I am a rule collector. As a writer I have harvested, memorized, digested such important tools as POV, character development, scene description, and the obligatory use farther instead of further. I post sticky notes reminding me to show not tell emotions and to keep my heroine’s conflicts in mind. One such saying sits framed on my desk…good writing is supposed to evoke the sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. I am the guardian of such regulations, gathering them around me as I sit to write. Although there are times when they feel like sinister keepers. 

This became clear to me when I had an old friend send me eight pages it had taken him a year to write. I smiled. Finally, here was someone who knew less than I did. My fingers flew over his tender composition as my red notes punctuated his e-mail. Pleased with my dissection of his work, I added that he could call me if he needed further help from a more seasoned writer. (I didn’t actually write seasoned, but I certainly felt it.) 

A week later, he called me with questions about my glib introduction to the required rules of writing. I guess I didn’t explain myself clearly enough. I launched into head hopping, hero archetypes, motivations, and the shabby use of adverbs. I quoted my framed saying about feeling the rain fall, oozing the confidence that comes from knowing a set of memorized laws.

“But doesn’t that ever…discourage you?” 

“The rules?  Oh no, I am completely challenged to become a better writer”…blah, blah, blah. I filled his ears with my fresh-from-the-trenches-new-writer-optimism, and the idea if another author beats you up with this is the way it’s done, you’ll be a better writer because of it. “Send me whatever else you’ve written.” 

“Oh, well…I don’t know how serious I am about this…” 

A week later, as I perused through my books on how to be a better writer, I wondered how many more of these will I need to study?  How many more guidelines must I ingest before it flows out of me onto the paper?  Then I remembered my words to my friend. The way I had plummeted him with the rules. I had crushed him. Squeezing out of him every creative fiber, every fledging desire to create stories with my arsenal of obligations.  

The truth is…I hadn’t touched my own computer in a month. It’s summer, the kids are home, too hard to concentrate, but I knew those weren’t the real reasons. It was those three-headed monsters that sit on my shoulder and pester me…

“Did you do that accent right?”

“When are you going to get your grammar straight?”

“That conflict is so wimpy.”

“Hello! That’s showing instead of telling!”

“You’ve switched POV again.”   

I had done to him what these annoying taskmasters had done to me—allowed the regulations of composition to overcome the reason I write.  

I write because sharing the stories in my head is fulfilling.

I write because I like creating characters that I control.

I write because I’m obsessed with English history.

I write because I love it when my characters take over and I have to follow them, frantically tapping on my laptop.

It’s not about the rules. Writing is about the need, the longing, and the art of telling a story. It’s about getting lost in an 1880’s dusty cowboy town with a broken wagon and a rattlesnake at your heels, or being kidnapped by an arrogant Scottish laird and forced to wed at dirk point. It’s about stirring up emotions in your reader. It’s about giving them hope, and light, and wisdom.

I will keep all the rules I have learned in a jar at the end of the table. To be used when needed. I also need to call my friend and tell him one more thing about writing…be aware of the rules, but don't let them strangle your passion.