Many young writers
look to their idols for advice on how to write well. And they will
find plenty of it. Modern writers seem to have developed a lexicon of
rules that labels some types of writing or even whole categories of
grammar as “bad” and others as “good”.
The fact, for
example, that the Hemingway app exists, where writers can put their
writing through the lens of a virtual Hemingway and have their work
analyzed according to his values as a writer, proves the point. The
app checks your work for its simplicity, highlighting complex
sentences, complex words, adverbs and passive voice so that you can
eliminate those “errors”.
But where did we get
this idea in the first place? That English writing has to be
adverb-free and as to the point as possible?
For the rebel
writer, here’s a list of these and other writing rules for you to
break:
Simplicity
Yes,
simplicity can be elegant. But does that mean that all writing should
be so straightforward? What about writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez
with his long, twisting story lines and constant side-tracking? Or
Faulkner’s stream of consciousness sentences that sometimes took up
an entire page? Or J.D. Salinger who also loved a long-winded phrase?
Or this famous first sentence from Charles Dicken’s A Tale of
Two Cities:
"It
was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it
was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the
season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of
despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we
were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other
way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that
some of the noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for
good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
The fact that this
book became a tome of English Literature proves the point that just
because it’s not simple doesn’t mean it’s not great writing.
Adverbs
Many a
writer has famously derided the use of adverbs. But it’s a curious
practice to eliminate an entire grammatical area of your own
language. Perhaps it’s time to embrace the adverb and its ability
to describe essential information. Here are some words I bet you
didn’t know were adverbs:
-
Before
-
After
-
Since
-
Seldom
-
Sometimes
-
Often
But those aren’t
the adverbs some writers want to eliminate. These are:
-
Elegantly
-
Gently
-
Irritably
-
Courageously
-
Sadly
-
Foolishly
-
Gladly
All words can be
used to gain the effect the author desires. Ask John Banville who won
the Booker Prize for The Sea and who, by the way, used adverbs
liberally throughout the book.
“Said” vs. All Other Forms of “Said”
Elmore Leonard famously declared (he would
say “famously said”) that all dialogue should only be expressed
with the word “said”. For example, you shouldn’t use
“grumbled”, “whined”, “cursed”, “cried”, “swore”,
“slurred”, “whispered”, “shouted” or any other word that
could be replaced with “said”. The benefit of these other forms
of “said” is that they can explain volumes about a character’s
emotional state and complement the sentence they’re speaking. A
simple example:
“Give me your gold
or I’ll take it myself,” the giant growled.
Would it be as scary
if he merely said it?
Avoid Repetition
Depending on the context, repetition of words or phrases can help to
drive a point home or even be poignant. The phrase “And so it goes”
appears throughout Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five as a
sort of punctuation for some of his most emotionally evocative
scenes. This sentence from Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time
Traveler’s Wife is a good example of how repetition can be
used: “Clare takes my hand, and we stand
together, in the crowd, and if there is a God, then God, let me just
stand here quietly and inconspicuously, here
and now, here and now.”
Sometimes rules are made to be broken and
that’s especially true when it comes to writing. Explore the
language with all of its adverbs, run-on sentences, repetitions and
non-saids. See what happens.
image credit: flickr.com
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