# Does following the "Rules" = Good Book?



## Tettsuo (Dec 26, 2013)

*If a writer follows all of the rules, does that make their book automatically good?  Or, it's far more complex than that?

Does breaking the rules mean the book is bad?*

I'm of the opinion that a writer should understand the basics of writing.  Grammar, spelling, proper use of punctuation, etc. are all needed for the reader to understand the mix of symbols written on each page.  Beyond that... it's all fair game.


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## dale (Dec 26, 2013)

art with "rules" is propaganda.


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## Jeko (Dec 26, 2013)

My only rule is honesty; so yes, if a writer follows that, their book is automatically - in that respect - good.


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## escorial (Dec 26, 2013)

some people can write with perfect execution and tell a good story....others can write and draw you in regardless of the accuracy to rules.


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## spartan928 (Dec 26, 2013)

There's no such thing as writing rules outside of spelling, punctation and grammar are there? All else is subjective to the reader. The broader aspect of your question is what constitutes "good" and "bad" which have far much less to do with the techniques of writing than it does principles and techniques of storytelling. A great story poorly told is nearly always superior to an awful story told well.


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## Sam (Dec 26, 2013)

If you can't write a story that hooks a reader and makes them want to read through their fingers, you can follow all the rules you want and it won't matter a damn.


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## Justin Rocket (Dec 26, 2013)

There are tools.
The three act structure (and the various other such structures), for example, is a tool which helps write good fiction.
Chekhov's gun is a tool which helps write good fiction.
Writing about a problem that is primal is a tool which helps write good fiction.
Not starting with a weather report is a tool which helps write good fiction.
Avoiding adverbs is a tool which helps write good fiction.
In getting to the top of a mountain, a person can eschew all tools and climb with just their bare hands.
Or, a person can use rope and pitons. 
 The same thing goes in writing.  What matters is getting to the top.
The problem  occurs when someone tosses aside all tools out of stupid pride.  
When a writer finds himself halfway up the mountain and unable to proceed any further without tools, which he is too egotistical to consider using, that's travesty.

Using tools and respecting tool use when they are needed is a rule.
Another way to look at it is that there are rules as to how to use the tools correctly.


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## Tettsuo (Dec 26, 2013)

spartan928 said:


> *A great story poorly told is nearly always superior to an awful story told well.*


Agree 100%

Content is king.


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## Morkonan (Dec 26, 2013)

Tettsuo said:


> *If a writer follows all of the rules, does that make their book automatically good?  Or, it's far more complex than that?
> 
> Does breaking the rules mean the book is bad?*
> 
> I'm of the opinion that a writer should understand the basics of writing.  Grammar, spelling, proper use of punctuation, etc. are all needed for the reader to understand the mix of symbols written on each page.  Beyond that... it's all fair game.



Following the "Rules" makes a book more accessible and understandable, but it will not automatically make a book "good." However, if you want the best chances of making a book "good", you're going to follow certain accepted "Rules", unless you are a good enough writer to know which ones you can break and what the most effective rule-breaking methods would be that would be suitable for your work.


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## Nickleby (Dec 26, 2013)

There are rules in painting, in poetry, in journalism, in drama, in almost any sort of creative endeavor you can choose to do.

I submit that the rules are there to help you learn how to do something. Once you've learned it, you can forget the rules and do what you want. Picasso knew the rules. He broke them. A better term might be that he _redefined_ them.

Is a cubist painting a good painting? I say No, because it breaks the rules of painting as I understand them. Other people say Yes, and they hail Picasso as a genius.

So the answer is (as it so often turns out), "It depends." I've tried reading popular but poorly written books, and often I can't get past the poor grammar, punctuation, plotting, characterization, etc. etc.. However, I can forgive poor writing if the story is good enough to pull me along. At the moment I'm reading _Gone with the Wind_ (only got halfway through, the first time). I'm not keen on the punctuation or the pacing, and I already know how it turns out, but Mitchell does an excellent job with her characters.

Similarly, I read "good" books, but after I've stumbled through a few plot holes, out-of-character moments, infodumps, and jaw-droppingly unbelievable moments, I can't go on. Writers who know _and bother to follow_ the rules don't make these mistakes.


