Voice? How and how much?

[Scribble]

I'll agree with that, but there are people even in these environs who push every rule they see online as the latest "You Must Do This Or Your Book Will Flop" rule.

That's the mindset I am fighting against, and will fight against until I breathe my last. (Oops, I broke a rule there. I didn't say breathe my last what. Do I mean breathe my last song? My last shirt? My last kitten?)

I get what you mean. Those people are everywhere, waggling their little articles in your face!

 

[Ankari]

I know this is can lead to a carousel argument. I'll try my best to steer this down a linear path.

The "rules of writing" don't exist. They are subjective to the time of the written work. But, take a step back from the rules, think of how they became rules, and you'll understand that one year's rules is yesteryear's no-no. Think of a story written in the 1920s, and compare it to the stories of today.

Rules are vetted by committee. They are not based on any set principle meant to extrapolate the most efficient method of communication through the vast dictionary available to a language.

Of all the languages, the English language is the hardest to pin down with rules. It's best to create a list of principles for writers to work through. I'm not trying to change the title used, rather supplanting all rules and creating a new list of principles. Some rules may carry over, and I'll accept that.

 

[GeekDavid]

True, but without at least Freshman Comp you're just spinning your wheels. The people explaining the rules to you are trying to help.

It's the difference between Albert Ayler playing "Ghosts" and a six-year-old honking into a saxophone. They may both sound like noise to the uninitiated, but if you know advanced music theory, you can tell Ayler was a genius. His abilities in structure and composition literally transcended what we consider music. We're still trying to figure out where he was coming from. On the other hand, it's not for everyone; you can't dance to it.

Or, for you rock aficionados, compare Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner versus a ten-year-old just learning how feedback works.

You've got to be able to do it, before you can do it.

I think we're talking past each other.

From this, I get the sense you're talking about basic grammatical and punctuation rules. Of course you need to know those, and follow them.

What I am talking about are the endless blog posts promoting The Thirteen Things Every Successful Author Must Do! (exclamation points and caps included). Most of those rules can be tossed out the window. For example, look at these "Basic Rules for Writing Fiction" published by another person I've never heard of.

Rule 1: The first chapter describes or shows an incident when life is interrupted -things change. The character arc can begin after the theme has started, but needs to start in the first five chapters. Notice that in many movies, a big “aha” occurs about 18 minutes into the movie.

Well, now, not always. In fact, not often. In David Eddings' Belgariad -- all five books bestsellers -- the big event doesn't happen to the MC in chapter one of the first book (Pawn of Prophecy). It doesn't happen until chapter five, so we get four chapters of learning about the MC and those around him, and the setting... and it didn't seem to hurt his sales a bit.

In Jim Butcher's Codex Alera, the MC doesn't even appear in the book until chapter three of book one (Furies of Calderon). Again, a wildly successful story, and it breaks one of this person's self described "Basic Rules."

Do you see the point I'm making now?

 

[Malik]

I should add, I'm not knocking self-publishing. There are some fantastic self-published writers. But they are the exception and not the rule right now. Some of the self-published stuff I'm running across is face-in-my-hands-groaning bad. And the more books that uneducated and unskilled writers self-publish, the harder it will be to dig through and find the really good ones, by the authors who took the time to not only say what they had to say, but who devoted their lives to learning how to say it well.

That's why I'm a stickler for knowing the rules. Put the time in. Learn the craft. Then develop your style. There are no shortcuts in this.

 

[Malik]

I think we're talking past each other.

From this, I get the sense you're talking about basic grammatical and punctuation rules. Of course you need to know those, and follow them.

Yes, we are. I'm talking about advanced grammatical rules and stylism, but yeah. And yes, you do have to follow them. And wow, nobody does.

 

[GeekDavid]

The shelves at the store are filled with mediocre writing, but in general a few anecdotes aside, there are a lot of people working to ensure that there is little pure dreck on the shelf.

Obviously not enough, Feist's At The Gates of Darkness managed to get to shelves with more technical errors than I see in the average self-pubbed book. Are there self-pubbed books with more errors? Yes, but there are also tons with fewer errors than this Big Name Author Published By A Big Six Publisher had in his book.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Since this seems to be turning into a rules derail, I'd like to put forth my simple thoughts on the subject:

There are multiple rulesets!

It's entirely possible to create a set of rules that, if perfectly followed, will lead to a story that has perfect clarity. This story will have terrible flow, and will probably have terrible voice.

I myself have outlined rules that, if followed, are all but guaranteed to get people to describe your stories as "flowing." If you were to never break these rules, your stories would be unclear and confusing, and might also have voice issues.

