No "Write" Way Forum Obey the Rules

C. Rose	Obey the Rules 9 Years Ago Obey the rules of grammar, usage and punctuation. Creative writers should use language inventively, but they do not have a license to ignore the basic rules of good English. Readers will be patient with a demanding stylistic technique (like stream-of-consciousness narration) as long as the rewards it offers justify the work of reading it. Hold up your end of the bargain, and help the reader wherever possible. Carelessness is not art. Excerpt from Keable's Guide What do you think? Do you obey the rules? Do you think everyone should obey the rules? What do you think of those who don't obey the rules? In what context would you disobey the rules?
LawrenceRaybon	Re: Obey the Rules 9 Years Ago Originally posted by C. Rose Obey the rules of grammar, usage and punctuation. Creative writers should use language inventively, but they do not have a license to ignore the basic rules of good English. Readers will be patient with a demanding stylistic technique (like stream-of-consciousness narration) as long as the rewards it offers justify the work of reading it. Hold up your end of the bargain, and help the reader wherever possible. Carelessness is not art. Excerpt from Keable's Guide What do you think? Do you obey the rules? Do you think everyone should obey the rules? What do you think of those who don't obey the rules? In what context would you disobey the rules? Writers should definitely obey the rules as much as possible. Bending the rules for stylistic choices is okay, but being too lazy to proofread is not a stylistic choice! When you obey the rules normally, you can then use bending the rules to add depth and meaning to your work. For example I am normally a stickler for the rules and if someone points out a mistake in one of my pieces I fix it as soon as I can. Recently I wrote a poem called 'A Bad Poem' it has 40+ mistakes in it, and that is the point! If all my pieces had lots of mistakes it would just look like another crappy poem. But you can look at my other work and see I don't normally make mistakes, so the mistakes in 'A Bad Poem' must be intentional. This means the statement I'm making in 'A Bad Poem' is very clear, all because I mostly follow the rules! I have neither patience nor respect for those who willfully ignore the rules while trying to pass off their laziness for 'poetic licence'. I had a person message me that they purposely misspelled a lot of words in their pieces because that is their 'style'. I asked them what the intent of their 'style' was, or what they were trying to convey. They said that it was meant to say that spelling doesn't really matter. I asked 'Why doesn't it matter?' and they replied by blocking me. I laughed because they had a point but didn't know it. Just looking at the advent of the written English language proves that spelling at least in part doesn't matter, writing started out phonetic and there were multiple spellings for most words. It only really matters that you get your message across. But, the point is that the person that messaged me was full of crap and just lazy; they were not actually trying to tackle a deeper aspect of language. And because all their work is full of spelling, punctuation and grammar errors, if they ever decided to actually tackle a deeper subject using purposeful 'mistakes' their readers likely wouldn't get the added layer of meaning and just think it's another piece full of errors. At the end of the day it's our job as writers to clearly and engagingly convey what our pieces are about. Anything that gets in the way of that should be left by the wayside. Grammar, spelling and punctuation rules were made specifically to help our writing be clear, by misusing them we are shooting ourselves in the metaphorical foot. At least that's what I think! TTFN, Lawrence
WhereItResides	Re: Obey the Rules 9 Years Ago I myself don't tend to break the rules. But there are times you have to in order to fit certain criteria. Writing in the view of a small child is the most prevalent where breaking the rules is necessary. Small children will often make mistakes when writing and talking and as writers, accurately conveying the child is far more important than the rules. Along with children, we have to break those rules sometime to accurately portray an accent or speech pattern. An immigrant who is still learning English is not going to speak it perfectly and it is important to portray that. That being said, there is a one rule actually be able to break the rule. You have to know and understand the rules. As a writer, even when we write a child or an accent, we have to be aware of the grammatically correct way to write that. Under normal circumstances we have to follow the rules, they are there for a reason. They keep things coherent and orderly. But they don't count for everything, and therefore should be broken for the sake of a character, but only if you actually know and understand the rule you are breaking.