Camp Pep: Breaking All the Rules!

Camp NaNoWriMo is nothing without you, our incredible participants. The final week of April is upon us (already!) so today, writer Ellen Rozek shares a welcome reminder that rules are made to be broken:

There are almost as many rules for how to be a “real” writer as there are rules for how to write. Whether you’ve already finished a dozen different novels or this April was your first serious attempt at novel-writing, I’m guessing you’ve heard at least a few of them.

Maybe you were told that “real" writers write every day, or that they make detailed outlines before they put a single word on the page. Maybe you’ve heard that they write only the scenes that are most interesting to them before they go back and connect the dots. 

When you’re stuck on your story and questioning yourself every step of the way, rules like these can act as your road map. They can show you a way forward or offer an alternate route, or get you going again when you’re one more wrong turn away from giving up. But, if you’re not paying attention, they can all too easily become a roadblock by convincing you that there’s no other right way to write your story or by tricking you into thinking that your writing process is wrong.  

Spoiler alert, campers: Your writing process is not wrong. 

What works for another writer may be of no use to you personally. What helps one writer finish their first novel or land their first book deal or self-publish their first book is sure to be different than whatever helps you achieve your own goals. It’s all well and good to test drive the tried-and-true rules that other writers use, but the key to contentment with your writing lies in figuring out which rules work for you and which rules you can discard.

For most of us, that’s an intimidating prospect. If you’ve been using the same writing strategies for a long time, it can be tempting to stay on the same well-traveled path even if you suspect that those strategies aren’t working as well as they could be. And if you haven’t been writing as long and aren’t sure what kinds of strategies you need, it can be even harder to choose the right ones for you.

One of the best things about writing challenges like Camp NaNo is that the tight deadlines force you to put words on the page by whatever means necessary. When you’re ten thousand words behind and you only have four days left to win, you start taking risks you might not otherwise take. You start shaking things up just to see what might work. You break your own rules—the ones that you’ve always felt required to follow—without batting an eye.

“Experimentation often leads to new discoveries, which is why it’s so important to make experimentation a part of your writing life.”

Maybe you’ve always thought of yourself as an evening writer—the sort of person who sits down at their computer once they’ve come home from work or school and had dinner. But because you’re behind, you start getting up early to write in the mornings and find that you’re twice as productive before you’ve technically started your day. Maybe you’ve always been a pantser, but you realize that you’re going to have to make some kind of outline in order to get to ‘the end’ in time. Maybe you decide to toss your outline out the window and discover that it’s far more freeing to write whatever comes into your head instead. 

Experimentation often leads to new discoveries, which is why it’s so important to make experimentation a part of your writing life even when you’re not desperately behind on your deadlines or racing toward a word count goal that feels insurmountable. Forging your own path, determining how you create, and developing the best practices for the writer you are, instead of the writer you think you should be, is as much a process as the writing itself. If you’re not satisfied with the way your writing is going or the way you feel about your story, I encourage you to try something new.

After all, the only rules that matter are the ones that make you feel good about the story you’ve set out to tell. The rest are made to be broken.

Ellen Rozek is an administrative assistant by day and a writer the rest of the time. She writes young adult and new adult fiction almost exclusively, but she’ll read just about anything. When she’s not immersed in stories and storytelling, she’s either doing yoga, experimenting with recipes, or planning her next big vacation. You can check out her blog at ellenmrozek.wordpress.com or follow her on Twitter @EllenRozek.