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Rules You Follow when Writing

The_Idler said:
best thing about the english language is its infinite flexibility.
it screeches in my brain, when a word is repeated too soon.

It sounds horrible. Stupid.

even writing my physics or chem coursework,
sometimes i spend ages just stuck, trying to think of a good alternative,
so i don't have to repeat a word and sound like one of those lame catch-phrasing public speakers.

adjectives, they definitely lose impact and relevance, if repeated too soon, especially in a different context.

(elegant suddenly becomes a bit too general, if you use it to describe a tree, one minute, and a car, the next.
it seems to be less descriptive, with regard to one or the other.
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I definitely agree with you in terms of repeating adjectives.

However, I think there's a case for nouns to be repeated when you're referring to the 'same thing'. Otherwise a stream of synonyms can become confusing / annoying.

And there's nothing worse than cycling through a thousand synonyms for 'said' when writing dialogue (e.g. stated, remarked, asserted, expressed, replied, etc.). Some hack editors love to do this. 8) If you feel you have to use a pronoun and participle for attribution (i.e. to clarify who's speaking), just stick with 'said'. Maybe there are occasions where the context demands something else ('asked', 'screamed', etc.). Then again, why use 'asked' when a question mark will suffice? Why use 'screamed' if you can create the effect of screaming in other ways? Dialogue should be kept as uncluttered as possible for maximum effect.
 
I agree with you, (Wordy). The tone of dialogue should be strong enough to indicate the way in which it is spoken. Carver did a great job of avoiding the overly descriptive dialogue tags. Imo, repetition > elegant variation.
 
Other than the rules of grammar I am a firm believer in "raw". Just write, the more correcting and thinking you do the more stale and machine-like the piece becomes.
 
Yes, poetry is often about breaking the rules of proper grammar

So u gotta know the rules well and then purposefully break them, I like that, but that only goes for poetry.

Following proper rules of grammar, like Lysis said, is totally necessary if u want to write on the professional level. Sure if u want to write in your BL blog or journal following rules isn't necessary but if u want to be taken seriously in the professional world u better have good grammatical structure. Good editor is key.

That being said. also a lot of what we think is wrong in language is actually not. For example a lot of African American dialect is right, even thou most of us don't use it. Language evolves. It's not what's written in grammar books but it's what native speakers speak that's correct.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
I don't like this rule very much. I'm taking a Master's level grammar class right now and my professor said passive is a very important part of writing. So don't think of it as passive vs active. Just which ever one fits best. It has been discouraged for so long by teachers. Makes me think of the rule "don't end a sentence with a preposition" which is total BS. Ending sentences with prepositions is totally correct.

I like this thread. It's a good idea to have a thread like this.
 
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InTherapy82 said:
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
I don't like this rule very much. I'm taking a Master's level grammar class right now and my professor said passive is a very important part of writing. So don't think of it as passive vs active. Just which ever one fits best.
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You make a good point. When you think about it though, Orwell isn't saying that the passive should never be used. ;) Sometimes the passive is necessary, but there's a tendency to use it when the active would suffice. And let's face it, the active is more concise and direct.

In case anyone's not sure of the distinction...

Active voice = John threw the ball.
Passive voice = The ball was thrown by John.
 
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Bumping this wonderful and very helpful thread.

I understand that different genres of writing have different sets of "rule(s)," but in my experience, if you're truly groundbreaking on ANY level, you can break as many rules as you fucking want.
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True. Somewhat.
 
maintain variation in sentence length and the number of clauses per sentence

strong verbs > the usual phrasings

avoid commas. in line-break poetry, particularly avoid commas at the ends of lines, where the break usually suffices as punctuation

vary the subject of sentences

long, dense paragraphs are difficult to read and tend to work better as multiple, shorter paragraphs. disclaimer: this is a more contemporary school of thought

titles should not only summarize, but also clarify one or several component(s) of a piece. at least, in theory...

using iambs, for whatever reason (i personally don't know why this is), tend to smooth out sentences that don't "flow"

imagery isn't always neccisary in poetry (i cite michaux, joubert, et al)

language often indicates meaning better than annotative definitions do. disclaimer: this is a bit of a post-modern/l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e sort of theory, but it def has roots in traditional lyric verse

maybe i'll think of more, idk...
 
here are some pretty lousy examples; my mind isn’t working properly right now, sorry.

“i ran quickly to the store” vs. “i dashed to the store”

“we talked in depth about snowmen” vs. “we discussed snowmen”

“i go into the house very quietly and sneakily” vs. “i mouse into the house”

“i subtly took note of the gun in his pocket” vs. “i spied the gun in his pocket”

idk, actually those are all pretty awful examples. i bet someone else can offer better ones. sorry :(

tbh, this "rule" is similar to the active>passive one. that is to say, depending on the voice of the narrator, the tone of the piece, the structural/narrative circumstances, etc, it might not be “true”. it’s just a general more-often-than-not sort of thing.

i'm no authority on anything, though. i probably shouldn't have listed those rules in the first place...

anyway, i personally believe that being a good writer is all about understanding the traditional “rules”, practicing them, mastering them, and then forgetting all that nonsense and just doing your own thing.

rules exist to be broken, imo.
especially in art.
 
Do not use contractions unless a character speaks with a specific vernacular.

Never try to force messages or deeper meaning into your writing. Let them form for themselves or they will sound forced and artificial.
 
^^ ya, MynameisnotDeja, i agree with you wholeheartedly.

the second point that tanuki-sama made is KEY tho. unless you're writing something like "the jungle" or "animal farm" etc., you gotta let the piece decide what the "meaning" is and the "themes" are.

but i think once you've written the piece and identified the bigger picture issues, it's important to expand upon them in subsequent drafts. in poetry, i think this is critical. like, what i mean is, you gotta let the poem tell you what it's about, yes. but after that, you need to help it along in expressing it's deeper "meaning". that's one of the most important aspects of poetic revision, really, imo.

some recommended reading on this subject (for poetry), imo, would be ted kooser's "poetry manual of home repair". so many of the essays in that collection deal with this very topic. (that's not to say that i'm a fan of ted kooser and the "plain-speak" poets, lol...)

also, i'm thinking a few of the essays towards the end of hoagland's "real sofistikashun". he talks a lot about this issue of "finding" the meaning in the poem and "cultivating" it.

i'll edit this response and give you specific chapters from it, or see if i can find the essays online.
 
Contractions are used to make speaking easier. When used in anything beyond conceptual or conversational writing it bogs it down and makes it read like shit. No wabi. You all can go suck a lemon.
 
I certainly was. I'm going to avoid posting in the touchy. humorless, broken sarcasm detectored, sections of the fora from now on. Cheers.
 
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