I have thought long and hard about writing this article. I wondered if it might sound controversial or arrogant – and I assure you there is no arrogance intended. In fact, despite the title, this is definitely not intended as a criticism against creative writing courses or people who use them. They are a valid tool. Asking for advice from editors/readers/other writers is also a valuable tool. Writing books has rules, just as everything else. However, I am going to come with a slightly different perspective: are all rules equally important? What happens if you follow the wrong ones?
Recently, I’ve started looking into online creative writing groups. I haven’t actually interacted or posted (I’m looking for the right place, I suppose), but I have read through questions and advice and articles that offer comprehensive how-to’s about writing techniques. All good so far.
However, this has got me thinking. Reading and liking books is highly subjective. People look for different things in a novel – or even in a short story. Some want to be completely shocked. Others want some hidden meaning (whether metaphysical or social or political). There are those who want to see themselves in the characters. And there are those who are looking for a good story with characters they can root for and understand (even though they don’t necessarily relate to them). I have to confess I am firmly in the fourth category. And I want something else. I want a writer with a voice that is unique and recognizable. I don’t want them to sound like anybody else. And, if that means disregarding a few rules, that’s fine.
Case in point, I once read a review to a book that I greatly enjoyed – The City of Dreaming Books by German author Walter Moers. And the reviewer was saying that if they were the editor, they would have cut a large chunk of the book that mostly consisted in the description of a town (seen from the character’s point of view, so definitely shown and not told) and how the character spent a mostly uneventful day there. Now, those who have read The City of Dreaming Books will find this highly ironic since a lot of the book throws not so subtle jabs at editors and publishers and so-called literary experts whose opinions sometimes do more harm than good to the publishing industry. Apart from that, my only thought after reading this review was: Thank goodness you were not the editor. Because that would have been a great loss.
Let me propose an experiment to you. Pick a book – it could be one you are writing, one you are reading or have read, it could even be The Last Survivors – and choose a passage from it. Then give it to five different people and ask each of them to find five strong points and five weak points. I guarantee that you will get five completely different answers and that, while for some the strong and weak points might overlap, there will be cases when a weak point in one list is considered a strong point in another. And vice-versa. Different people like different things.
There is another thing that I have realized while browsing through articles on how to plot a novel and create conflict and so forth. Many of these articles write from a strictly English/American perspective. But we are living more and more in an international cross-cultural setting. More and more foreign books are being translated into English and some writers even choose to write an English edition in the hopes of reaching a more international setting. Why ask them to stick to a single style and pattern? I have realized this might not be right while reading the submission guidelines of a short story magazine, where the editor encouraged writers to say they were from another country, since that might mean their style of crafting a story might be different and should not be disregarded simply because it sounded odd. I liked that. The place is definitely on my to-submit list.
At the beginning I promised I was not going to completely disregard creative writing courses and other types of feedback, but so far, my arguments seem to be doing just that. The truth is, what I am trying to say is that writing guidelines should be just that. Guidelines. A writer can choose to follow them or not. It depends on the story you are writing, on the message you want to tell, on how much would be lost if you changed your original script because bestselling writer X. has said you should do this and not that in their latest masterclass. Sure, you not following the guidelines might get you published a little later, but then again, we can all give plenty of examples of good books which were rejected several times (Harry Potter, anyone?).
To me, crafting a story is something uniquely personal. I might ask for advice, I might follow some, but I will always try to stay true to myself (this, of course, does not refer to specific plot holes that I might have missed/left unexplained. Those I definitely try to follow through). At the end of the day, if one reader has found something of value in what I write, that’s quite enough for me. The rest can attend to itself.
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