Voice is more complicated than both, because there are so many voices you can speak in. The rules for your own voice must be self-determined.

Add in grammar rules, which aid clarity, but if perfectly followed hurt flow and voice. Add in techniques used to give the reader a mental image of the scene. Add in techniques used to convey characters' emotions. Add in whatever special tricks you want to use (like that thing Dan Brown does where his sentence structures turn inside-out when he wants to make the reader feel scared and anxious.) You can't follow all the rules all the time, because the rules break the other rules!

The more rules you know, the more things you can do. You can focus in on clarity in a potentially confusing scene. You can focus in on emotion in a scene where a character is on the verge of breaking down. You can decide what to optimize for, according to context and your own judgment. But you can't make one ruleset supreme, and you need to learn where and how to make sacrifices.

 

[GeekDavid]

Yes, we are. I'm talking about advanced grammatical rules and stylism, but yeah. And yes, you do have to follow them. And wow, nobody does.

Even Raymond Feist doesn't in some of his later books. And lo and behold, he gets published by one of the Big Six Publishers! And people buy his [expletive deleted].

 

[GeekDavid]

Since this seems to be turning into a rules derail, I'd like to put forth my simple thoughts on the subject:

There are multiple rulesets!

It's entirely possible to create a set of rules that, if perfectly followed, will lead to a story that has perfect clarity. This story will have terrible flow, and will probably have terrible voice.

I myself have outlined rules that, if followed, are all but guaranteed to get people to describe your stories as "flowing." If you were to never break these rules, your stories would be unclear and confusing, and might also have voice issues.

Voice is more complicated than both, because there are so many voices you can speak in. The rules for your own voice must be self-determined.

Add in grammar rules, which aid clarity but if perfectly followed hurt flow and voice. Add in techniques used to give the reader a mental image of the scene. Add in techniques used to convey characters' emotions. Add in whatever special tricks you want to use (like that thing Dan Brown does where his sentence structures turn inside-out when he wants to make the reader feel scared and anxious.) You can't follow all the rules all the time, because the rules break the other rules!

The more rules you know, the more things you can do. You can focus in on clarity in a potentially confusing scene. You can focus in on emotion in a scene where a character is on the verge of breaking down. You can decide what to optimize for, according to context and your own judgment. But you can't make one ruleset supreme, and you need to learn where and how to make sacrifices.

That I'll wholeheartedly agree with.

 

[Malik]

Even Raymond Feist doesn't in some of his later books. And lo and behold, he gets published by one of the Big Six Publishers! And people buy his [expletive deleted].

I shouldn't have said "follow them." I should have said, "learn them." My bad.

 

[GeekDavid]

I shouldn't have said "follow them." I should have said, "learn them." My bad.

Do you think JK Rowling ever read an article saying you should avoid adverbs?

 

[BWFoster78]

I know this is can lead to a carousel argument. I'll try my best to steer this down a linear path.

The "rules of writing" don't exist. They are subjective to the time of the written work. But, take a step back from the rules, think of how they became rules, and you'll understand that one year's rules is yesteryear's no-no. Think of a story written in the 1920s, and compare it to the stories of today.

Rules are vetted by committee. They are not based on any set principle meant to extrapolate the most efficient method of communication through the vast dictionary available to a language.

Of all the languages, the English language is the hardest to pin down with rules. It's best to create a list of principles for writers to work through. I'm not trying to change the title used, rather supplanting all rules and creating a new list of principles. Some rules may carry over, and I'll accept that.

I guess the question for me is one of logic: how do you learn to write fiction?

The best I can come up with is to have someone who understands writing look at your work and tell you what you're doing wrong. Unfortunately, not many of us have the resources to employ a full-time writing teacher.

The next best path I can figure is to find out what, in general, other writers have done that has worked. Again, not my top choice, but it seems better than the option of ????

For me, that's where the "rules of writing" come in. It's a list of principles that writers have created in an attempt to describe what they've done that has worked.

If an aspiring author approaches them as such, they are a fantastic tool for advancing ability.

If an aspiring author reads a pithily stated rule and thinks, "Wow, I absolutely have to do exactly what that rule states without exception even though I've done absolutely no research to understand the reason for the rule," then I question the mental aptitude of that aspiring author.

I do fully contend that, if the options are:

1. Blindly follow the rules.

Or

2. Go your own path completely and ignore the existence of the rules

That the beginner who follows option 1 is going to progress faster and produce better initial works than the person who follows option 2. I understand, however, that reasonable people (such as Steerpike) seem to disagree on this particular issue.

