GeekDavid
Auror
If every writer followed the same exact guidelines, then I imagine the fantasy genre specifically would be pretty boring. We'd have a lot of stories like, "Walton stabbed the dragon. It fell over. The crowd rejoiced" instead of "Walton soaked in the cheers of raucous crowd as he thrust his blade into the great wyrm's white belly. It thrashed its wings and rolled about in the dirt before lying still like a salted slug. Walton wiped a bit of blood away from his cheek with his pinkie. 'Thank you, you've been a beautiful audience.'"
Very true. That's why I don't follow guidelines blindly, and react negatively whenever someone insists that it absolutely must be done a certain way.
I think some people, likely because of their pre-writing career, are overly enamored of rules. The problem is, writing is far more art than science.
What would have happened if someone had told Dali that he couldn't paint clocks melting, for example?