Ha! How interesting! Though I admit that when I started compiling it, it did make me realise just how many things there are that people pontificate about - which is perhaps only to say that writing's a complicated business?
Thanks very much for this. I see endless instances of people laying down the law on 'show don't tell', 'don't use adverbs', etc (Facebook writers' groups are rife with it). I feel like I've been writing long enough, including 30 years writing non-fiction professionally, to have a pretty good sense of when to ignore any or all of these maxims, but clearly a lot of less experienced people are all too ready to mistake sound guidelines for unbreakable laws.
Yes, it's infuriating. I do sometimes challenge people to produce a "don't" and I'll come up with an instance when doing that thing is exactly what you should do. I think the real thing is that you just can't generalise about these things ...
So good to be reminded that any rules are there to be bent, broken or flexed. As ever, a mine of useful information, Emma!
Reads something like wisdom to me. Thanks for blessing to play loose with the rules.
If you need my blessing, you have it!
Ha - why does this list make me cheerily jubilant and eerily disturbed at the same time? Sometimes, life is like that :)
Anyone would think it was more art than science!
Goodness me, whatever makes you think that? :-) Although really good scientists know that even science is an art ...
Well ain't that the truth!
Ha! How interesting! Though I admit that when I started compiling it, it did make me realise just how many things there are that people pontificate about - which is perhaps only to say that writing's a complicated business?
Thanks very much for this. I see endless instances of people laying down the law on 'show don't tell', 'don't use adverbs', etc (Facebook writers' groups are rife with it). I feel like I've been writing long enough, including 30 years writing non-fiction professionally, to have a pretty good sense of when to ignore any or all of these maxims, but clearly a lot of less experienced people are all too ready to mistake sound guidelines for unbreakable laws.
Yes, it's infuriating. I do sometimes challenge people to produce a "don't" and I'll come up with an instance when doing that thing is exactly what you should do. I think the real thing is that you just can't generalise about these things ...
Can I just punch the air? Thank you for saying all these things. And the key word here is of course sometimes. Did you mention that? :)
Julian, you're welcome. And yes - it's all sometimes!