Breaking The Rules

I love blogging because I get to stomp on writing rules. Sometimes I break them just because I can. See? Right there! Did you miss it? If this were being reviewed by a critique group, I’d be told to strike the word “just” because it’s a throwaway word. Not necessary. Ooh! Did you catch those others I just broke? Passive writing…using the verb “to be.” The revised version: A critique group would tell me to strike the word “just” because of its uselessness. Ahh…I can relax now.

See how hard it is to be a writer? Never mind that what sounds natural to the ear (or looks natural to the reading eye) might go against “the rules.” (Just for the record, please note that “that” is another throwaway word but I left it in anyway. Twice! What the hell! Let’s live dangerously!)

For those of you who aren’t romance writers, let me clue you in on some of the bigger controversies.

One vs. two—this refers to the number of spaces to insert after the period in a sentence. I kid you not. Last week this topic involved over 30 posts on a writing message board. (For my money, anyone who said “forget about formatting and write the damn story” won the argument.)

While we’re on formatting I might as well run through some others: underline instead of italics, *** or ### to denote scene breaks, em dashes (--) instead of hyphens,--hey there’s a million of ‘em.

Point of View—affectionately known as POV. Those who fail to stick to POV rules are known as “head hoppers.” In other words, you’re writing from inside the head of one character then you pull a switcheroo and jump into another character’s head without making a smooth transition for the reader. Whenever this topic arises, you can be sure someone will invoke the mystical name of NORA. (Never the full name, as in Nora Roberts, just Nora). As in: “NORA does it all the time, but you do it under penalty of death.”

Wordcount—sounds simple, but trust me, this one’s worth another 50 posts on the old message board. Courier 12 vs. Times New Roman 12…or 14? Microsoft Word’s wordcount vs. 10 words per line, 25 lines per page for 250 words per page? And, while we’re at it, manuscript page wordcount vs. printed book wordcount? Ack. Let’s not get started on margins.

But, I digress. This was supposed to be about actual writing “rules.” Um…let’s see. Certain occupations are taboo, especially for the hero: no athletes, no movie or rock stars. Certain time periods are verboten. The whole WWII era comes to mind.

Gotta open with a hook. Preferably dialogue mid-conversation. Something promising like: “But, Daddy--I got into stripping to pay the bills.”

White space. Rumor has it that before they even read a word, prospective editors rifle through the pages of your manuscript looking for white space. Lots of white space = good. Very little = very bad. White space means you have a lot of dialogue and less of the pesky stuff like narration, description and internalization.

Prologues (insert groan here). If you simply must have one, please, please, please, keep it to a maximum of three pages, less if possible.

Backstory (particularly in chapter one). Ah, the bane of many a newbie’s existence and a personal pet peeve. Please don’t inundate me with details about the character’s history before the action starts. And, God forbid, don’t ever STOP the action to fill me in.

Flashbacks. A device used when the writer’s skill isn’t up to figuring out a better way of telling what happened in the past. (Okay, ducking here. As I said before, there are exceptions.)

Show, don’t tell. Let’s do that, shall we? Here ya go:
Bad: Jamie felt depressed. (This is telling)
Better: Jamie sighed and stared into space.
Best: Jamie devoured an entire chocolate cake in one sitting.

Let’s not even get started on what’s “in” and what’s “out” when it comes to writing love scenes. Suffice to say that although I was never a fan of pebbled nipples or thrusting shafts, I’m not thrilled with what’s replaced them either.

And, finally (oh the list goes on, but I’m exhausting myself)…the king of all writing rules: CUT OUT THE ADVERBS. Seriously. (Oops) The “rule” is: if you’ve got more than two –ly words on a page, you should be strung up by your toes and forced to watch reruns of The Gong Show.

Okay, all you would-be writers. Go break some rules!