Letters to Kel: WHOSE RULES? MASTER THE RULES BEFORE YOU BREAK THEM.

I have a "co-worker" who is driving me nuts -- or at least, driving me to empty my chocolate stash.

"Co-worker" is in quotes because while we do work for the same self-publishing company, we've never met, and I don't even know his/her name. (I'm going to say "her" from this point on.) When I receive books to edit, her assessment of the book comes with it, including recommendations for the level of editing and what needs fixing.

GRRRRRRR! I just want to reach through the assessment and throttle her sometimes. She insists on rules that honestly make no sense. "Paragraphs should ALWAYS be between 7 and 10 lines." "NEVER start a sentence with a conjunction -- rewrite all sentences that start with 'and' and 'but' so they read properly." And more statements like that, which don't make any sense when I actually read the book and catch the rhythm and flavor and STYLE of the author's voice. See, that's the thing -- those "corrections" she demands will change the author's voice. And I just think that's wrong. (See? I started a sentence with a conjunction, and I solemnly swear no lightning bolt came down from the sky and hit my fingers on the keyboard.) I had a publisher who applied business rules of writing to fiction, and that just didn't work. She insisted ellipses were "illegal" and took them out of dialogue where "..." indicated someone was trailing off and hadn't finished the sentence/thought. ("I don't know," she said, "what if ..." turned into. "I don't know," she said, "what if." Huh???) It looked stupid and made no sense -- but she insisted ellipses were illegal. Yeah, in the business world, but not in fiction!

Paragraphs need to be as long -- or as short -- as necessary to suit the rhythm, the feel, the voice of the piece. Paragraphs need to be long enough to complete their purpose. Some paragraphs are only one sentence long -- they are short to put emphasis on a statement. Some paragraphs fill up the whole page, maybe two pages, until they convey the image the writer wants to create or the information the author needs to convey. Don't break a thought apart into multiple pieces just because you've reached the maximum number of sentences some self-appointed arbiter of "rightness" has declared.

Granted, when you're in school and your teacher gives you guidelines to follow, you DO follow them -- and when you're writing for a publisher, you follow their guidelines. I have a publisher who does not want sentences to start with "and" or "but," and I comply. But if I'm writing for my own purposes and for other publishers, I don't have to follow that publisher's rules.

Sentences start with conjunctions to put EMPHASIS on something. Starting the writing journey, you need to learn the rules until you figure out how words work together, what function they perform in the sentence, and how to modify them -- just like when you set out across country, you refer to a map or use a GPS so you reach your destination. BUT, once you learn how to make the words work together, then you can break those rules to make your point, just like you can discard the maps once you are familiar with the route and surrounding countryside.

You have to learn the rules and prove you have mastered them before you can break them. How do I know? Some of the biggest-selling authors break the rules all the time, but they keep selling. (And every time I insist on rules for beginning writers, they always point to those authors. "But Nora ... But Stephen ... But Amanda ..." Yeah, well, when you sell as well as they do, then you can write your way.) Figure skaters have compulsive routines -- specific sequences of moves they have to perform in competition. Then they have routines where they can make up the sequences, but still include all the moves required. If they do what they want and ignore the requirements, they get scored low and even penalized. They have to do the required routines to prove they know what they are doing. You have to know how to skate, what works and what doesn't and what will get you a broken leg, before you can start making up fancy moves and tricks, right?

Same with writing. Prove you know what you're doing, and then people will trust you to try tricks that nobody else is using.