Regarding taboos, rules, shalt-nots, and how-to-doits - Writers Forum

lin · 03-10-2008, 12:33 PM

The whole discussion of "you have to obey these shalt nots I just heard about" versus writing mostly being about talent, not techniques or taboos is not confined to this forum

I just saw this on a SF forum and thought it was a brilliant way of putting across much of what I've been saying. (And I'm not a guy who often says some other writer put a thought across better than I did)

I'm re-posting it here not so much to refute anybody, but for the benefit of young and beginning writers who get so deluged by inexpert advice they can stumble in their work (as noted in the reprint below).

Quote:

What I'd say is that these are tools to analyse a text. They're not the only ones possible, and they mightn't work equally well for all texts. For example, I prefer the narratological way of looking at point-of-view, which uses the term "heterodeictic narration" instead of "3rd Person PoV". I do think the narratological terms provide a more thorough and flexible way, are less crude, and allow for a more detailled analysis of the transitions between first and third person narration. (Transitions? Oh, yes!)

The thing is, studying these terms helps you study literature. New approaches give you new insights on the same old texts. So how does this help you write? The writer managed to put all this into the text (or perhaps the analysts just read it into the text? or perhaps the author doesn't matter at all?) without all those fancy terms.

1. The writing is independent of writing terminology.
2. The terminology of writing is dependent on the writing.

So: if the above gentlepersons come up with rules and a story violates the rules, what happens? Bad story? Bad rule? It's utterly irrelevant to the writer, unless the writer wants badly to be accepted into the club. Normally, though, you write story you want to write the way you want to write it. Rules? Bah, humbug.

Without your writing the rules are meaningless. Without the rules, your story's still a story. If you see an apple floating up into the air, you don't go punishing the apple for violating Newton's laws; you try to figure out what the hell's going on. If you see a story work out different than you expected, likewise.

But that's not what happens on writing boards. The idea is that beginning writers are worse writers than veteran writers (not always true), and that veteran writers know what they're doing and new writers don't (almost never true). Now, since anybody on the web can pretend to expertise, there are substitute methodologies to assess the competence of a critic. This goes according to a core set of prejudices and superstitions.

Level 0 of competence: What is the passive voice? Help!
Level 1 of competence: "The boy kicked the ball." --> "The ball was kicked." The former is better. Don't use the passive voice.
Level 2 of competence: "The passive voice isn't always bad."

It helps if you can throw names around. "Stephen King says in On Writing..."

The depressing stuff is that people who find writing easy but talking about writing hard often feel they're bad writers, or have a hard time improving, instead of being bad theorists and being bad at analysing. It's depressing when people ruin vibrant and interesting beginnings because a few vocal people found it didn't fit in with what they learned from Strunk & White or Stephen King.

Sometimes things work and you have no words for why. The rule approach is to call the text "bad". Admitting ignorance doesn't sit well with displaying competence. If you're so competent how come you can't explain this? A confident voice spouting bullshit will always drown out the silence of honest, ignorant admiration. The loudmouth wins.

The editor in you will always wear blinds to some extent. You need the reader in you to keep a watch on the editor's theories. And the reader runs on taste.

(You can study taste, too. Would you then argue that you should learn "taste"? Well, there's such a thing as "acquired taste" - and I fear that online there might be something like "lost taste": a rule-inspired aversion to the unclassifiable - the very thing that makes a text interesting to read.)

To see this in its original context, and replies go here:
sffworld.com - View Single Post - Principles of Writing a Story

seigfried007 · 03-10-2008, 12:53 PM

:insert applause here, lin:

Thanks for posting that here.

Non Serviam · 03-10-2008, 01:37 PM

Some (quite gifted) people learn to play music by ear. There are virtuosos in some instruments who've never learned to read music and couldn't play you a scale if they tried; they've just sat down with the instrument and played around with it until beautiful music comes out.

But you can't teach that. If you want to teach music usefully, you have to teach chords and scales and arpeggios, you teach people to play in a key. It's all rote stuff you could figure out with a computer algorithm--but it's also a shortcut to the interesting part of playing music. Because once you know those rules, and the chords come naturally off your fingertips, you're ready to learn how to break them in interesting ways.

Imagine now our hypothetical self-taught virtuoso comes into a class of budding violinists of mixed ability, and says, "Don't bother with all those keys and chords and scales, that's all bullshit."

Is he right?

SilkFX · 03-10-2008, 01:44 PM

^^Hear hear!

Truth-Teller · 03-10-2008, 04:33 PM

In the eyes of Lin, yes he is.

This is why Lin is wallowing in his own feces, and does not know how to tell a story.

Non Serviam · 03-10-2008, 05:07 PM

Crap! Truth-Teller agrees with me. I must be wrong.

I hereby recant my previous views, apologise wholeheartedly, and fully endorse Lin's post.

