Writing Guidelines? Pick Your Own!
I came to publication via a lonely route. When I first started writing in the mid-Nineties there was, in practical terms, no internet. I typed my early stories onto an Amstrad PCW, and cranked out my hard copy from a dot matrix printer in a freezing box room.
Apart from two Arvon courses and a brief flirtation with a writers’ group, I knew no other authors with whom I could share ideas. It was only when my first novel, The Bad Mother’s Handbook, was about to appear in the shops that I ventured onto the world wide web to look at writing forums and join in discussion.
Imagine my alarm when at that point I discovered that there was this whole set of stylistic rules I hadn’t known anything about, and unless you followed them, you were a Bad Writer. No one had mentioned any rules to me, not my agent, editor, or copy editor.
But there they were, these writing commandments, being passed around enthusiastically. It seemed I shouldn’t be using adverbs, ever, and I ought to be avoiding the verb ‘to be’, and the passive voice was forbidden and I ought never to modify a speech tag and the pluperfect was out of bounds.
I admit I was flummoxed. Because (for instance) how would you construct the past continuous tense if you couldn’t use the auxiliary verbs ‘was’, ‘were’, ‘is’, ‘are’? How, if you were working in the past tense, would you signal a previous event or flashback if you couldn’t dip into the pluperfect? Not only did these rules seem ridiculously prescriptive, they didn’t even make grammatical sense.
I was especially thrown by the ban on adverbs, given that they’re pretty much indispensible. We depend on ones such as ‘then’ and ‘first’ and ‘next’ and ‘tomorrow’ for sequencing. Adverbs like ‘often or ‘always’ tell us frequency or degree; words like ‘upstairs’ or ‘outside’ show us where the action’s taking place.
Adverbs-of-manner – the ‘ly’ words – carry an extra potency because they’re often subjective and so direct the reader’s feelings. They can pin the mood of a moment with neatness and efficiency, and they can add a more pleasing rhythm to a sentence that would otherwise sound flat.
I’ve picked three novels at random off my shelves and opened the first few pages, and this is what I’ve found:
“But as the plane taxis to the runway, he makes the mistake of looking out of the window at the wings bouncing gently up and down.” – Changing Places, David Lodge
Here the simple adverb-of-manner adds a twinkly note of comedy to the iambic bounce of the line.
“Felix made his way down the hot metal slide, tentatively at first, holding onto the side.” – The White Stuff, Simon Armitage.
Again the adverb-of-manner echoes the action, this time by delaying the pace of the sentence and chopping it up to mimic the jerky movements of the boy.
“The offshore towers stand out in dark silhouette against it, rising improbably out of the pink and pale blue of the lagoon.” – Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood.
The adverb-of-manner, which is here for emphasis, suggests an eye drawn upwards – and upwards again – to the very top of a structure which is clearly an architectural feat. The verb on its own would not have had the same effect.
Kate Long
It’s true that some beginner writers overuse adverbs-of-manner. But a blanket ban isn’t going to help anyone learn to use a device judiciously. And yes, there are occasions when it’s better to substitute a “strong verb”.
However, sometimes such a verb is too self conscious and you need to look for more transparent phrasing. The point is, there’s a choice to be made each time, not a single rigid template to be applied without question. It’s your story: it’s up to you.
Whatever the internet claims, there is no one-size-fits-all set of rules about style. What works for one writer won’t work for another. There are only the rules you discover help you, and run with.
What works for me? Writing every day, planning thoroughly, making handwritten preparatory notes at night, setting myself a strict word count. But I would never try and pass any of these tips off as writing rules or even writing guidelines because they might be useless – detrimental, even – to a writer of a different complexion.
The most useful piece of advice I ever received came early on, from a non-writing friend. I told him proudly that I’d finished my first manuscript, and waited for him to congratulate me. Instead he said, ‘It won’t be any good. That was just a learning exercise.’ At the time I was indignant, but he turned out to be right. I made myself move on swiftly to another project, didn’t dwell on the imperfect past, and chalked up that novella to experience. Because whether it gets published or not, each piece you complete is another step towards making you a better writer.
