Authors Breaking the “Rules” of Writing in Their Books

I am currently reading a popular middle grade series: The Guardians of Ga’Hoole. In one of the books, I noticed the author broke one of the “rules” of writing. In this particular chapter I read, the author switched point-of-view (POV) between two characters. I have been told that, for middle grade books, this particular thing is bad.

 

That particular sentiment was made loud and clear by Karen Cioffi in her blog post "Kid's Stories – Should They All Become Books?" on the site, Writers on the Move.  

 

In her post, she writes:

 

"You’re writing a picture book or chapter book and have more than one point-of-view (POV).

 

This can happen when you have two or more main characters in your story or it can happen if you have head-hopping in your story.

 

Let’s go back a step and define POV. Every story has to be told from someone’s perspective. In other words, who is the story about.

 

It’s essential in young children’s writing that you clearly define who the protagonist (main character) is. And, there should only be one.

 

Jerry Jenkins, author of over 190 books, says he avoids slipping into an omniscient viewpoint “by imagining my Point of View or Perspective Character as my camera—I’m limited to writing only what my character ‘camera’ sees, hears, and knows.”

 

So, POV is a critical element of your story. Check to make sure you have only one POV and its that of the protagonist."

 

Oops.

 

When I learned that you should not have more than one point-of-view in a chapter of a book that is specifically written for young readers, I couldn’t help but wince. That’s actually something I did in a middle grade book I wrote years ago called The GHOST Group. This particular book is a series. In the first two installments, that head-hopping did happen. This particular book has not sold well, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of that very thing.

 

While this happened in the old books of the series, it has certainly not occurred in the following books. With the books I am currently writing in this series, each chapter is written in one character’s point-of-view.

 

I am not alone in breaking a “rule” in writing my books. Other authors have broken the rules of writing with their books, but saw different results. Cormac McCarthy didn’t use quotation marks for any of the dialogue in his novel, The Road. James Joyce had long, run-on sentences in his novel, Ulysses.

 

But if you REALLY want a good example of a book that broke the rules of writing, let us examine the novel, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Not only does the novel start with a prologue, but it has TWO first-person point-of-view characters and it is written in the present tense. And let us not forget that at one point, the author transitions to later in the day simply by writing "Later that evening."

 

But somehow or another, the author pulled it off. The story still worked, in some way. Sure, the reading experience may have been jarring for some, but the author managed to write the story in a way that was acceptable for publication.

 

Not only this, but she got away with it – just as several other authors “got away with” breaking the rules of writing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing! In fact, I adore some of the books I learned "broke the rules" of writing, such as The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and all of the Harry Potter books authored by J.K. Rowling. Their books were still accepted by the reading public, with some of them becoming bestsellers and being turned into movies.

 

In case you are wondering what the “rules” of writing are, here are some of them which I came across in my research for this article:

 

·        Write what you know.

·        Write a novel with only one or two POVs.

·        No prologues.

·        Don’t start a chapter with the weather.

·        Show, don’t tell.

·        Proper grammar and punctuation throughout the book.

·        No made-up words.

·        You must be an expert or authority on your book’s subject.

·        Start a chapter in the middle of action.

·        Never publish a first draft.

 

One writer I know pointed out that it didn’t make sense that we writers cannot include made-up words or that it’s impossible to write only what we know if we write science fiction and fantasy. Good point! It may seem that a lot of those rules are falling by the wayside these days, especially the “write what you know” rule. I myself have broken that rule many times with my nonfiction books, in which I have had to do extensive research for in order to write them! That alone kept me from shopping such books around to big name publishers, because I am not an “authority” on that book’s topic.

 

Breaking the rules of writing is not new for authors. Lots of authors have done this. When I was reading "Five Books That Broke Sacred Writing Rules (And Yet We Love Them)" by Kathleen Baldwin, one commenter pointed out:

 

"How about Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon?

 

The rule it breaks? A constant barrage of massive infodumps on very diverse subjects that are sure to bore the hell out of some readers. The book is constantly telling instead of showing."

 

Reading over her article, there were only two books I was familiar with in which I agreed with her opinion about the "rules" that were broken. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one such book, in which she says there are "multiple regional dialects that are challenging to understand." No kidding! This is another one of the books which I am currently reading. In one chapter, the runaway slave, Jim, has a VERY regional dialect, and even though I could slightly grasp what words he meant to say, his was a dialogue that was still difficult to read. (The funny thing is, though, that the more I read his dialogue, the more I caught on to understanding it.)

 

In some respects, perhaps there really cannot be any “rules” for writing fiction. After all, fiction is a product of a person’s creativity, and part of that creativity has a lot to do with how a story is told. Even so, as writers, we have a responsibility to write our work with proper grammar, punctuation and correct spelling. Without those writing elements, some readers may struggle to read our work.

 

The fact is that there are all kinds of books written in all kinds of ways. Some authors have succeeded despite breaking the rules of writing, while the more unknown authors still have to write according to the rules just to get their foot in the door. If an unknown writer manages to sell a book that is yet another example of a book that has broken the rules of writing, and the book does well, then perhaps that can only mean we readers are growing more receptive to books written in a way we are not yet comfortable with but willing to accept.