Miranda Marie's Blog: Bookishly Miranda - Posts Tagged "rules"

“Where has the art in writing gone?” I often ask myself, as I scroll through page after page of writing articles. “Where has the freedom in it been sent?” I ask as I skim paper after paper.

Things such as ‘italics make you amateur’, ‘you must follow an outline’, ‘your plot must include…’ etc., fill my vision. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a do or don’t do list, and everyone states these as absolute fact. With every article they place before me, and every book claiming to be the perfect guide to writing, and with every lecture I hear, it becomes more and more firmly placed in my mind that they’re taking the joy out of writing.

You see, for some reason, our world has turned writing into a science. A perfect, well-measured, perfectly placed, everything-in-order science. The critics are everywhere, cutting down every method of writing imaginable, all trying to fit it into the box that is their own opinion on how it should be done.

While some of these tools are useful, you can read two separate articles on the same topic, and find two completely contradicting opinions masquerading as fact. Is it any wonder that many people feel overwhelmed by the idea of putting words to paper, when so much is required?

I look back on the classical writers of our pasts, who were given the freedom to invent their own words, misspell words for the purpose of making them more eloquent, and experimented with their own forms of distinguishing dialogue, thought, and narration. Then I wonder why those same freedoms have been crushed between the weight of creating a ‘perfect’ book.

When did writing stop being an art?

When did writing become a science?

Even the idea of using actual numbers instead of their word equivalent is unheard of, despite it only being a stylistic choice. I know this from experience, as I published my first series and decided to use this stylistic change to make my book more unique, and already have heard many people call it an amateur "mistake". If everyone can still tell what you mean by an alteration to the usual format, why is it such a big deal in our minds? If it is still something we can understand, is it really such an outlandish idea to change up the way things are done, now and then?

We say we’re such an open-minded people, who accept doing things differently, who claim to applaud those who try new things. Yet, when it comes to writing, these things are considered not only wrong, but condemning. Only an amateur would make such ‘mistakes’, we say.

Then is the Bible written by an amateur?

Are all of the classical works?

Is Shakespeare considered full of errors and holes?

It just makes me wonder how many people are out there who, given the chance, would be amazing storytellers, and yet remain hidden beneath the layers and layers of rules and regulations. It makes me question if there’s another of our great classical writers out there now, who has not sent his or her work out into the world for the fear of criticism. I wonder if their work will ever be noticed, hundreds of years from now, and appreciated, as Van Gogh’s paintings were considered outlandish and odd in his time, and appreciated in ours.

I’m not saying everyone with a manuscript of gibberish should be an author. The rules of grammar, for the most part, should be used so that books are readable. Commas, periods, question marks, etc., should be used with care and understanding. But I question, many times to myself, why many of the other rules exist at all.

Are they necessary rules, or a preference set forth by those before us?