And whatever else you discover on your creative journey, one of the most important things is to find out what kind of a writer you are – your rhythms, your bugbears, your voice. Believe me, the best rules are not the ones you peel off wholesale from an external source; they’re the ones you carve for yourself through sheer, joyous graft.
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Kate Long is the author of seven novels, including number one bestseller The Bad Mother’s Handbook and its recent sequel, Bad Mothers United. Her work has been adapted for radio and television.
Find out more about Kate on her website www.katelongbooks.com
Follow her on pinterest or twitter @volewriter
Category: Contemporary Women Writers
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I was busy changing many sentences of my first draft to conform to the “rules” and then decided on my own that I liked the way some things sounded as is. I’ve read at least six novels so far this year and they’re all well-reviewed and chock-full of adverbs! It’s tough as a newer writer to know who to listen to – I expect it’s like some of the best mothering advice I”ve received “trust your instincts!” Thanks for a great post.
Thanks, Suzanne. A huge part of getting better as a writer is learning to trust what works best for your own voice. That’s going to vary from one writer to another, and even one project to another.
I’ll stress again: it’s impossible to write without adverbs because verbs always need modifying in some dimension, even if it’s not by manner (the ly words).
Have just done a blog entitled ‘The Adverb Fights Back’ after hearing a Faber lecturer say they bin submissions with even one adverb on first page.
I’m sorry, but that is a really silly thing of that lecturer to say. They bin any submission featuring a word like ‘soon’ or ‘then’ or ‘yesterday’? Any page that offers any information about any of the verbs used there? Really?
Hi, Kate —
I enjoyed your article, and I think you make many good points. Recently, I was reading Francine Prose’s “Reading Like a Writer”, and in her chapter on paragraphs, she refers to Isaac Babel’s consideration of his “effect on the reader”, which was his sole concern when it came to grammar and style. She quotes him as having said, “a dead set of rules is no good.”
Having said that, most of us are not Isaac Babel. It is one thing to bend rules when you are a master of the short story, and quite another when you are an indie author who is self-editing and hoping to attract a reading audience. People rightly judge authors for not bothering to learn the even the basics of writing well (or at least coherently) before hitting that “publish” button. It smacks of utter disregard for readers’ time, attention, and money.
I am curious about your saying “… and I ought to be avoiding the verb ‘to be’”. I don’t know that one. Where did you get that information? It sounds absurd and impractical, to say the least.
Cheers,
td Whittle
Yes, I was nonplussed when I came across it. I think it’s either a clumsy attempt to say ‘Vary your sentence construction’ – which of course is fair enough – or it’s a twisted version of the rule about avoiding the passive tense, where some people mix up that tense with stative (ie non-action) verbs like was, seem, appear. Or it may be an aversion to the past imperfect and continuous present. Who knows? These things are rarely explained, and never in grammatical terms.
There are rules and rules. You need to know where to put a full stop and a capital letter. You don’t need anyone telling you how to develop your own style, in my opinion.
re: There are rules and rules. You need to know where to put a full stop and a capital letter. You don’t need anyone telling you how to develop your own style, in my opinion.
Agreed. I think either you develop your own style (aka voice) or you are forever mimicking others’, which drowns out your own over time.
Yes. Although a period of mimicking authors whom you admire is a stage a lot of writers go through, and it can help you learn good practice. I know I tried to be Nick Hornby for a while! As you say, the secret is to move beyond, and towards your own voice.
Thank you for this excellent post! They say that rules are made to be broken, but before you can break the rules properly, you do need to know them. That said, there’s a difference between ‘rules’ and ‘current guidelines’, and if rules exist to be broken, then guidelines exist to be shattered and scattered to the four winds. But with style. Always with style. 🙂
Indeed!
My personal ‘guideline’ – just sit down and write. A page of rubbish can be edited and made wonderful, but a blank page is just a blank page.
That’s very much the way I write. Though I know successful writers who can’t move on till everything’s crafted as finely as they can get it, so their pace is slow.
