Writing Writing rules (other than show don't tell) discussion.

[RepresentingWrath]

This thread was supposed to come out a lot earlier, but I kept forgetting about it. There are a lot of threads about "show don't tell". This horse was beaten to death more times than I've tried to revive drama on SH forums. So I thought of kickstarting a discussion in a thread, or series of threads, where we talk about writing 'rules'.

I will start with a rule I saw for the first time on SHF 3 or 4 years ago. You never start your story with protagonist waking up. What is your opinion on this? What other rules are overshadowed by "show don't tell"? Are there any good 'rules' or guidelines?

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Waking up is just kind of boring probably. I know about the rule where you don't start with a dream because it's cringe. You hook in the reader, only to tell them "nope, it was a dream."

Write for your chosen audience is another one. Yeah, we all want to write a story we will enjoy, but it's meaningless if you want to get plenty of readers and keep those readers engaged. So write for the audience that you chose.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Waking up is just kind of boring probably.

Depends on where MC wakes up though, or am I wrong? For example, what if MC wakes up in a coffin, yet MC is NOT a vampire!

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Depends on where MC wakes up though, or am I wrong? For example, what if MC wakes up in a coffin, yet MC is NOT a vampire!

Rules are more of guidelines anyway. Most of the time, these rules exist so people aren't making simple mistakes. I would prefer if people explained principles behind rules to beginners.

For example, if the waking up thing was based on the principle of not wanting a boring start, why not explain that principle? If the dream beginning is based on the principle of destroying reader expectations/satisfaction, why not explain the principle? Examples can be hard for beginners to understand without context, and most rules are examples without the context of why.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Rules are more of guidelines anyway. Most of the time, these rules exist so people aren't making simple mistakes. I would prefer if people explained principles behind rules to beginners.

For example, if the waking up thing was based on the principle of not wanting a boring start, why not explain that principle? If the dream beginning is based on the principle of destroying reader expectations/satisfaction, why not explain the principle? Examples can be hard for beginners to understand without context, and most rules are examples without the context of why.

I agree.

 

[Azamukul]

I mean... Necroepilogos did it REALLY well, but then again that story is all round Peak writing.

 

[Gray_Mann]

I've never heard someone call it a rule, but it was considered poor form for description techniques:

Never use a person-looking-in-a-mirror-scene to visually describe them. I don't see the problem, but I've heard it disparages a lot and even read a writing article that called it a "problematic descriptor technique," for whatever reason.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Never use a person-looking-in-a-mirror-scene to visually describe them. I don't see the problem, but I've heard it disparages a lot and even read a writing article that called it a "problematic descriptor technique," for whatever reason.

Now I'm curious, what is the reason behind this?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I've never heard someone call it a rule, but it was considered poor form for description techniques:

Never use a person-looking-in-a-mirror-scene to visually describe them. I don't see the problem, but I've heard it disparages a lot and even read a writing article that called it a "problematic descriptor technique," for whatever reason.

While I can understand this in general, in cases where a character winds up in a different body this may be the best way to introduce them (I used it myself in Strange Awakening - but then, it is a first-person story; in a third-person story it would be very different, and probably a little creepy).

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I've never heard someone call it a rule, but it was considered poor form for description techniques:

Never use a person-looking-in-a-mirror-scene to visually describe them. I don't see the problem, but I've heard it disparages a lot and even read a writing article that called it a "problematic descriptor technique," for whatever reason.

I imagine that it's lazy and expected. It's also probably overdone. It's an easy way to have the character describe themselves. By the way, I did it anyway in VP.

 

[okashihime]

Depends on where MC wakes up though, or am I wrong? For example, what if MC wakes up in a coffin, yet MC is NOT a vampire!

It's more like: "Don't start with MC waking up from a normal sleep to a normal morning routine."

Now, if you want to have the MC wake up hanging upside down, tied to a tree, while a group of cannibals prepare a cookpot and shapen knifes. That's more than fine, I guess.

For me this is more of a personal rule:

Don't use "someone did something as something else happened." < - Pet peeve. Drives me insane. xD

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Depends on where MC wakes up though, or am I wrong? For example, what if MC wakes up in a coffin, yet MC is NOT a vampire!

Or Abby Sciuto on NCIS (her foldaway bed was for guests, and she slept in a coffin).

 

[Tempokai]

Never use a person-looking-in-a-mirror-scene to visually describe them. I don't see the problem, but I've heard it disparages a lot and even read a writing article that called it a "problematic descriptor technique," for whatever reason.

It's probably said because the "looking at the mirror" only works well in the visual storytelling. There's a reason why it's perfectly acceptable and effective in the visual media. Try to tell that in words and you lose the effect that the visual media is showing. I'm thinking that rule born like that: writer sees visual media do it -> writes it down -> someone reads it, cringes -> the "rule" is born.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

It's more like: "Don't start with MC waking up from a normal sleep to a normal morning routine."