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## Pidgeon84 (Dec 26, 2013)

Just the opposite. Rules are floggin boring. Keeps within a certain confine. Flog that snot!

Though the rules of the forum sure did make have to be creative about my language, so I guess it depends on the writer


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## Justin Rocket (Dec 27, 2013)

This discussion sort of reminds me of Bruce Lee's impact on the martial arts.
I studied the martial arts for a very long time.  I would often come across someone who would preach about how there were no rules in fighting and that someone should strive to be formless.  Then, that preacher would throw a punch which could break their wrist or open them up to an easy counter move.  They totally missed Bruce Lee's point.  Master technique.  Then, once you fully understand the principles of what you're doing, you can use those principles spontaneously.  That creates formlessness.  "Formlessness" does not mean that anything is acceptable.


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## Tettsuo (Dec 27, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> This discussion sort of reminds me of Bruce Lee's impact on the martial arts.
> I studied the martial arts for a very long time.  I would often come across someone who would preach about how there were no rules in fighting and that someone should strive to be formless.  Then, that preacher would throw a punch which could break their wrist or open them up to an easy counter move.  They totally missed Bruce Lee's point.  Master technique.  Then, once you fully understand the principles of what you're doing, you can use those principles spontaneously.  That creates formlessness.  "Formlessness" does not mean that anything is acceptable.


I don't think we're talking about the same rules here.  As I noted in first post, basic grammar rules still apply.  You can't get around that as there needs to be common understanding of the symbols we use to communicate in writing.  The rules I'm talking about are those faux rules that others read about in books that are more akin to preferences.  Those preference, once in the drinking water of writing, morph into these sudo-rules that writers tell other writers to adhere to.

It's bunk.

For example... don't use adverbs. Bunk.


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## Tettsuo (Dec 27, 2013)

Nickleby said:


> So the answer is (as it so often turns out), "It depends." I've tried reading popular but poorly written books, and often I can't get past the poor grammar, punctuation, plotting, characterization, etc. etc.. However, I can forgive poor writing if the story is good enough to pull me along. At the moment I'm reading _Gone with the Wind_ (only got halfway through, the first time). I'm not keen on the punctuation or the pacing, and I already know how it turns out, but Mitchell does an excellent job with her characters.


I don't think anyone is saying use poor grammar.  I know I'm not.  My point is that outside of the basic rules of writing, it's all fair game.



> Similarly, I read "good" books, but after I've stumbled through a few plot holes, out-of-character moments, infodumps, and jaw-droppingly unbelievable moments, I can't go on. Writers who know _and bother to follow_ the rules don't make these mistakes.


I'll counter your contention about infodumps and point out that Stephen King does a large number of infodumps in The Shining.  The Hobbit has tons of infodumps.  The first two chapters of The Hunger Games is one long infodump.  But, if done well, infodumps are workable.


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## Justin Rocket (Dec 27, 2013)

Tettsuo said:


> I don't think we're talking about the same rules here.  As I noted in first post, basic grammar rules still apply.  You can't get around that as there needs to be common understanding of the symbols we use to communicate in writing.  The rules I'm talking about are those faux rules that others read about in books that are more akin to preferences.  Those preference, once in the drinking water of writing, morph into these sudo-rules that writers tell other writers to adhere to.
> 
> It's bunk.
> 
> For example... don't use adverbs. Bunk.



If there are no rules, then it follows that the following is a story


> The cat is blue.


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## Tettsuo (Dec 27, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> If there are no rules, then it follows that the following is a story


Please note... the above has nothing to do with what I wrote.

Is there a reason you're posting nonsense?  Should I simply stop responding to anything you post in this thread?


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## Jeko (Dec 27, 2013)

> Using tools and respecting tool use when they are needed is a rule.



My friends tell me the most amazing stories, yet some of them don't know a single thing about the art of storytelling. Are they flouting this rule? Or, if their stories are good, are they following it by mistake?


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## Foxee (Dec 27, 2013)

Tettsuo said:


> *If a writer follows all of the rules, does that make their book automatically good?  Or, it's far more complex than that?*


*
There is no 'automatically good', sorry. 



			Does breaking the rules mean the book is bad?
		
Click to expand...

