by Elton Gahr

Created on: May 13, 2009

W. Somerset Maughan once said, "There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." And this is about as true as you can get when you are looking for writing rules. We all want to know the secret to perfect writing. The rules that will make the perfect novels. They must be out there, a formula that can be applied to any story to create the perfect novel. Sadly, as Somerset told us, if these rules do exist we don't know them.

What we do have a principles that are true of many things in life. Rules if we want to call them that, but rules that aren't nearly as easy or fun as the ones we are looking for.

The first of this rules that we don't really want to know is that the key to good writing is hard work. We can all improve our writing, and though we may never match the level of Hemmingway or Shakespeare we can't know that until we match their level of commitment. What level of commitment is that? Hemmingway rewrote "A Farwell to Arms" 39 times before he was satisfied and while I would never suggest someone spend that much time on a single story I would suggest that if you want to be the best you have to work harder than anyone else.

The second of these rules is that your work will never be perfect. Again this isn't fun to hear and it's not as exciting as other rules of writing but it is vital to understand. Work hard but learn to understand when to stop because the story can always be tweaked the ideas can always be improved.

What about all the other rules? The pieces of advice that writers pass around to each other? The basics of storytelling, the three act structure, the idea of showing not telling, the use of the five senses, even the rules of grammar. They are useful, and should be understood as well as possible because without a complete understanding of them you won't know when the correct time to completely disregard them is.

Of special note are those writing rules that have nothing to do with writing. Rules of business and submission do not fall into the know when to break them category. Submission is not an art, it is a rigidly structured formula that must be followed. Leave the art for your story and follow the rules when submitting.

The freedom of writing can sometimes be scary. As an artist with a blank canvas we seek structure and that structure comes in the form of writing rules. These rules are important and useful but remember that just like in all forms of art the best work comes not out of following the rules but out of understanding them so much better than others that you are able to break them in completely unthought-of of and yet beautiful way.

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