Writing rules, that is. It can be especially difficult for writers who have been steeped in English classes for many years to fully allow themselves the freedom that suddenly comes with writing books versus writing essays.
- Does it feel liberating or painful to start a sentence with a conjunction?
- Are you subconsciously aiming for a certain number of sentences in each paragraph?
- Hesitant to use contractions or have characters drop words entirely?
Don’t fret about avoiding fragments or run-ons when used in dialogue. Go ahead and end that sentence in a preposition—with confidence. It is far more distracting for your protagonist to introduce someone as “the friend about whom I spoke” instead of “the friend I was talking about.”
And when you feel tempted to include an introduction in your writing, consider how the scenes of our lives don’t get introductions. Why, then, should our stories? Interruptions (like a surprise visitor, an unexpected traffic delay, or the jarring morning awakening from your ten-year-old daughter asking what’s for breakfast) often dictate the next chain of events, and life is full of them.
Even if these direct contradictions to what you learned in twelfth-grade English class cause you to recoil inwardly, the point of abandoning these long-engrained rules is to get as close to believability as possible.
The slice of time it takes to read one novel is that much opportunity to get lost in another world, whether realistic or fantasy, and it is the author’s job to offer that escape in a believable environment.
This means valuing voice and style over perfect grammar, creative impact over correctness, and breaking some rules.
BIO: Kate Hiester is the former Assistant Editor of a Christian publishing house and currently freelances as a developmental book editor, primarily for historical fiction and faith-based novels. Kate holds a degree in Professional Writing from Trinity Western University. She is a volunteer editor for Cascade Christian Writers.
Read: The Different Types of Editors by Kate here.
