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The Chaotician's Guide to Writing

This is in response to Brian's Unified Theory post. ;-)

While I realize I represent the forces of darkness[1] and disorder on the board, I do have two rules for writing. Well, there's one rule and one guideline, and it's an important distinction:

A RULE is a set-in-stone, "Word from On High," immovable statement of truth that must be adhered to at all times, without exception.

A GUIDELINE is something you should keep in mind because it's useful, but that's as far as it goes.

So it may surprise my nemesis that I do have one rule, and I consider it important enough that I recognize no exceptions to it. Following that rule, I have a guideline that I consider pretty important, but it's nowhere near the level of importance of my one rule.

So without further ado:

THE ONE TRUE RULE OF WRITING (and Every Other Artistic Endeavor You Will Ever Undertake In Your Life)

"You may do anything you wish, anything at all, but you must always accept the consequences of your actions."

Explanation:

Anyone who attempts to tell you "the right way to write" is actually trying to sell you a worldview.[2] Their description of the right way to write is a description of the literary world they want to live in, with clauses and participles and semicolons all used just so in order to reflect the patterns and cadences that give them the most pleasure.

That's all it is, and at the same time that's a huge thing. That's why fights over writing rules and styles and choices are often so bitter--because they're not just fights over choices, they're fights over how people want the world to be--or at least, how they want a specific part of the world to be.

But you also have ideas on how you want the world to be... and those ideas are going to manifest with every word you write, every sentence you construct, every paragraph you put on the page. And there's absolutely no reason you shouldn't be putting your world forward instead of anyone else's. Doing it your way is prerogative of every author--of every artist--and you should never feel obligated to give up that privilege.

That said...

... just because you care, doesn't mean anyone else will, or is obligated to. Just as you're free to reject the advice and strictures of others who have different views of The Way Things Should Be, they have the same absolute freedom to do the same to you. And when you come face to face with that, it can hurt--it can hurt to the point of making you irrational. And if you're not willing to accept that you're going to feel that hurt, and if you don't have the strength to deal with it and move on, you have no business taking the risk of doing it your way in the first place.

If you're willing to bear the slings and arrows of people telling you that you suck--and they will, if you're lucky (if you're unlucky they just won't notice)--then the world is your playground, the sky is the limit, your toolbox is infinite, your palette of colors are endless. Godspeed, and good luck.

This brings us to the next part.

THE ONE PRETTY GOOD PIECE OF ADVICE ABOUT WRITING THAT ISN'T REALLY A RULE SO MUCH AS IT'S JUST SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND

"The only thing you need to do to make something work is to convince the reader to buy in and turn the page."

Explanation:

There are a lot of successful books out there that we consider badly written. Twilight anyone? Fifty Shades of Gray? The freakin' DaVinci Code? At the end of the day it's tempting to write off people who read those books as shallow and stupid... until you discover that people you actually like and respect and perhaps love read those books, at which point you try to pass it off as "oh, they read them ironically" but you know you're wishing rather than believing it.

Truth: some people like trashy books, the trashier the better.

Truth: sometimes a badly written book just happens to capture the imagination of the public by being there at the right place, at the right time, or tapping into something the public wants that nobody else is providing. Or by being so cheerfully brazen about it that it becomes charming.

Truth: some times the most entertaining stories (not necessarily books) make absolutely no sense if you pick them apart.

The greatest trick to making something work is to say to the reader "hey, don't sweat it. Just read and enjoy" and to get the reader to say "yeah, OK, thanks. I will!"

If you do that, you win the game. End of story. It doesn't matter if your dialog is stilted, or your characters are sexist, or your plot meanders and winds up at the finish line in tatters. If your reader says "yeah, I'll buy in" and then turns the page, then keeps turning pages, you can write a mountain of crap and it'll be fine.

It's figuring out how to pull that off that's the challenge. I've never seen it taught or even really talked about. And that's where the Lords of Order are genuinely useful, because worrying about plot and characterization and dialog and all that are basically ways to make it easier for the reader to buy in. But they're just a means to an end. The end is to get your reader to say "OK" and then turn the page. Anything that does that is legitimate.

