One Rule To...Rule Them All?

Ask about writing and rules and you'll likely get the same answer.  Namely, there are none.  The only rule is that there are no rules.  If you listen to lectures on writing technique, you'll hear this over and over.  Writing methods or systems will often be given a caveat: These are not rules but tools.  Results may vary.  They may or may not work for you.  The motto could be stated, preferably in an Aussie accent: "No rules, just right."

Not to set a pattern here but, well, here I am setting a pattern: They are partly right but mostly wrong.

Every author, whether in fiction or non-fiction, regardless of their genre, must follow one rule.  There are no exceptions.  There is no way around it.  Few people talk about it.  Many ignore it.  It isn't a complicated rule.  In fact, it sounds deceptively simple.  Almost banal.  Just eight simple words:

Writers must communicate their stories to their audiences.

Three critical components make the rule.  Communication, story and audience.

Communication is the most vital of the three.  This is a deep subject that I could never hope to cover in a single post.  Briefly put, it is the process of putting the story that exists only in your imagination into the limited confines of mere words.  To say this is difficult is putting it mildly.  Most writers spend decades honing and refining their abilities as wordsmiths to become accomplished communicators.  Even then, words sometimes just cannot capture what is in our imaginations, which can cause all kinds of pain.  Still, we try.  How we communicate, though, is not set in stone.  In this regard, "no rules, just right" is partly correct.

This is where story and audience come in.  Because both affect the way an author communicates.

Story and audience are inextricably linked.  A story without a target audience is like an e-mail without an address.  When an author discovers a story, it is vitally important to also discover its audience.  A story about a young orphan boy who lives in a closet under the stairs will be treated very differently in the hands of different authors.  We all know what J.K. Rowling did with it.  What if it had been written by Donna Tartt?  What about Brandon Sanderson?  Nora Roberts?  Or, perish forbid, George R. R. Martin?*  If you are like me, your mind is probably popping with the possibilities.  Each author would craft a story aimed at their particular audiences.  The differences would be of cosmic proportions.

Here's where it gets back to communication.  Not interested in writing about an orphan living in a closet under the stairs?  You want to write a story about a ring and a dark lord?  You want to write for the epic fantasy crowd?  It is safe to say your epic fantasy won't be a 200-page quickie without a lick of world building.

Besides, if you want to write epic fantasy, why would you want to skip world building?  That's the best part.  We'll examine what not to reveal about your universe next in: The Three Monkeys Of World Building

*  In this version, only Ron lives in the end, albeit driven insane by all the death, misery and haunting whispers coming from an undestroyed Horcrux ...

Why Spell Check Is Your Best Friend

If you are a writer and you are anything like me, you read a lot of writing blogs.  You find yourself listening to writing podcasts.  You might even read some books on the subject.  I hope so.  Otherwise writing this blog will be a colossal waste of time.  Although seeking writing advice can become a bit obsessive-compulsive and pull you away from actual writing, it can be very helpful.

Every once and a while, though, you come across advice that is as widespread as it is so very, very wrong.

This is the case with spell check.  Expert after expert repeat the same thing: Turn off spell check in your word processor.  They argue that it takes you out of your creative flow, often with erroneous corrections.  They laugh at the spell check's inability to understand the common vernacular and dialogue rhythms.  Spell check, they say, should only be used when your book is completed.

Let me explain why these arguments are only partly right but mostly wrong.

Our brains are exquisitely capable of understanding speech.  There are whole sections of our brains devoted to nothing but understanding speech, with all its patterns and vagaries.  As writers, our job is to distill the creative "speech" within our minds into words that will "speak" to a reader.  It is a remarkable transference of thoughts and ideas from the author's mind to that of the reader, all through a completely passive medium.

However, the process a writer goes through to distill their creative "speech" can be painful.  It requires a lot of input.  Now, of course, much of this comes from family, friends, agents, alpha/beta readers and editors.  But, most importantly, this input comes from writers' personal scrutiny of their work.  Reading and rereading the manuscript.  Determining what needs to be changed and what needs to be added.

This is where the omnipresent spell and grammar check comes in.*  At every stage of the writing process, it can provide crucial input and feedback.  Whether or not it is valuable to you as a writer depends on you.  You have to understand its purpose.  You have to understand your writing style, your "voice" and how this affects the spell check.  It is imperfect.  It does make glaring mistakes.  But it does provide critical analysis in real-time.  Once you realize this, you can begin treating spell check like you should treat all feedback.  When someone reads your work, do you accept all their suggestions and criticisms?  No, of course not.  Why?  Because easily two-thirds of the time they are wrong.  Yet, their input is invaluable.  In my experience, spell and grammar check is wrong maybe half the time.  Like reader feedback, its input is also invaluable.

Often, when an entire sentence is underlined with the squigglies, I pause.  I don't immediately change everything.  But I do reconsider the sentence with a more critical eye.  This has helped me immeasurably.  Sometimes there is a kernel of truth in what is fritzing out the spell and grammar check.  Some vital thing is missing.  Then again maybe it is just fine.  You have to be able to determine this on your own.

Getting wrong feedback or false negatives, as I like to call them, is part of the process of perfecting your manuscript.  Whether from a person or from spell and grammar check.  You have to know what you believe, what you want and what you have achieved.  Holding your ground against wrong feedback is as vitally important as properly responding to correct feedback.  Only you can tell your story.

In the next post, I'll be exploring a largely ignored rule of writing in: One Rule To...Rule Them All?

*   For the sake of this blog, I am going to assume everyone is using Microsoft Word.  If you are not, your experience may vary.