*If you screw up basic craftsmanship on a book, that's not an auspicious start any more than building a boat by creating a nice captain's cabin but neglecting to waterproof the hull (because, after all, that's a pesky 'rule') will result in a boat that floats.

You can have perfect spelling and punctuation and yet have characters who are one-dimensional and the reader doesn't care about them enough to read the book.

You can have POV nailed and your dialogue can sparkle with perfection and yet have plot holes that an elephant can get lost in.

You can follow all the rules and add a nice dose of genre-driven formula and even end up with something you can sell but it's not necessarily 'good'.

Even if you write the best book ever, it's free of errors, and you sell tons of copies to an adoring public, you'll still have your detractors because writing fiction is still an art form and art is still subjective. For instance, I have a friend who is nuts about Douglas Adams ('Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy') and I thought she'd like Terry Pratchett (Discworld) because I think he's a really fantastic writer and for me his books are magic. She handed back the Terry Pratchett book with nothing more than a 'meh, I couldn't get into it, he's just not Douglas Adams'.

Big names who've earned their spurs get criticized all the time. It happens.


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## Justin Rocket (Dec 27, 2013)

Cadence said:


> My friends tell me the most amazing stories, yet some of them don't know a single thing about the art of storytelling. Are they flouting this rule? Or, if their stories are good, are they following it by mistake?



Can you show that your friends  haven't learned the rules via exposure to stories?  If you have an entertaining story written by friends which ignores all the rules, I'd like to see it.


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## Justin Rocket (Dec 27, 2013)

Tettsuo said:


> Please note... the above has nothing to do with what I wrote.
> 
> Is there a reason you're posting nonsense?  Should I simply stop responding to anything you post in this thread?



My story was nonsense because, though it held to SPaG rules, it didn't abide by story rules.  But, you said story rules don't exist.


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## Tettsuo (Dec 27, 2013)

Justin Rocket said:


> My story was nonsense because, though it held to SPaG rules, it didn't abide by story rules.  But, you said story rules don't exist.


You've just proved you've not been paying attention.

Thanks!


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## Jeko (Dec 27, 2013)

> If you have an entertaining story written by friends which ignores all the rules, I'd like to see it.



I'm sure you would. But since you've already missed my point, I see no reason in letting you miss it any further.


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## Foxee (Dec 27, 2013)

...ah and now I remember why I stopped commenting so much.


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## Grape Juice Vampire (Dec 27, 2013)

Nope. I've read books that were good in the technical sense, but I hated the story so much I couldn't finish them. This is not to say the story was done badly, I just didn't like it. That's the rub of this business called writing.  Like most things, writing is subjective, and it is so many, many times over. Any and all will have a different view on it, and somewhere will find a problem with sentence structure, etc.

Which, is why I don't stress too much about status quo, or 'rules' in the strictest sense and just do what I think is best for my story. Which in the end is the point isn't it? It's the writer, not the rules.


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## Morkonan (Dec 27, 2013)

Cadence said:


> My friends tell me the most amazing stories, yet some of them don't know a single thing about the art of storytelling. Are they flouting this rule? Or, if their stories are good, are they following it by mistake?



We're human and we generally like to learn and interpret certain things in a certain way. Cultural differences aside, we tend to have a fairly straightforward way of logically telling and interpreting a story. For instance, how many stories, verbal or oral, end with the protagonist's first appearance? It doesn't work very well, does it? If we don't know the goal, how are we supposed to recognize the obstacles? If something happens, it's not very interesting unless it's a pretty spectacular "something", is it? We need certain things to be included in a story in order for us to make sense of it.

That being said, most people instinctively include the bare necessities when telling a story. If Mary is going to the store, do we need to know why? That depends, doesn't it? If it's not important to the story, then we don't need to know why she's going, only that she is. A listener/Reader will understand that, intuitively. A bothersome sea-lawyer will quibble over exactly what it is she's going to the store for....


