How often have you heard a novelists say that, “in fiction, there are no rules.” Too often, I’m afraid.
I’m not comfortable with that attitude because of the subliminal message it carries, namely: “don’t tell me my novel doesn’t work because of some rule it violates. Rules just inhibit creativity. I like it the way it is.”
It’s a form of anti-professional spin that, in the name of “freeing” your creative spirit, suggests anarchy as the cool way to write your novel. But more often than not, the result is a flabby, contradictory story that’s unsatisfying on any level.
There are rules. Call them principles or instructions or directions or chopped liver, whatever––the rules of fiction are ancient and powerful guides to success in this very difficult game.
If you’re skeptical, see what happens if you arbitrarily switch point-of-view strategy in midstream without supporting the switch; or open up a flashback within a flashback without correctly signaling either of the narrative time breaks; or allow your main character to spout political ideas he was bitterly opposed to in the scene before.
These mistakes and others like them represent rules broken, ignored, misunderstood, or never learned in the first place.
Sidenote: I can already see the linguists lining up over the term “rules” because yes, technically, rules carry penalties–you spend time in the penalty box, your touchdown is called back, you do not pass Go. That’s not quite what happens when you break a rule in fiction, but the consequences of violation can be even worse. Ignoring the rules of storytelling makes it pretty certain your novel will fall victim to the most basic disaster in fiction: it will drive away its reader. Once you’ve blown your credibility, what then? That reader will move on and not return.
So what am I saying: learn all the rules and you’re golden? Or: the more rules you know, the more stories will flow from your keyboard and the greater they’ll be?
If only it were so simple! No, it’s not enough to memorize a rulebook. It’s necessary to understand what’s behind the rules. They are not arbitrary. Unless you understand why they work, you won’t know how, when, as well as when not to apply them.
That’s a tall order and I’ll do my best to break it down for you in Part 2.
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