Now, if you want to have the MC wake up hanging upside down, tied to a tree, while a group of cannibals prepare a cookpot and shapen knifes. That's more than fine, I guess.

That's a very good point. Alas, I saw variations of this rule that were all roughly the same as the one I wrote. "Don't start your story with protagonist waking up."

For me this is more of a personal rule:

Don't use "someone did something as something else happened." < - Pet peeve. Drives me insane. xD

So you never do it yoursel?

 

[LilRora]

I will start with a rule I saw for the first time on SHF 3 or 4 years ago. You never start your story with protagonist waking up. What is your opinion on this?

I genuinely don't get this rule. I can understand that it's been used a lot or it's boring or it's a missed opportunity for something more interesting, but it's one of the simplest ways to start a story without cutting into a flow of events.

There's a very good reason why a ton of games do this. For games with plot it's a simple way to start from a blank slate and introduce the character while building the environment organically, instead of throwing the player into some arbitrary starting point which doesn't provide any context and any time to learn about the characters. For stories, it's basically the same thing - it's a natural way to start telling a story together with the character.

I think most of those rules are not really rules. They're just largely arbitrary selection of issues people had with stories and turned into "rules" because they had enough influence for people to remember.

I never liked and will never* like rules that state not to do something specific without further explanation. That's a dumb limitation for no reason. Instead, one should explain what the goal is and how to achieve it, or what should not happen and how to avoid it - a good rule is a combination of both, so what something (like starting the story with the mc waking up) does, what it should do instead, and how to achieve that.

*The only exception to this are rules that relate to grammar and everything else in that vein, because there are things that are objective mistakes, or are not clear, or for some other reason worsen the reading experience of an average person. Even for those, however, it is better to provide an explanation as to why something shouldn't be done.

 

[Gray_Mann]

Now I'm curious, what is the reason behind this?

I imagine that it's lazy and expected. It's also probably overdone. It's an easy way to have the character describe themselves. By the way, I did it anyway in VP.

While I can understand this in general, in cases where a character winds up in a different body this may be the best way to introduce them (I used it myself in Strange Awakening - but then, it is a first-person story; in a third-person story it would be very different, and probably a little creepy).

I don't see a problem with it personally. I find it to be a quick and simple way of getting through a scene that describes the MC's physical appearance,and then quickly moving on. Lazy and overdone? Perhaps. But they don't call some things "oldies but goodies" for no reason right?

To me, if you are trying to be unique, creative, and witty about every minor detail of a story, than my question would be this: Who are you trying to impress? Yourself or the reader? Let's be honest, the average reader today, isn't smart enough to comprehend these little things, and certainly lacks the attention span to bother even if they did. Why work harder for no apparent gain?

 

[Corty]

Corty Rule #1: Simply having a fun-sounding story premise is not enough. You need more than that because if you jump into it, and then get through the first arc you found so awesome in your head, you will hit the next phase:

“Now what?”

If you can’t answer yourself how your story would play out after the cool idea played its introductory part, you need more time cooking before serving it up.

Or get assblasted on yelp reviews.

 

[okashihime]

So you never do it yoursel?

I try my best to avoid.
My issue is not really using "as" in that scenario. It is that more often than not, when writing it, the order of events is inverted, and the "reaction" happens before the "cause".

Here is a example:

I grinned as I looked at all the system alerts

It is mostly fine, but the "grin" is in response to seeing the alerts. MC is grinning before we know why they are grinning about. The other issue is that writing like this is "easy", a lot of people use it, a lot of text has it, and it turns into a bad habit. There are novels out there that each paragraph always describe using this structure. It gets... tiring. xD

I genuinely don't get this rule.

I read it somewhere that this comes from traditional published books, where you have to "convince" the agent/editor that your book is worth reading.

And for those people who have tons of books to go through looking for the next big hit, when the story starts with the "conventional waking up", the editor already knows they will have to go through all normal daily routines until the story starts, and that can be a lot of pages.

And like they say, time is money. Easier to just dismiss stories like that than spend hours reading a boring start in the hopes the story will be good, when the "start" already proved it wasn't good enough.

 

[beast_regards]

I am proud that my story starts with the protagonist waking up.

Normally, I am not too proud of my writing. After all, English is not my first language, and I have no formal education in writing, so, realistically, it couldn't be that good...

However, if I somehow violated some arbitrary rule that you made up, I am glad I violated it.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I read it somewhere that this comes from traditional published books, where you have to "convince" the agent/editor that your book is worth reading.

I think a lot of those rules come from traditional publishing, and forget about being adapted to WN format, they weren't even updated.