I had a discussion last night about the rubrics of writing. Some say rules and structure bar creative expression and prevent originality. Others say structure shows us how to write, and we must learn the rules before we can break them.
Well, when searching for truth I like to look first for motives. What is the motive, or reason, for writing? In most cases, we write to relay information. We write to solve a problem or to make a point. We write to send a message, even if it is just to ourselves.
What do we hope will happen with that message? We hope it will be received and understood.
Probably our best chance for writing a message that is clear enough to be understood is to abide by a certain set of conventions.
Oh, maybe some invisible literary power structure (like Strunk & White) is lording over us, demanding we conform to stylistic peccadilloes. I had one editor who hated the word “that” and another professor who warned against the use of “is.” In journalism school we were taught to never say “over” when you really mean “more than,” and in academia “since” can never substitute for “because.” Stephen King said “the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Then there are archaic rules, such as “never end a sentence with a preposition,” which we are now free to leave behind. I personally don’t like to see too many “ing” words in one sentence.
Who’s right? Everyone, and no one. Good writers, and moreover good editors, are critical and analytical, but not infallible.
I know many writers who have felt hindered by the arbitrary critique of a particular editor or teacher, who have had to spend years trying to forget policies and throw away Jello molds that interfere with the genuine pouring out of words.
Rules can be a bitch. Rules can be broken. Yet we do need rules for punctuation and grammar and such to help us write the cleanest copy possible—to transmit our message. There are, of course, writers who shuck convention in all the right ways. Bravo to them.
Writing is a form of art. However, it is also a practical matter. And let’s remember that most artists (painters, musicians, actors, sculptors) undergo some sort of training to learn technique and style. You know what else most artists do? They study other artists. And writers, through reading, are able to intuit much about techniques and styles of writing.
You must learn all the rules and structure and various styles. Meanwhile, you try to put it away and focus instead on the content of your message.
I read something related from Stanley Fish in his book “How to Write a Sentence.”
“But if one understands that a sentence is a structure of logical relationships and that the number of relationships involved is finite, one understands too that there is only one error to worry about, the error of being illogical, and only one rule to follow: make sure that every component of your sentence is related to the other components in a way that is clear and unambiguous (unless ambiguity is what you are aiming at).”
Fish says clear and logical writing is achieved not through knowledge of rules but through understanding relationships between words, phrases, and clauses.
I think we understand (and learn to create) relationships between words, phrases, and clauses through an ongoing process: learning rules, being made to abide structure, breaking rules, reshaping structure, reading, writing, receiving critique, reading some more, rewriting, publishing, learning more rules, devising new structures, reading more, writing more, subjecting our work to editors and friends, reading, writing, rewriting, trying new styles, trying old styles, reading, writing, looking at your own early work and thinking it’s shit, reading more, writing more, publishing more…
Look, I just used about 25 “ing” words in one sentence. Broke my own rule, yet all is well.