Truth-Teller · 03-10-2008, 05:10 PM

seigfried007 · 03-10-2008, 05:31 PM

No, because it's not saying that rules shouldn't exist, only that a story can break some and still function well as a story. Of course rules exist--naturally, just as in music--as a short-cut to understanding what made that virtuoso fabulous. Knowing the rules often gives new depth as to why something is great rather than simply the fact that it is great.

There's no harm in learning rules, only in living by the letter of the law and judging all those who bend and break such arbitrary things as these presently perceived lists of writing sins.

Keep in mind that these 'rules' change. People weren't always preaching about passive voice and wordiness. One hundred years from now, I highly doubt people will preach about the same things. The list of cliches will different, different methods may come into style, a new board of so-called writing experts will be in power, and a whole new cache of writers will be the ones to emulate and rip off and imitate.

Most of the writers we try to emulate were pioneers in the craft--trend-setters rather than single-minded, writing-rule-bound, 'expert'-quoting fundamentalists. The craft of writing is not an exact science, and one has every right to experiment with all the tools available and find out what is best for the given piece--just as with music and visual arts and dance. All arts have their share of 'rules' and their panels of judges who tend to shout condemnation or fling praise at the whim of emotion or by the direction of whatever writing god handed them chiseled-in-stone Tablets-of-the-Law.

If a story works, it works; if it doesn't, it doesn't.

Perhaps one ought to reread that post for comprehension instead because I don't recall the writer stating that rules ever need to be thrown out--only that they are tools for understanding a piece and writing as a whole and not something to be blinded by. Like guidelines. And just like most forms of guideline or rule, they do not apply necessarily in all instances. There can be circumstances in which the egg can stand upright or an apple can suddenly float and whining about how eggs aren't supposed to stand and apples shouldn't fly won't make them fall.

It's not about virtuosos who magically appear to write something spectacular; it's about willingness to let guidelines be guidelines and know that not all rules apply in every instance.

Katastrof · 03-10-2008, 07:16 PM

I agree with Seig, even though writing is a creative process, there is some craft to it and it doesn't hurt in trying to learn it. Especially beginners. Some people are born with the talent of writing (or a good muse) and don't have to learn the craft in order to become good at it. However, most of us aren't the next Shakespeare and we need guidelines thrown to us so we can navigate through the creative process in order to make something worth reading.

lin · 03-10-2008, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Is he right?

Of course not. What in the world does that have to do with writing.

Non Serviam · 03-10-2008, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

Of course not. What in the world does that have to do with writing.

I think music's a lot like writing in this.

There are both rules and guidelines. (The rules are the simple stuff. Learn to spell. Learn where to put apostrophes. Don't write gay slash genre-crossover fanfiction involving Klingon marital aids, or if you do, don't tell anyone, ever. That kind of rule.)

The stuff about POV and cutting adverbs and whatever else is all guidelines (equivalent to learning the scales). They help you. A virtuoso does get to ignore them if he wants, and may not even know them--but that doesn't make them worthless.

ash somers · 03-10-2008, 09:26 PM

hmmm interesting topic
eye encourage all young writers
to learn the rules well and then break them

muwahahahhaaaaaaa !

lin · 03-11-2008, 09:24 PM

A lot of this stuff it's not a matter of ignoring it...it's not really there in the first place.

Writing isn't equivalent to learning the violin or ballet, though.

Actually, what it's closest to is singing...it's also cheifly a matter of voice. The world is full of singers who studied under great coaches for years and learned everything there is to know about it, but will never sing in an opera house because they just don't have a beautiful voice.
On the other hand you have somebody like Linda Ronstadt who was born singing beautifully and apprehending the notes and scales and such and can pretty much just go sing opera or mariachi or whatever she wants.
OR, Rod Stewart, who has a lousy voice, but uses it in such a way that people likes it. (Or Dylan, or Tom Waits or Neil Young or whoever)

That's what writing is. It's not about all this coaching: lots of people just sit down and write a great or best-selling novel when the time comes. Believe me.

What you are buying is the writer's mind...the unique perspective...and his voice, the way he talks, the way he uses words. There are few mistakes a talented writer can make, certainly that can't be fixed. There are very few things an untalented writer can learn to make him better. Anymore than Waits could take lessons to become Pavarotti.

It's just the way it is. You read all this stuff from writers about how they sat down and started writing, then started selling, etc. Or work as an engineer for forty years, then retire and sit down and write an award-winning novel. Or just decide there's good money to be made in books and sit down and pop out books that make them the best selling writers in the world. No hyperbole there: it could describe either Mickey Spillane or Harold Robbins.

Now...do you hear writers saying they weren't very good, but learned all the rules and became successful?

lin · 03-11-2008, 09:28 PM

I'm even eviler than Ash. I tell them to break the rules first, then learn them.

OR NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nyah ah ah.

ash somers · 03-12-2008, 02:03 AM

lol and well spoken