To Break the Rules of Writing We Learned in School or not?

I can remember shortly after I started writing for publication, I used to meet with three other writers to critique each other’s writing and share ideas, as well as discuss problems we were having with pieces we were writing. One of the writers was a former high school teacher who had never been published, but the rest of us had, so we had some interesting conversations. Her law, which could be traced directly to her teaching career, was that you always stick to the old rules. We who had been published would firmly tell her that the old rules were no longer in use. “Ya gotta change with the times,” we would remind her.

Who was right during these arguments. Well, she was and we were. If we had been writing for literary or scientific magazines, sending a formal letter, or producing a paper for a college professor, then we should have been sticking to the rules. However, we weren’t. We were writing for publishers who produced magazines and newspapers read by the general public, and they didn’t want to wade through formal writing just to get the information they wanted or needed. They wanted it simple and to the point. Some of us were also writing fiction, which means we were writing in the words of a character who might be speaking slang, or might be under-educated, or more likely was speaking casually.

And there’s the difference: formal vs. casual language. Our teachers taught us correct grammar and punctuation so we would be prepared to work in any industry, including, hopefully, some of us who would become teachers. Those teachers would have not been doing their jobs if they taught us to write like most of us talk!

Writers must know the market for which they are writing. Does the magazine use a casual style, or does it present reports written formally? Are its articles simply worded and to-the-point, or are they wordy treatises that go on and on?

What sort of rules can be broken by writers? Well, for one, starting sentences with a conjunction: and, or, nor, so, but, yet, for. This rule has been broken by creative writers for hundreds of years, yet we learned in school that conjunctions were for connecting phrases in a sentence. Creative writing almost demands short sentences. Therefore, starting a new sentence with a conjunction can break longer sentences into two shorter sentences. We also learned not to use sentence fragments, yet sometimes they can be used effectively to add emphasis to a particular thought.

I know that some writers hesitate to let anyone see what they’ve written, much less submit it for publication, because they have a hard time writing formally and abiding by all the rules they learned in school. Some people are not even sure they remember all the rules.

Remember this, if nothing else. Read articles from any publication for which you wish to write. Take note of how the articles or stories are written. Do they stick to the rules you learned? Probably not. Pay attention to things like whether sentences ever start with a conjunction. Whether the language is casual or formal. Check whether stories are written with slang words, or in the local language that represents where the story takes place. For instance, ain’t is certainly a word that would likely fit a character from the rural South (as well as the West and other regions). My rule is to write like my character would speak. If she is college educated, she probably wouldn’t say ain’t, but she might if other characters around her regularly use the word. Writing like this is called keeping it real!

Remember, the story you write is yours to accent with personality and language that fits the piece, as long as you are intimately familiar with the market you want to sell it to.

(Oops, did I just end a sentence with a preposition? That would be a no-no in many markets, but not in all. Sometimes where simple sentences, easily read by people in a hurry, are needed, ending a sentence with a preposition is much preferable to writing something like: as long as you know the market to which you want to sell it. Believe me, some sentences get much longer and more convoluted than the one above when the writer attempts to not end a sentence with a preposition.)

Read books, articles, etc. produced by the publisher where you plan to sell your manuscript and request their “writers guidelines” so that you know what they want and feel comfortable sending in your piece. I’ll bet fear of looking foolish stops many a writer from ever being published, but in many cases, there’s nothing to fear. Certainly not if you know your market!