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Creating: The Real Rules of Fiction Writing
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- Category: Writing Ezines
- Published on Saturday, 10 December 2011 02:54
- Written by Randy Ingermanson
- Hits: 872
Ever wished somebody somewhere would give you a complete guide to writing a great novel? Then all you'd have to do is follow the steps and out would pop a best-seller. All you'd need to know are the rules of fiction writing.
Maybe you've bought a book or two on fiction writing that promised to do exactly that. But then, after a few chapters, you suddenly start chafing at all the rules.
Point of view. Showing, not telling. Eliminating backstory. Gack! All you want to do is to write a great story, so why should you have to follow a billion irritating rules?
I hear both sides of this, all the time. I hear from writers who want me to teach them the equivalent of paint-by-numbers. And I hear from writers who don't want to be stuck coloring between the lines.
Let's be clear on one thing. There aren't any rules of fiction writing. At least none that are universal. For every rule I've ever heard of, I can think of some writer somewhere who's violated that rule while writing a great novel.
And yet.
And yet every one of those rules can be helpful to you in writing your novel.
The key thing to get here is that all those "rules" you hear about are actually rules of thumb. They're guidelines to use in figuring out what's wrong with your story. They're NOT for telling you how to write your story in the first place.
This might be a good time to talk about the two hats you wear as a writer -- the Creator hat and the Analyzer hat.
The Creator hat is the one you wear when you're creating. Creation is the act of inventing something new. This is a chaotic process, and it doesn't sit very well with rules. Rules don't help you when you're wearing the Creator hat. They stifle you.
The Analyzer hat is the one you wear when you're analyzing. Analysis is the act of sorting through all the stuff you created, separating the good from the bad, throwing away the bad, and putting the good into some kind of order. Analysis is an orderly process.
Rules of thumb can be very helpful when you're wearing the Analyzer hat.
The brutal fact is that, unless you are some kind of Mozart-like genius, most of the stuff you create is going to be lame. Some of it will be downright awful.
And some of it will be excellent.
Let's remember what we mean by "excellent." Your goal as a novelist is to give your reader what I call a Powerful Emotional Experience. Do that and you win.
Fail to do that and you lose.
Excellent fiction gives your reader a lot of Powerful Emotional Experiences. Bad fiction gives your reader hardly any.
When you wear your Creator hat, you are creating stuff that either works or doesn't work. Either it gives a Powerful Emotional Experience or it doesn't.
When you wear your Analyzer hat, you are sifting through your novel, word by word, paragraph by paragraph, scene by scene, to decide what works and what doesn't. If it works, then you keep it. If it doesn't work, then you have to figure out why and either throw it away or make it work.
If it's really hopelessly lame, then throw it away, whether it's a word, a paragraph, or a scene. Don't waste your time trying to fix something that can't be fixed. It's dragging your story down, so slit its throat and throw it to the wolves.
Most of the time, you don't have to throw it away. All you need to do is fix it. But how?
That's where those pesky rules of thumb come in. If you know something is broken, check out some books on writing to see if any of them might bear on your problem. You'll probably find all kinds of advice, some of it contradictory.
What you're looking for is something that explains why this particular chunk of fiction isn't working. Some rule of thumb.
Once you find one, it's time to put on your Creator hat and try again. The rule of thumb will suggest a way to fix your problem. It may work, or it may not, but you won't know until you try. Do some creative work. Have fun. Don't overthink it.
After you've finished, switch hats back to the Analyzer hat and go through the whole process again. You've either fixed the problem or you haven't. If you have, then you're done. If not, then you get to try again.
And maybe again.
Let me emphasize one thing. When you're wearing your Creator hat, don't think about the "rules" (or rules of thumb or guidelines or whatever you want to call them).
Forget about them completely. Focus on creating.
Haul out the "rules" only when you need help analyzing something that isn't working. Don't expect any one "rule" to ever work all the time. None of them do.
You'll find that some of them become second nature to you and some of them just never click for you. That's fine. Different writers are different.
This shouldn't be complicated, and yet somehow it is for a lot of writers. Don't let the "rules" drag you down. Use them for analysis, not for creation.
And have fun! If fiction writing isn't fun, then something's wrong.
Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 29,000 readers, every month. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.
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