So there you have it. My One True Rule and my other piece of advice about writing. Beyond that, writing is a roiling ocean of everything jumbled together with everything else, and your attempts to impose order on it are nothing more than a series of feeble, desperate, self-deceiving lies intended to lull your own screaming unconscious self into a false sense of security. ;-)

--------
[1] Not because we're evil. We just never got around to replacing that light bulb.

[2] Guess what, kids? This includes me! I'm trying to sell you a world view right now! YOU CAN'T ESCAPE IT. IT KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
Well played in turn, sir.

Thanks for the rules (or rule and guideline) btw. I love rules :)

I get, and dig, your definitions. I'm kinda really liking my thinking on the subject and would like your thoughts: technique is a set of rules that tell you how to write. To show, you need to understand how to describe a characters actions in detail. The storytelling aspect is your judgment. If you employ my style, you'll lean more to the show. Others will lean more to the tell.

"You may do anything you wish, anything at all, but you must always accept the consequences of your actions."

I agree with this. I would add that, ideally, you'd have a plan in place in which you judged the merits of your method to outweigh the consequences.

If you're willing to bear the slings and arrows of people telling you that you suck--and they will, if you're lucky (if you're unlucky they just won't notice)--then the world is your playground, the sky is the limit, your toolbox is infinite, your palette of colors are endless. Godspeed, and good luck.

I think that this relates to my fundamental problem with your approach. I really could care less if an experienced writer or someone with obvious talent is told: "Experiment. Do what you want. See what happens." They, perhaps, have a chance of creating something that someone, somewhere, might find readable.

I see a lot of beginning writers, however, that are simply dreadful. With just a few nudges in the direction of using some well thought out techniques, these writers can produce something that is at least readable. These tips can help them get their ideas across, and they'll get much more positive feedback, which will encourage them to write more. Telling someone who has no idea what they're doing to "experiment" results in them wandering aimlessly and continuing to produce absolute crap. It's a soul crushing cycle. They produce crap, get negative feedback, produce more crap, get negative feedback, produce...

THAT'S why I'm so adamant about this issue. I want to tell them: here, do this, this, and this and your feedback will be much better.

"The only thing you need to do to make something work is to convince the reader to buy in and turn the page."

I can understand the wisdom of this. Take John Ringo's work, for example. It's not fantastically well written. It feels like he just dashes stuff down and sends it to the printer. Something about it resonates with me. It's face paced with colorful, strong characters, and he does a great job of infusing it with emotion. I wouldn't hold him up as a shining example of how to write, but I buy his books without fail.

For me, I want my work to be as close to perfect as I can get it. I'd be embarrassed to put out anything less. I'll probably be embarrassed in a couple of years when I look back at my "perfect" now anyway.

If I knew I could put together a piece of complete dreckitude and have phenomenal success or put out something that I felt proud of and knew it would languish in obscurity, I'd probably choose the latter.

Thanks for feeding the troll.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Anyone who attempts to tell you "the right way to write" is actually trying to sell you a worldview.[2] Their description of the right way to write is a description of the literary world they want to live in, with clauses and participles and semicolons all used just so in order to reflect the patterns and cadences that give them the most pleasure.

This is true, and it is the first thing any writer needs to understand when they are reading critique and comments of their writing by another person.
 
Re. Technique: I don't think technique is a set of rules at all. It certainly isn't used that way in other arts--for example "technique" in music is used to describe the process by which a musician plays an instrument... i.e., two skilled musicians can play the same instrument using the same rules for how to play an instrument and make different sounds come out of it because they're using different techniques as they play. I think you're over-stretching the term in order to simplify things. That said, it obviously works for you, so I guess that's your technique. ;-)

re. your comments on experimentation, well, that's the risk you take. It is. There is no promise of success when you do whatever the hell you want, nor is there any obligation that people appreciate the risks you take. And it's certainly valid to point out to someone that if they didn't go down the road they're going, but rather went somewhere else, their work would improve. But this is just a reflection of a fundamental gap in philosophy. I'm solidly in the Punk Rock "learn three chords and go" camp. You'll learn more chords the more you do it, and if you actually want people to like what you do you'll learn how to incorporate that into your work as well... or you'll fail. And that's that.
 