 

[Cairnswrites]

Hey folks
loving this thread, lots of great discussion.
I couldn't agree more regarding the rules, they are changing and evolving, as language has and always will do.
Having said that, surely all rules with regards to writing are there to support the reader. What we, as writers, are endeavoring to do, is tell a story in the most effective way possible for the reader. If the use of certain rules/guidelines makes this happen, I view them as a positive aid to my writing. So, whilst the blanket assertion that rules MUST be followed is obviously excessive, learning the basics and applying them well is certainly a good start to becoming a great story teller.
Just to return to an earlier part of the thread, regarding voice, I think that another description of voice could be the atmosphere created within a story. I'm thinking specifically of Neil Gaiman, or Stephen King, two authors you can spot a mile away. The atmosphere they create within their books is very distinctive, almost like an extra layer of... something, generally and frustratingly, undefinable, that marks the work as theirs.
This comes about, I think, through the choice of words they put one after the next, regardless of the level of description versus pacing. What I think I'm trying to say is that voice comes from every single word choice, and how they go together. Pacing, or lack thereof, is separate from this. I think
cheers

 

[Feo Takahari]

Do you think JK Rowling ever read an article saying you should avoid adverbs?

J.K. Rowling's greatest strength is off-the-wall worldbuilding, where you never know what's going to come from around every corner. Her technical skills, while serviceable, never exactly shine.

Then again, kids' fiction seems to benefit from substance over style--with occasional exceptions like Lemony Snickett, most great children's writers favor clear and easy-to-understand writing over playing games with language. You don't want to confuse your target audience, after all.

 

[GeekDavid]

J.K. Rowling's greatest strength is off-the-wall worldbuilding, where you never know what's going to come from around every corner. Her technical skills, while serviceable, never exactly shine.

Then again, kids' fiction seems to benefit from substance over style--with occasional exceptions like Lemony Snickett, most great children's writers favor clear and easy-to-understand writing over playing games with language. You don't want to confuse your target audience, after all.

Ahh... so throwing away one rule results in easier to understand writing. And yet the rule is supposed to make writing better? What can be better than something that's easy for the reader to understand?

 

[Feo Takahari]

Ahh... so throwing away one rule results in easier to understand writing. And yet the rule is supposed to make writing better? What can be better than something that's easy for the reader to understand?

Dude, I just mentioned this, and you said you wholeheartedly agreed. Very high clarity writing tends to have poor flow, and vice versa, so it's up to the author's judgment how much to go for either one.

To expand upon what I said earlier, I think the very first skill an author should learn is grammar, and clarity after that. Once you've got that down, the next thing to do is to develop your personal voice and figure out how you want to tell stories. Flow comes after that, and after that comes any fancy tricks you want to learn.

 

[Malik]

Do you think JK Rowling ever read an article saying you should avoid adverbs?

I don't know but I'll promise you she knew better. She has a BA with a dual first in French and Classical Studies, both of which require study in literature.

I would bet you that she decided her narrative voice was adverb-heavy and she went with it anyway.

 

[GeekDavid]

Dude, I just mentioned this, and you said you wholeheartedly agreed. Very high clarity writing tends to have poor flow, and vice versa, so it's up to the author's judgment how much to go for either one.

To expand upon what I said earlier, I think the very first skill an author should learn is grammar, and clarity after that. Once you've got that down, the next thing to do is to develop your personal voice and figure out how you want to tell stories. Flow comes after that, and after that comes any fancy tricks you want to learn.

I know, but sometimes points have to be repeated for people to get them. Sometimes they sleep through the first time you mention the point.

 

[BWFoster78]

I should add, I'm not knocking self-publishing. There are some fantastic self-published writers. But they are the exception and not the rule right now. Some of the self-published stuff I'm running across is face-in-my-hands-groaning bad. And the more books that uneducated and unskilled writers self-publish, the harder it will be to dig through and find the really good ones, by the authors who took the time to not only say what they had to say, but who devoted their lives to learning how to say it well.

That's why I'm a stickler for knowing the rules. Put the time in. Learn the craft. Then develop your style. There are no shortcuts in this.

I agree with this completely.

I applaud and support the indie author who has produced a quality product. In fact, if you know of any who meet that critieria in the scifi or fantasy genres, I'd love to know about them. They are difficult to find amongst the throngs of people putting out subpar novels.

 

[BWFoster78]

I think the very first skill an author should learn is grammar, and clarity after that. Once you've got that down, the next thing to do is to develop your personal voice and figure out how you want to tell stories.

I put tension right after clarity. It seems to be the next biggest issue for beginners and is critically important.