The Subversive Act of Writing
Originally this article was going to include the idea best covered by a quote attributed to Pablo Picasso “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” The subversive act of taking ideas from other sources and making them your own. But great writers are not only thieves, they tend to be rule breakers.
We all know some rules are made to be broken, because they were poorly thought out in the first place, but many great authors have overturned the window of what is acceptable in writing by figuring out when a previously sacred rule should be broken. Now I’m not one of the greats, but I do love breaking rules. The minute someone tells me one I’m already wondering how I can break it. It’s a mini act of rebellion against the fusty old English teachers who tried to teach me grammar. I revel to know they’ll be turning in their metaphorical graves the moment I start a sentence with a conjunction, or use a sentence fragment. And yet it’s something that great authors do. All the time.
Not so long ago, I was teaching a class of young writers, and some of them started telling one of the more experienced students, “Hey, you can’t do that, it’s against the rules…” Ugh. Writers have one job, and that’s to tell our story the best way we can.
There is nothing else.
That means looking at our toolbox and finding the right tools for the job – not throwing out the wrench—or in this case, the first person point of view because somebody told you to only write in tight third person. (That’s writing in third person, but tightly within the bounds of a character’s perspective.) If everyone followed that “rule” the unreliable narrator would never exist.
There are hundreds more rules writers are supposed to follow, like:
- Don’t use passive sentences
- Don’t use filter words
- Don’t bore your reader
- Show don’t tell
- Have a likeable character
- Write what you know
- Don’t use adverbs
- Use proper spelling and grammar
- Don’t get to the end of your story and have it all be just a dream
Every single one of them will have exceptions.
A famous example of blatant rule breaking is Iain Banks’ story Feersum Endjinn. Iain wanted to tell a story about a nearly illiterate character, so he did the unthinkable, he made his readers wade through pages of phonetic writing. And it worked. Even though many people really hated the book because of this choice, I believe it was the best way of presenting that character.
Instead of wading through examples, which you can look up with the magic of the internet, I thought you might enjoy a quick writing exercise.
Choose a writing rule that you would never, ever break. (It doesn’t need to be from the list above.) Take a moment to mull over why the rule is so important.
Now, what would it take for you break to that rule? Can you think of a story, or a paragraph, in which the rule must be broken to truly work?
Once you’ve done this exercise—or if you’ve already done a variation of it—you have become a subversive writer. You’ve looked at the world, broken down its rules and taken another path. A path less travelled. Do not be surprised if you start to see the world differently. The rules you live with every day may start to seem poorly thought out, or even designed to oppress certain people.
One of my favourite authors, Ursula K. Le Guin said, “There is no more subversive act than the act of writing from a woman’s experience of life using a woman’s judgment.” I would expand that to include any person who has truly thought about rules, and how they should be broken to make something better.
So go on, break some rules—be subversive with your writing. It’s a lot of fun. And it’s freeing. If you check out my blurb for Quest, it’s pretty clear I’ve broken at least three popular rules, and that’s without knowing that it has in fact been written by an unreliable narrator. Seriously, unreliable narrators may be tricky, but they are the most fun.
Or, now that you know how subversive writing really is, don’t break any rules. What do I know about your story? When it comes to writing, there’s only one rule that I consider unbreakable: Tell your story the best way you can!
About A.J. Ponder
Sir Julius Vogel and NZSA award winning author, A.J. Ponder has a head full of monsters, and recklessly spills them out onto the written page. Beware dragons, dreadbeasts, taniwha, and small children—all are equally dangerous, and capable of treading on your heart – or tearing it, still beating, from your chest.
Blurb: Quest
Sylvalla escapes Avondale castle, and the life of a princess, in search of the adventure she’s always wanted.
Once found, adventure bites back.
Fortunately Sylvalla is not alone – Unfortunately, her new-found companions are less than heroic. Jonathan would rather make money. Dirk would rather live a long and happy life. And at 150, Old Capro would rather stop gallivanting about and harangue unsuspecting students about his glory days over a nice cup of tea.
Quest has everything, heroes, monsters, chases, escapes and a complete lack of true love.
A Guest Post by Ilona Slack, author of Chauns
Guest Post with Robert Eggleton
Rarity from the Hollow
An Introduction to Kindle Scout!
My name is Andrew Joyce and I write books for a living. I would like to thank Rosemarie for allowing me to be here today to promote my latest, Yellow Hair, which documents the injustices done to the Sioux Nation from their first treaty with the United States in 1805 through Wounded Knee in 1890. Every death, murder, battle, and outrage I write about actually took place. The historical figures that play a role in my fact-based tale of fiction were real people and I use their real names. Yellow Hair is an epic tale of adventure, family, love, and hate that spans most of the 19th century.
I want to say that I learned the hard way how important proper research is. But it wasn’t really that hard of a lesson. In my first book, which takes place in the last half of the 19th century, I made two mistakes. I had the date of an event off by one year and I had my hero loading the wrong caliber cartridge into his Winchester rifle. I would have gone blissfully throughout life not knowing how I had erred if not for my astute fans. Both mistakes were quickly pointed out to me in reviews of the book. One guy said he would have given me five stars if not for the wrong caliber bullet mistake. I had to settle for only four stars. Lesson learned!
My second book was a western and the protagonist was a woman. The research took about three months. I had to know everything from women’s undergarments of the late 19th century to prison conditions for women in those days. (I sent my heroine to jail.) That kind of research was easy. Thank God for the internet. But then I had to do some real research. Molly (my protagonist) built up her cattle ranch to one of the largest in Montana, but she and her neighbors had nowhere to sell their beef. So Molly decided to drive her and her neighbors’ cattle to Abilene where she could get a good price. She put together the second largest herd on record (12,000 head) and took off for Abilene.
My next book took place in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. Here new elements were added such as wolves and the extreme weather as adversaries. Dogsledding was also involved. I have seen snow only three times in my life and I have never dogsledded. I knew even less about wolves. I had to learn about those things. I had no idea what it was like to travel across a wilderness on a dogsled at seventy degrees below zero. I also had to acquire knowledge about the dogs themselves, especially the lead dog. I learned about all that by doing the same things I did for my second book. The old diaries were the most helpful. As to the gold rush, there was plenty of material in the form of self-published books by some of the participants. Some were never even published, but I found copies of them in the archives of universities and historical societies. Again, newspaper stories printed at the time were very useful. Concerning wolves . . . I read everything I could get my hands on about wolves—their habits, the pack hierarchy, the alpha male, and the different jobs or tasks the males and females have while hunting.
Now we come to Yellow Hair. As I mentioned above, the book is about the Sioux Nation from 1805 to 1890. I had to know both points of view, the white man’s and the Sioux’s. Getting to know the whites’ take on things was easy. There are many, many books (non-fiction) that were written at the time. I even found a book written by Custer detailing his strategy for wiping out the Sioux entirely. That was hard reading. And, again, there were universities and historical societies whose archives were a great help.