obviously,
not all readers are alike, so how the guidelines are used and the degree to
which they apply depends on the intended audience. For example, thriller fans
expect you to apply the “show, don’t tell” guideline more rigorously than
readers of literary fiction do. Here are a few of the other many guidelines
that help you respect your reader.
·
Write clearly. Readers deserve to
understand what they are reading. I have started but not finished many books
that used confusing sentence structures. Here are some examples:
o
“Tom and David entered the room smoking a
pipe.” Since it says “a pipe” (singular), were they sharing it? If only one was
smoking, then which one? Or should it say “smoking pipes?”
o
“Betty went camping with her sisters,
Debbie and Carol.” This could mean that
there were at least five people on the camping trip: Betty, two or more sisters,
Debbie, and Carol. Or it could mean that there were only three: Betty and her
two sisters, who are named Debbie and Carol.
I
thought about putting clarity among the immutable rules, but even it has exceptions.
There are times when a writer is purposefully ambiguous and/or misleading, such
as when he or she wants a character’s motive to be unclear until the end. But
the lack of clarity should always be intentional.
·
Be consistent with point of view. There
can be more than one POV character, but it is inconsiderate to head-hop within
a scene. When that happens, the reader is the one who gets the headache. At
least I do. It’s also important to understand how the various POVs work and use
them properly, but that’s a subject for another day. In fact, it’s a subject
for an entire month, and I covered it three years ago. For more detail, read my
blog posts for July 6, 2015; July 13, 2015; July 20, 2015;
and July 27, 2015.
·
Don’t tell readers what they can figure
out for themselves and don’t repeat information they already know. That tells
me, as a reader, that the writer thinks I’m dense. Of course, sometimes
repetition is useful for emphasis or as a rhetorical device. That’s why this is
a guideline rather than a fixed rule.
·
Feed information to the reader when and
where it is fresh. This includes backstory. “Fresh” doesn’t mean it has to be
served right after it is made (i.e., when it occurs), but there is a difference
between good cheese and moldy cheese or between crisp vegetables and rotten
ones. In other words, don’t use the first chapter—or any other part of the book—to
dump information on the reader the way trash is added to a garbage dump. Instead,
merge backstory, details, and descriptions in where they fit naturally. If
there is no place to merge them in, then they are probably unnecessary.
The other actual
rule is to stay true to your story. This doesn’t mean it can’t change or develop
in the writing process, but no writer should give up control. I always listen
to and consider my critique partners’ suggestions, and they often improve the
story. This goes for craft elements as well as plot. But I don’t make changes
that don’t feel right. It is my story, and nobody else understands it the way I
do.
So if you want to
be a good writer, respect your readers and stay true to your story.
__________
The image at the
head of this post was drawn by Frank T. Merrill for the original edition of Louisa
May Alcott’s Little Women. First
published in 1868, the illustration is in the public domain because of its age.
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