I’m bad with rules. Really bad. I get too close to a rule and I itch to reach out and break it. If something can’t be said, I can barely think of anything else to say. If it mustn’t be done, I have to sit on my hands to keep from doing it. The only way to cope is to give myself permission to smash the rule to bits. Once the rule is no longer “in force,” I can look at it rationally and decide whether I want to accept the consequences of breaking it.

Since everyone and their sister seems full of “rules” about writing, and since these are frequently presented in such concrete language as to invoke the worst of my contrarian nature, I’ve spent some time looking at the consequences of breaking the rules about writing.

My conclusion? Break any rule you want. Break two, or six. If.

Now, it’s one hell of an if, having mostly to do with what a writer is doing in the bits where they’re not breaking rules. There are, of course, also consequences.

Writing rules, at least the less arbitrary, more agreed-upon ones, are a codification of the contract between writer and reader as it has evolved through the ages. They’re a way of making sure the reader gets enough reward for the work they put into reading. So most of the rules are about not making your reader do too much work to reach the reward. Cut the flab, use simpler words wherever they’ll do, don’t switch POVs, watch your verb tenses, vary sentence length, keep characters sympathetic and their names distinctive, don’t lose sight of your conflict, don’t radically change tone–all designed to make the read easier.

There’s just one problem. If you read in any significant quantity, chances are that you’ve found a book that follows all the rules. It may well have bored you to tears. Why? Because it didn’t surprise you in any way.

On the other hand, that book with the antihero, the one with the delightful off-topic rambles or the intricate descriptions that put you fully in the scene, the one with the odd sentence structure that made you pay attention to every word, even that one that really had no plot–those were magic. Why?

Because the writer had enough control to know which rules they were breaking and how to follow the rules they were observing. That contract is all about work and rewards. Breaking a rule makes more work for the reader. The more rules a writer breaks, the more they must nail everything else. They must provide more reward. Apt language can sustain a book through a number of diversions, and great insight can pull readers through nearly any number of POV changes.

As I mentioned before, there are consequences, even beyond having to be better at everything else. For every rule, there is some percentage of a writer’s potential audience who cannot abide seeing the rule broken. Sometimes it’s the happy ending; sometimes the sympathetic character. No matter how good the rest of the book, a writer will lose these people by breaking their pet rule. It’s just going to happen.

But knowing that and knowing the extra work or skill it requires, if you want to break a cardinal rule of writing, go right ahead. I’m certainly not in any position to complain.

It doesn’t seem like it’s been a year, but it has. In celebration, you’re invited to enjoy my stories here. “Among the Trees” is new for this year.

Yesterday I wrote five hundred of the hardest working words I’ve ever strung together. I left a document open in the background and dropped in a line or two whenever I was waiting on a remote database. I added more at lunch, made some important decisions while sitting in a training session that turned out to be mostly review, and stayed a little late to finish and clean it up.

It’s not quite as brilliant this morning as I thought it was yesterday, but it’s still a good story. Even at that length, it’s only superficially simple. Some of the language hits directly at the reflexes. Backstory is hinted at but left largely to the reader. There is conflict without a villain. I’m a happy writer.

Then I got to lie on the floor upstairs with Ben and watch the lunar eclipse. How does it get better than this?

I had one of those moments today, when the big details of planning the next book start popping up and falling into place. The darn thing’s been simmering for months (since before I finished the last book last December) but hasn’t really felt substantial until now. I felt like I was short a subplot.

Yesterday I realized I was telling a story that put a nineteen-year-old boy and a sixteen-year-old girl with very different backgrounds in close proximity for a long period of time. Even with an alien chaperone, they’re going to at least explore the idea of romance. Duh. There will be flirting or fighting or (ideally) both.

Fourth plot line in place, I think I’ve got a book. Today seems to have proved it, as all the plot lines started to fill out and jostle for position. I’m not ready to start it yet (good, since I have a couple of shorts I want to finish before starting another long project), but I know where it all has to start. It won’t be long until I’ve figured out the order in which everything has to happen.

Now I just have to get that hula research done.

Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe appeared in 33 novels and 39 shorter works. He is one of literature’s most perfectly delineated creatures of habit. Some things I know about Nero Wolfe’s household:

1. Wolfe does not leave the brownstone.
2. Wolfe is not to be interrupted between 9 and 11 a.m., 4 and 6 p.m. each day, when he is in the plant rooms.
3. Wolfe will not discuss business over meals.
4. Food for Wolfe’s table is procured to his specifications.
5. Wolfe considers it an abomination for anyone to skip a meal.
6. Archie (assistant), Orrie (operative), Theodore (orchid tender), and Fritz (cook) work for Wolfe.
7. Archie requires eight hours of sleep to function.
8. Wolfe does not take Archie seriously when he speaks of getting married.
9. Wolfe does not shake hands.
10. Wolfe, being terrified of women, does not converse with them except in fulfilling the requirements of business.
11. Wolfe does not take cases, except when the bank balance is low and the fee is high.
12. Wolfe’s clients come to him.
13. Wolfe’s clients are innocent.
14. Wolfe does not allow himself to be used.
15. Wolfe, being a genius, determines the identity of the killer before Archie.
16. Wolfe does not use his operatives for any job requiring simple manpower. That is left to the police.
17. Archie and Wolfe maintain a strained relationship with the police, particularly with Inspector Cramer.
18. Cramer calls Archie by his last name.

I could go on, but that’s enough to make my point. If you’ve read more than one Nero Wolfe story, you should notice something about this list: every one of these rules has been broken. Stout kept his series fresh by never letting the routine become routine. Every single story he wrote happened on the edge of his characters’ normal lives. He never stopped messing with them.

Not a bad piece of advice for any fiction, really.

5. If you win big, enjoy! But remind yourself it will probably never happen again.

Oh, go read.

One of the standard pieces of advice for aspiring writers is to identify one’s self as a writer, claim it as part of one’s identity. I’ve always resisted doing that.

Part of my reaction is that I don’t like being tied down to a single identity. It feels like being a butterfly pinned to a board, wings outspread, and labeled. Every one I’ve seen like that was dead. Not that being alive in that situation appeals any more. I’ve spent a good chunk of my life flitting from display case to display case, and I want to be able to do it again if warranted.

The other reason not to identify myself as a writer is that I’m pretty sure I could stop, unlike most writers I know. Why don’t I? After all, writing is a vale of tears, self-torture, humiliation on demand, etc. ETC.

Yeah, right. This stuff is a hoot.

Where else in life do I get to make up as much nonsense as I like and persuade people to take it seriously? Where else can I march people around without worrying about hurt feelings and trampled rights? Where else can I funnel the creative urge, which makes me edgy and unsatisfied if not indulged, into something that has a shot making its way in the world? Where else can I stretch myself this much, learn and risk failure without real-world consequences?

And how much of that would change if I told myself I was a writer? How much more seriously would I have to take it if it were something I am instead of just something I do?

No thanks. I think I’ll stretch my wings a bit longer on my own before I go looking for that pin.