On Rules in Writing

There has been a lot of talk recently in the writing community, especially over on good ol’ Booktok, about ‘rules’ that every writer must follow and I just wanted to take some time to add my perspective on this, since I think it is an important topic.

I think first and foremost it is important to remember that with any art form, there are not really any set in stone ‘rules’ that one must follow, and anyone that says otherwise is not really qualified to be teaching about artistic expression. There are best practices, there are things that particular industries look down upon, and there are surefire methods to help increase your chances of success. But calling these ‘rules’ goes directly against the nature of artistic expression.

You hear it all the time, from writers with varying degrees of success. Don’t use adverbs; only use said as a dialogue tag (or don’t use dialogue tags at all); do this, don’t do that, etc. With how often these sentiments are echoed, you’d think they’re law in the world of writing - when in reality they are anything but.

I recently set out to see how many authors actually follow these rules, at least the most common ones I have seen echoed across social media from self-proclaimed ‘writing tutors’. I started with adverbs and dialogue tags, and opened a few of my favorite books by well-known, successful authors, to see if they followed these rules. It took me all of five minutes to see that they did not. In fact, in some instances I was able to find both dialogue tags and adverbs used in the same paragraph. Heresy!

Two of the books I chose for this exercise were A Game of Thrones and The Blade Itself. Two hallmarks of the fantasy genre. One of which has gone on to spawn several successful adaptations and both of which have sold millions of copies around the world. According to the self-proclaimed writing tutors everywhere, this is bad writing. Really? Two of the most successful authors in the Fantasy genre are bad at writing, but Unknown Joe with his few thousand followers on TikTok, who has published a single book to middling success, knows better than they do? Color me skeptical.

Language is a toolbox for writers to draw from to express themselves creatively and tell their stories. By not allowing yourself to use certain tools from the box, you are inherently limiting yourself, and for no real benefit considering these rules do not hold up when weighed against real examples of success.

At the end of the day, if someone is saying “you must do this”, or “you must never do this”, weigh their words against real examples of success in your industry. You will often find that it does not hold up, and if the most successful examples of creatives in your line of work don’t follow their advice, why would you?

That is all I will say for now on the topic, but I hope this gives you some food for thought and helps potential writers who feel intimidated or overwhelmed by all of the unsolicited writing advice found online.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Tharin is in quite the predicament over in my first draft of A Night of Knives. Things are getting interesting.

~Brandon