JCFarnham

Auror
Sometimes I think there's a fundamental disconnect between how we all view the craft. The issue here in this discussion comes from the how, and all the differing ways of describing that how which make the most sense to the individual, NOT the whole picture (no matter how hard we try). The end goal after all is the same in most--okay I'll say it--all cases. We want to tell a story we can be proud of, that someone with buy into, get something out of and pass on. That's the deal, right? How ever we get there isn't relavent in the end :)

Humans love to place order on the world. I'll own up to it too. If I can't in real life understand the reasons behind an individual's actions, I get incredibly uncomfortable. I find I have no idea of how to interact with that person. I can't say I enjoy that. This quest for truth is the driving reason we have these two theorum (the unified and the chaos). That's the disconnect. There's no way we can all place our orders in the same way.

I like that.

The world would be boring otherwise.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
I think you're over-stretching the term in order to simplify things.

I'm open to a better word choice.

re. your comments on experimentation, well, that's the risk you take. It is. There is no promise of success when you do whatever the hell you want, nor is there any obligation that people appreciate the risks you take. And it's certainly valid to point out to someone that if they didn't go down the road they're going, but rather went somewhere else, their work would improve. But this is just a reflection of a fundamental gap in philosophy. I'm solidly in the Punk Rock "learn three chords and go" camp. You'll learn more chords the more you do it, and if you actually want people to like what you do you'll learn how to incorporate that into your work as well... or you'll fail. And that's that.

I can understand that. I think that most people who post on sites like this one, however, don't particularly relish the thought of years of soul-crushing agony. They want to figure out how to get their ideas across, and that's what I want to help them with.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
We want to tell a story we can be proud of, that someone with buy into, get something out of and pass on. That's the deal, right? How ever we get there isn't relavent in the end

I'm not sure that's what Christopher is saying. I get out of his comments that the artistic process is more important than the work produced. Or something.
 
No, it's that if you choose "the art" over everything else you need to accept the consequences of that decision. That's not the same thing as "it's all about the art, baby" because "it's all about the art, baby" carries the implication that everyone should agree with that choice and throw laurels at the artist's feet because he or she chose the art over everything else.

But there's no guarantee to that. You can choose the art and fail big time, because it might just be the case that no one is really interested in a story that is completely devoid of nouns of any kind. And if you make and commit to that choice, you don't get to complain that nobody understands you because the world is shallow and only interested in commercial works. If you make that choice, your reward is you get to do what you want, and that's the ONLY reward you are entitled to. You have to decide if you're willing to risk getting nothing else after that.

It's a pretty stark philosophy I guess, but risk-taking is not for the weak.
 

SeverinR

Vala
I think this is a good thing to point out.

People can set rules for themselves, but in reality they are mere guidleines, that can be occasionally broken or modified.

I think new writers come in and see "rules" they automatically think don't break this rule. but then almost every rule someone shows someone that broke the rule and profited well from it.

at this point in reading, I automatically change rule to guidelines. Guideline= a common limit but can be changed or broken on occasion. I think most of us that have posted on these forums, have figured this out.

When writing fantasy, we should strive to fly with as few set in stone rules as possible, hard to fly if we tether ourselves to something concrete.
 

JCFarnham

Auror
I'm not sure that's what Christopher is saying. I get out of his comments that the artistic process is more important than the work produced. Or something.

Whether he was saying that or not... it was intended as a comment from me solely. I was trying say (and did I think it's fair to say) that the end result for all of us is crafting something we're proud of. End of. You know?

I was attempting to be civil and put across that we are only arguing about the means, when truthfully everything we're doing is intended to reach the same end (to wit, what I said in my last post).
 
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