Down with the Rules?

Avoid unlikeable main characters. Show don’t tell. Lock your character into character. Tell your story forward. Pass on passive verbs. Say bye-bye to backstory. Nix the omniscient narrator and dodge the dreaded head hop. Always remember adjectives are lazy, exclamation points are evil, and adverbs are from the devil. And for goodness sake, don’t forget to cover the mirror—main characters can’t ever describe themselves.

Those are just a few of the writing rules we’re taught to follow.

Sometimes writing a story feels like stumbling through Dante’s Inferno. A lot of don’ts punctuated with a stern warning that you’ll be tossed into writer’s hell—an editor’s circular file—if you do.

So . . . why the rules? 

Jump over to Writers in the Storm: Down with the Rules? to find out!