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## Jeko (Dec 28, 2013)

> We're human and we generally like to learn and interpret certain things in a certain way. Cultural differences aside, we tend to have a fairly straightforward way of logically telling and interpreting a story. For instance, how many stories, verbal or oral, end with the protagonist's first appearance? It doesn't work very well, does it? If we don't know the goal, how are we supposed to recognize the obstacles? If something happens, it's not very interesting unless it's a pretty spectacular "something", is it? We need certain things to be included in a story in order for us to make sense of it.
> 
> That being said, most people instinctively include the bare necessities when telling a story. If Mary is going to the store, do we need to know why? That depends, doesn't it? If it's not important to the story, then we don't need to know why she's going, only that she is. A listener/Reader will understand that, intuitively. A bothersome sea-lawyer will quibble over exactly what it is she's going to the store for....



Thanks for understanding, Morkonan. 

If there's anything close to 'rules' that we tell stories with, it's things we naturally pick up, and so best use naturally. Hence, _trying _to follow the 'rules' that we imagine to exist is counter-intuitive; we should focus on the story itself, and trust in our ever-developing ability to tell it properly and refine it once it's told.

Apologies if I was blunt, JR.


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## Marc (Jan 1, 2014)

We often tend to over think things. Sure, there are guidelines (I don't like the word "rules"). I just remind myself that my goal is to write an interesting story with interesting characters. That's all that's important.


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## Robdemanc (Jan 1, 2014)

The only rule is to write something people will be able to read and enjoy while doing so.   All the other "rules" are guidelines.  

Most published works break the so called "rules".


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## Kuro (Jan 1, 2014)

Robdemanc said:


> The only rule is to write something people will be able to read and enjoy while doing so.   All the other "rules" are guidelines.
> 
> Most published works break the so called "rules".


I agree. I see famous authors break "rules" all the time. The only rule every good writer seems to follow is using proper grammar.


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## Marc (Jan 1, 2014)

It's important to speak well English.


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## Staff Deployment (Jan 1, 2014)

Kuro said:


> I agree. I see famous authors break "rules" all the time. The only rule every good writer seems to follow is using proper grammar.



Chuck Palahniuk, Mark Z. Danielewski, and Cormac McCarthy contantly play around with grammatical conventions, and all of them are (_arguably_) excellent writers.


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## Terry D (Jan 1, 2014)

The "rules", guidelines, suggestions, whatever you want to call them, are the recipe to cooking up a good book. But that story is only going to be as 'good' as the ingredients put into it. For fiction those ingredients include things like pacing, voice, word choice, originality, and many other subtleties of form and technique. So, yes, if you have the proper mix of fresh 'ingredients' and use the rules skillfully, you will produce a good book.


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## Justin Rocket (Jan 2, 2014)

I guess what irritates me about the people who claim there are no rules is that they are effectively asserting that there is no difference between a monkey punching randomly on a typewriter and Jorge Luis Borges or Mark Twain.

In fact, what elevates Borges and Twain above an epileptic primate is their mastery of the rules of writing. 

The rules of writing fiction are like the rules of writing software, not like the rules of assembling IKEA furniture.  The skill is in learning the rules and how to put them together to create a functioning end product whose particulars may not be _entirely_ known when the author starts.


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## Kyle R (Jan 2, 2014)

Like any craft, I believe fiction-writing naturally contains certain techniques and approaches that have, over time, become so commonly taught and recommended that they've become "rules" in the classroom.

Beyond grammar, these are things like "avoid excessive head-hopping", "don't tell too much", "give your protagonist a problem", things like that. At the higher level you'll have more specific, debatable rules such as, "The A and B story should intersect at the midpoint of Act 2."

In my opinion, the more specific the rule, the less helpful it becomes. The fundamentals are the "sweet spot" for me. Understanding them, and executing them at a consistent level, I believe that is the real trick to producing quality writing.

All the other stuff may or may not apply. It depends greatly on an individual basis. But understanding and utilizing solid fundamentals will nearly always help to elevate a story. :encouragement:

(Now comes the real tricky part: Identifying the fundamentals, and separating them from the fluff.)


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## Jeko (Jan 2, 2014)

> Most published works break the so called "rules".



I call them 'norms'. There are rules governing the use of specific techniques, but no rules governing how to tell a story. 'I went to the shops' is a story; a god-awful story, but a story nonetheless.

Hence most 'rules' come from people who think they know how to tell a 'good' story and want credit for your success. But there are still norms that fiction follows, and one should not ignore them; rather, one should act upon them, with confidence in whatever one's decision is.


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