Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Rules and Writing #MFRWauthor

Now some people say there are no rules to writing. Others write books with a lot of rules contained within. I'm even guilty of writing one with Jane Toombs. Becoming Your Own Critique Partner, I hope, is more suggestions than rules.

Now there are some rules - grammar ones. But as a writer you can break them. Of course you have to know them first. There are also conventions in the various genres of fiction. Knowing them can help you decide if you're going to follow those ideas about the genres developed by other people or if you're going to set your own rules.

Setting your own rules is important but you're not going to develop them the first time you write a story. Then it's mostly fumbling or following a recipe book written be an author who may or not be famous as an author, an editor or a teacher. I've read many of these books. When I started I wasn't sure what I was doing but in reading these books, I found some of the rules worked for me and some didn't. When you just begin writing you want to produce a work that will sell. So you flit from how to write book to how to write book.

My the third or fourth book, you realize that there are rules. They're your rules and they may happen by pulling a trick from book A and another from book B, and as many as you have read. You begin to grow comfortable with breaking some rules of genre or grammar. Some readers won't like this and they may critique what you've written. Maybe you made a mistake and maybe you didn't. Your rules are the ones that help you produce a good story or even a bad one. So learn the rules first and then shatter them as you will.