I love to take conventional wisdom and turn it on its head,
following the tradition of rules are made
to be broken but first you have to learn them. Beginning writers make mistakes.
At least, I did, and I don’t know anyone who’s gone on to a successful writing
career who didn’t. At some point, either a teacher or a more skillful writer
points out, “Don’t do this” and why it’s a bad idea. Sometimes we figure it out
for ourselves. I wonder if in the process of expunging our mistakes we also
ignore that kernel of wisdom or inner creative impulse that led us to make the
mistake in the first place.
For example, we get told, “Avoid passive verbs, especially
the verb to be.” But sometimes that
is exactly the right verb and if we
contort our prose to avoid it at all costs, we end up with…well, contorted
prose.
The writing rule to Always
Finish What You Start is equally worthy of a challenge, yet it rarely is.
The rule is practically engraved in granite, creating a sense of obligation to
slog through stories, no matter how much we’ve grown beyond them. We end up
with trunk stories (stories that are so flawed as to be unsellable and are
therefore relegated to the proverbial storage chest) when we could have been
writing the very best new stories we’re now capable of. The second rule, to
move on to something new, is a good one most of the time, as is the
commiseration, Not every story succeeds.
I’m all for taking risks in our writing with the understanding that we’ll
occasionally go splat into the Quagmire of Drekness from time to time.
Is there any value to starting things we don’t finish? (Or
allowing ourselves to not finish what we start?) That is, aside from dropping
projects that just aren’t working and using our time and creative energy more
productively? I think there is.
