"The Sometimes Rule"
My new take on writing advice
Recently I was hiking with my other half and discussing a problem I’m having with a new manuscript I’m writing, in which the scene I’d been conceptualizing as the novel’s midpoint is coming too late in the story.
Explaining all of this to a poet turns out to be a complicated undertaking. Poetry has craft elements, but those rules tend to be more open and variable than that of fiction. (Are there poetry craft books about hitting the right beats, elements, or foundational points of a poem, the way there are for novels?) When I was talking through my plot problems, I had to take a few steps back. What did I mean by “midpoint”? What did I mean by “too late”? If there are “rules” about where in a narrative certain beats are “supposed” to hit, why those rules? Who made them? Who agreed to them? Why am I following them? What would happen if I broke them? Is this scene really taking place in the “wrong” place in the story, or is there a different way to think about the novel, its structure, and what the book is trying to accomplish? If there’s something that I gain by understanding narrative structure as a series of pivotal turning points that organize an ever-advancing chain of cause and effect, is there anything that I also lose by adhering too closely to this particular conception of what a book should be?
Maybe this should be a post about midpoints, and turning points, and pacing, and the work of fulfilling and subverting reader expectations. But what I actually wanted to write about was the turn this conversation took (a narrative pivot, if you will!), which wasn’t (alas) to solve my (possible) plotting problem, but which was to consider writing advice in terms of what I’d like to dub The Sometimes Rule.
The Sometime Rule: Writing advice and craft “rules” work a lot better if you add “sometimes” to the beginning of them.
Sometimes you should write every day.
Sometimes you should set the manuscript aside to give your mind a break from it.
Sometimes you should outline.
Sometimes you should write loosely, without a plan in mind.
Sometimes you should hit the beats in a story at the exact right time in the narrative.
Sometimes you should play with the expectations of story to create a new result.
Sometimes you should send your manuscript to outside readers for their feedback.
Sometimes you should follow your own instincts and not get too wrapped up in other people’s opinions.
Sometimes your central character’s goal needs complicating to be more interesting and layered.
Sometimes your central character’s goal needs simplifying to be more direct and concrete.
Sometimes your secondary characters need fleshing out.
Sometimes your secondary characters are taking over too much.
Sometimes you need more showing.
Sometimes you need more telling.
Sometimes you should ruthlessly cut your adverbs. But not always!
Sometimes “said” is the best dialogue tag. But not always!
Sometimes cutting your prologue will make the whole book stronger. But not always!
But not always!
Maybe this is obvious? But if you go through all the writing advice and craft books out there, my suspicion is that the advice and feedback and ideas about what should and shouldn’t happen in a story and in the writing of it start to make a lot more sense if you mentally tack on a “sometimes” at the beginning of every so-called requirement.
This is different from saying there are no rules, or that the rules are all wrong, or that you shouldn’t follow any writing or craft conventions. There’s a lot of tried and true wisdom out there about how to make a book a book, whatever your genre and approach. I’d like to think I’m able to share some of it here! And there are certainly some hard and fast rules that are always rules, not sometimes rules. If you’re writing genre romance, you always need a happily ever after or else you’re writing a book with romantic elements, not a capital-R Romance Novel. Your protagonist probably does need a clearer goal. An over-reliance on wishy-washy metaphors is not a substitute for interesting writing and yes I will die on this hill.
But it’s easy to get caught up in a kind of paint-by-numbers approach, thinking there’s an answer and if you just do X, you’ll get Y outcome, or if you follow ABC that you read, you’ll wind up with a perfect book and all your writing problems will be solved. If you’re feeling stuck, or bombarded with feedback and different forms of (sometimes contradictory) advice, or advice that sounds good in theory but doesn’t work so great for you in practice, or advice that sounds terrible full stop, or you’re not sure how the advice you’re hearing applies to your writing in particular, what would happen if you applied The Sometimes Rule and interpreted the advice with that “sometimes” in mind?
In many ways, this is similar to an earlier post I did about “How to Not Get Rejected,” whose answer (spoiler!!) is that it’s not about following key rules but about making sure that what you’re doing works for your story in the way that you’re telling it. The two posts are perhaps in conversation with each other, about taking writing advice not as gospel, but as tricks and tools that are sometimes—but not always!—exactly what you need.
I also think it’s important to remember that the best writing teacher is always (not sometimes, but always!!) other books, to see how other authors have tackled similar problems or addressed similar situations in their work:
This doesn’t mean you do exactly what another author does, but that with everything you’re writing, everything you’re reading, everything you’re working on, you’re adding more tools to your writing toolkit so that you have a range of things to use, and use adeptly, depending on the context.
Send me your burning questions about writing and publishing, and whatever you’re working on, don’t give up!
Kate