Never Say Always

I read a lot of articles about the "rules of writing" (this despite the fact that I proficiencied out of all my composition classes in college because of my ACT scores). I figure I could always improve.

The issue is, though, that I don't always follow the rules. For example, Anton Chekov said (paraphrased, because I don't speak Russian) that you should never get into the main character's mind, but should always describe his actions. Note those words "always" and "never" because you're going to hear them a lot. However, heroes don't always act. Sometimes they wait. Sometimes, even if they're the hero (Jamie Curtis' character in Halloween for example) they huddle in a closet with slats in the door second-guessing themselves. If I wrote this in a book, I believe that I should write what this character is thinking as they're standing in that closet waiting on Michael Myers to go at them with a knife. (Note -- I'm talking about a classic American horror movie. Technically, the musical score would take care of her tension and waiting. In a book, the orchestra is not handy.)

Another rule is "Always use active language" -- think "I made a mistake" vs "mistakes were made". I think always using active language works until I write dialogue for a very passive character, one with an external locus of control (psychology term!), one who attributes everything to fate, God, or luck. That character should use language that expresses his worldview: "I got to the pier and -- something just happened." Passive tense -- nothing did anything; it just happened.

Action verbs -- I always tell my students that "'did'" is not a verb when they write resumes. Writings full of passive verbs like "did", "was" (although as a helper verb it's okay), "were", "is" and the like create boredom. But some characters who speak what linguists call casual register will use many more passive verbs. Let them -- otherwise your client with the eighth grade education will sound like his GED instructor.

Description -- I believe there's a point where one can write too much description. For example, JRR Tolkien rhapsodized for days about a landmark, including its name in Sindarin, Quenya, Mordor-speech, and the language of Rohan. That worked for Tolkien, because it sounded epic and rolled off the tongue and reminded us that several races lived in the time of Middle Earth. However, my writing focuses on the conversations, interactions, and actions of its characters -- people don't tend to do a lot of looking around and describing when they're with others and talking, and many times people get only impressionistic ideas of their surroundings --- Grace, one of the protagonists in the book I'm writing, rushes to a meeting and has little time to make much of an impression of the Donimirski Palac Pugetow. She notes that it reminds her of French Renaissance Revival from the lecture in the European History class she took, and it looks like a big rectangular wedding cake to her.

To end, someone in my high school creative writing class asked the teacher why we had to learn the rules if ee cummings could use no capital letters, run his words across the page, and throw in parentheses randomly. The teacher responded that you had to learn the rules in order to break them. So those articles aimed at writers may be a good idea to read -- and then choose whether it's the right time to use those rules.

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Tomorrow I'll start Camp NaNo, where I will keep wrestling the beast I've called "The Ones who Toppled the World". I'll check in, even if they're short entries. Feel free to chat!