Sometimes, I break the rules....

In my experience, writing is unique in how much devotion (to the point of obsession) some practitioners show to rules they were taught early in their careers.

You've probably run into these kinds of people; perhaps, in fact, you yourself are one of these people.

You took a writing course in your youth, taught by a successful author who became something of a mentor to you, and you learned a hard-and-fast rule of writing that you have committed yourself to every since?

I've heard a bunch of them:

• Never use adverbs;
• Never use more than one adjective before a noun;
• Never use passive voice;
• Never use any verb in a dialogue tag other than "said";
• Never use semi-colons;
• Never use an ellipsis;
• Never use "very";
• Show, don't tell;
• etc. (ohh, don't use "etc." ...!).

Don't get me wrong: I think these kinds of rules are useful. As guides. As things to think about as you review and revise your work.

Sure.

But as laws sent down from on high never to be broken???

No way.

I was once in a writer's group where the only contribution one member would have to the review of another writer's work was to stroke out all of the adverbs. ALL OF THEM! She would quietly await her turn to provide feedback and then, when her time came, she would push a copy of the work in question across the table toward the author and say, very proudly, "I stroked out all of the adverbs. They're not necessary."

And that was it. She said no more. She had done her great service to the craft of writing.

Wait. Sorry. "She would, in silence, await... and say, with pride in her voice..."

You know what? She was probably right ... seventy per cent of the time. It is very likely that seven out of every ten of the adverbs could be removed from the piece without reducing its impact. In fact, the deletion of these words would likely strengthen the work.

But remove all of them? Without thought or consideration as to what they achieve, why they are there in the first place? Give me a break.

When I write a first draft of anything, I just write. I connect my imagination directly with my fingers and let things flow.

When I go back to review and revise, I keep that list of rules in my head. I look at all the adverbs, the adjectives, the examples of the passive voice, the appearances of "asked" and "called" and "yelled" and "whispered" and "rasped", the semi-colons and ellipses, the sections where a character or the narrator tells what happened rather than the author showing the reader what happened, and I ask myself:

Do I have a legitimate purpose for including this here? Am I breaking the rule for a reason? Is this more effective as I have written it than it would be if I followed the rule?

And, if the answer to these questions is "no" in a given situation, then I revise and follow the rule.

But I am at least open to the possibility that breaking the rule is the right thing to do, the effective thing to do, the creative thing to do. And, if it is, then I break it.

And I don't look back once I've broken it.

Writer without a cause, that's me...