3 Writing Rules You Can Break

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Some rules are absolutely made to be broken. 

There are a tons of rules in writing. Some we need to follow to be understood, others are more like guidelines, and some have gotten lost in translation, and no longer mean what we think  they mean. Some are even stated as if they were absolutes, such as, "You should never use adverbs."

It's a lot to remember. However, once you know the rules, you can break the rules.

The trick is knowing which ones to ignore. 

I know how to spell, but that doesn't give me the freedom to misspell everything in my manuscript because I think it'll look cool. If you read my work you wouldn't think, "Wow, she's being really creative with the spelling. She must really know what she's doing." You'd think, "Wow, she didn't even bother to proof this." Or worse, "Wow, she has no clue what she's doing."

And that's the danger with breaking rules just because you can. Unless it's very clear why you're doing it, the reader is going to assume you made a mistake or don't know any better.

Knowing the rules so you can break them means, for example, that if you know how to write a sentence and you understand what a sentence fragment is, then you can write something that uses a sentence fragment in a way that gives it dramatic punch and improves the overall story. It won't just be a weird choppy fragment in the middle of a sentence that makes the paragraph read badly. You can do something that stands out by being "wrong" because standing out allows you to show some aspect of the story you couldn't otherwise do.

(Here's more on Grammar and You: What You Need to Know to Write).

Let's look at a few more common rules and how you might break them:

1. Never use adverbs

Adverbs have gotten a bum deal over the years. It's not that adverbs are bad, but they're so often misused I think it just became easier for the writing gurus to just say, "Don't use them." Most of the time new writers use them incorrectly, and by the time we're good writers, it's so ingrained in our heads we never think to question it.

How to break this rule: This one is easy--just make sure the adverb is the right word for the job, same as you would any other word. They're bad when used poorly, and that's usually a sign of lazy writing. Instead of providing strong verbs and actions to get an idea across, you're tossing out an adverb and making the reader do all the work.

(Here's more on How to Use Adverbs)

2. Never use: that, just, only, very

These words are like adverbs (because they are adverbs). They pop into our text because they flow naturally off the tongue. They're also easy to misuse, since they often modify the wrong word.

"She only likes chocolate ice cream" has a different meaning than, "She likes only chocolate ice cream." The first says she likes nothing else but chocolate ice cream (as in, that's all she likes in the whole wide world), the second says she likes no other flavor of ice cream but chocolate.

Just is the same way, and very is often used to modify things that can't be "very" anything, like "very unique."

How to break this rule: More times than not, you can kill these words from the sentence and not lose anything, but sometimes it makes the sentences read better. Rhythm is an important part of writing, and these small words can go a long way to defining a character's voice.

Just and only are also judgment words that work well to anchor a reader in a particular point of view. "It was just Larry" means more than "It was Larry." Look at the sentence and read it with and without the word. If it makes sense and reads fine without it, chances are you can kill it. It the sentence reads funny, keep it.

3. Eliminate dialogue tags

I suspect this one evolved because dialogue tags with adverbs are a common problem. It's also common to see a new writer tagging every single line of dialogue, even if there are only two people speaking. Or worse, feeling that "said" is being used too much so they struggle to find other words, and end up with gasped, asked, exclaimed, cried, moaned, etc. which start jumping awkwardly off the page.

Tags are bad when they start to draw attention to themselves. They're meant to be invisible, which is why said is a great choice. Readers barely notice said unless there are a lot close together.

How to break this rule: Dialogue tags are critical to clarifying your writing, but you want to make sure you're tagging in a way that helps the story not hurts it. Instead of always saying "he said" or any derivative of that, try using some stage direction.

John shook his head. "That's not what I mean." 

We see John do something then speak, so we naturally assign the speech to him. Tagging is more than just using a "he said" type phrase. It's all about making sure the identity of the speaker is clear.

(Here's more on Tag! You're It: Talking About Dialogue Tags)

There are more rules and absolutes of course, and I'll go into some others in later posts. Any rules that you've been wondering about?

If you're looking for more to improve your craft (or a fun fantasy read), check out one of my writing books or novels:

In-depth studies in my Skill Builders series include Understanding Conflict (And What It Really Means), and Understanding Show Don't Tell (And Really Getting It). My Foundations of Fiction series includes Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, a self-guided workshop for plotting a novel, and the companion Plotting Your Novel Workbook, and my Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series, with step-by-step guides to revising a novel. 

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The Shifter, was chosen for the 2014 list of "Ten Books All Young Georgians Should Read" from the Georgia Center for the Book. It was also shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize (2011), and The Truman Award (2011).

She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy.

She's the founder of Fiction University and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series.

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