I completely agree with your post about the beloved adverb. I remember the first time I read about the elimination of such in one of Noah Lukeman’s books about ten years ago. I remember wondering if maybe that’s why my short stories and my first novel had been rejected – though my blog fans loved the first couple chapters of my book. And I remember thinking that it was a great idea to limit the adverbs because I knew that there were times I may have utilized a staggering amount of these dandy parts of speech in first drafts (and maybe even in final drafts – oops used an ADVERB – don’t tell the Grammar Police :)), but to delete them altogether seemed puritanical if not ridiculous. After all, if you excise them all, you may be doing an injustice to your story, in my opinion.
However, I never heard of nixing the plu-perfect – though maybe that was also in Mr. Lukeman’s book, and I just don’t remember.
Thanks for sharing!
Lynne
Thank you for your comment. It’s all about balance, isn’t it, and finding what suits your voice.
This was so wonderful to read. I seriously dislike the “writing rules” and all the advice on how to write which clogs the internet. When I think of the greatest authors, the award winners, the writers of best-beloved books which are handed down through the generations, it seems clear to me they did not fuss over adverbs or three act plot structures. They created art. If you write by someone else’s strictures, are you truly an artist or are you just painting by numbers?
It’s about finding your own voice, isn’t it? There’s good practice, and recognised convention, and even current trends and preferences, but those are not the same as stylistic rules.
I am so happy you wrote this – it’s one on my frequent internet frustrations. I speak English as my second language and thus learnt it very systematically including grammar. I then went on to study linguistics and taught English for a while. So I am frequently shocked at the lack of grammatical sense in these writer-tip tropes.
I love adverbs. This might have to do with the fact that I prefer to modify a statement than to make one big one, and that would be consistent with my personality – but often the tips are just wrong. For example, I keep reading “he said quietly” is interchangeable with “he whispered” and I couldn’t disagree more, those are extremely different ways of speaking to me.
Not to mention that it seems like 90% of people who abhor the passive voice think the passive voice is the past/present continuous or the gerund.
I have to say, what bugs me the most right now, is that these writing “tips” are so ubiquitous that somehow reviewers and readers pick them up and actually say stuff in reviews like “too much passive voice” because with such simple and handy guides, everybody can become a “serious” reader. Sad!
“This might have to do with the fact that I prefer to modify a statement than to make one big one, and that would be consistent with my personality.” – Made me smile, because I think I have the same natural bent.
You are spot on when you say ‘said quietly’ is not the same a ‘whispered’. There often is no direct translation between your so-called Strong Verb and your verb + adverb-of-manner. And in casting about needlessly for an alternative to the latter, you can end up spoiling not only the rhythm and shape of a sentence, but its actual sense too.
I love this article!
I edited my own novel and checked the whole manuscript using grammarly.com. For a while I obediently changed sentence structure and language to appease the online God of Grammar. I even had to look online for simplified explanations of some of the ‘rules’. Passive voice problems drove me to tears.
After many, many stressful hours, I decided that some of my sentences were better the way I had written them. I stopped rigidly following the commandments. It was very liberating!
I’ve not heard of grammarly.com, but it sounds very prescriptive. I’m glad you ditched it and went with your own instincts. That’s how a writer finds his or her voice.
I want to roll in this post like a little piggy and let it cover me with comfort. I so agree that there are so many restrictive rules on what makes or doesn’t make a good book, good writing, a clean story, etc. I love both Pat Conroy and John Irving for their resolute determination to write with adverbs and lush description, rules be damned.
I try to read the rules and tuck them away but not let myself be dictated by them and your article just confirms what my heart suspected. Thank you.
What a lovely thing to say! And yes, if I’d had the word count I would have pointed out that silly rules can ruin your reading (as well as your writing) by convincing you that anything other than Spartan is “wrong”.
Excellent advice.
Thank you, Perry.
I like this….. a LOT!!! Am going to print it to remind myself that rules are breakable! :0) Thank you!
Thanks for that, Donna.
A great piece. Rules are to be broken. You learn through writing and reading. And writing and reading…
Yes, reading is crucial to a writer’s development.
I so agree! Especially the thing about adverbs. They’re just words, like any other, and the trick is in knowing what word to use and when. That comes with practice, practice, and more practice.
A harsh comment from your friend about your early work but I get what he meant!
Oh, I was gutted! But you experience a lot of ‘gutting times’ when you are a writer.