Rules Are Meant To Be Broken

Written by Charles Dyer

If you hearken back to your elementary school English classes or even a high school course, you will probably hear the voice of your teacher saying, “Do NOT start a sentence with ‘and,’ ‘but,’ or ‘so.’ Don’t do it!” It was drilled into your budding writer’s brain. I still remember the red marks on my papers. I wince at the thought.

Then came the shock of college writing.

After years of writing essays, reports, and analyses, college professors spouted blasphemy to my face. My hands trembled as I started placing ‘And’ at the beginning of sentences. I could feel the shadows of former English teachers collectively reaching for a red pen to strike down the nonsense I was committing on the page.

My world was turned upside down, and suddenly conjunctions were foreign to me. What was real? What was a farce? Were my English teachers uneducated? Are my professors playing a cruel joke on me?

If you, reader, are anything like me, you have experienced this kind of literary existentialism.

As I wrote more and more in college, I realized that this rule-breaking was common. Experimental writing was okay- encouraged even. It wasn’t that college professors didn’t abide by the rules of writing or that they didn’t understand them. It was precisely because they knew and understood the rules of writing that allowed them to throw the rules to the wind when they wrote.

Rules are meant to be broken in writing, but rules are necessary to a writer’s foundation. How can one break a rule purposefully if one is unaware of said rule? Hint: one can’t!

As you develop your writing and your unique writing style, you’ll notice ticks and patterns in the words, rhythm, and structure. These are your most precious belongings. Keep them close and nurture them. No one writes exactly like you. Your literary fingerprint is what makes you shine among the rough.

But (GASP) what if that style ends up breaking some rules like what I did at the beginning of this paragraph? Breathe. It’s okay. If your writing makes sense to a reader – if it entertains, informs, persuades, or mesmerizes the reader – you’re doing something right.

Develop your writing to the point that you break rules willfully and skillfully.

DISCLAIMER: Do not take this as a “get out of jail free” card. There are still consequences for breaking the rules of writing. Don’t become a complacent writer, breaking rules to save time and brain power. This must be purposeful rule-breaking, and you should always be prepared to defend your writing choices.

Some of the most powerful and entertaining writing is crafted with a little experimentation, but in order to experiment, a writer must know what traditional or typical writing looks like. Once you know where the ground is, you’ll know which way is up. Then, you can write the stars. Cheesy? Yes. True? I’d bet my career on it.