Pink Elephants
[image error]My two kids are completely different from each other. One logical and organized; one is creative and emotional. As they get older, those characteristics have become more apparent. But when they were young, the difference didn't seem so apparent. I was looking at a project my oldest made in kindergarten or maybe first grade to celebrate 100 days of school. The assignment was to find 100 things to represent the 100 days. She took a wooden plaque, glued a large wooden 100 on it and then painted and decorated it with 100 things, such as pompoms, stickers, painted designs and Q-tips. If you count everything on the plaque, you'll find 100 items. But the 100 items are different.
If she were to do the same project today, I'm sure she'd put 100 of the same items on the plaque. She'd probably choose things that were the same color, or at least colors that blended together. I'm not sure at what age this change occurred. I'm not even sure that the "change" didn't already exist in some part of her, and is just now showing more clearly. If my younger child suddenly changed like this, I'd have noticed it more because the difference would have been more pronounced. But the fact that the change occurs makes me a little sad.
We all start out with the desire to do our own thing. Some of us have that desire confined within certain parameters. Others of us are freer in our choices. As we get older, we try to conform to what others want us to do, think or say. But I think our responsibility as adults is to temper that conformity with independence and to foster it in others.
That's one reason why, as a writer, I find it so frustrating to hear other writers constantly talking about "the rules." Yes, I firmly believe in grammar rules (this blog aside), but the seemingly arbitrary rules of whose point of view HAS to come first in a book, or how many pages MUST be devoted to the hero, seems to me a little ridiculous. I understand that there are trends. I also understand that when you see a book published, it automatically creates a desire to copy that format so that you, too, will be published. But some of the best books were published just because they were different!
One of the best pieces of advice that I was given by an editor (maybe an agent) was for writing a query letter. She said, "Tell me how your book compares to something I know, and then tell me how it's different." For example, it's like Beauty and the Beast, but with aliens. Okay, while I doubt that would ever work, and it's certainly not something I'd be interested in writing, the point is, different is good.
The world is boring without a variety of people. Art is boring without a variety of different styles. Books are boring without a variety of different stories. And the only way we can have different stories is if we learn the rules, understand them, and then know when to bend them.
So, color outside the lines, find the most different person from yourself and befriend them, and write a romance from the dog's perspective!
