Knowing When & When Not to Break the Rules of Writing

For as long as there has been creative writing, there has been rules: genres, norms, formats, medias, and traditions that shape the work of writers. And as long as there have been rules to writing, writers have been breaking them. To look at the history of creative writing is to look at a history of boundaries being continually transgressed and expanded. In some ways, this history itself resembles poetry: pattern broken by variance, only for the variations to be formalized and accepted and then broken anew. Yet old rules and traditions persist even after they have been challenged; the development of blank verse did not end the production of sonnets. Learning when and when not to break the rules of writing is a crucial skill for authors seeking to improve their work and put their pieces in conversation with other literature.

New writers often find themselves feeling constrained and overwhelmed by the variety of rules and traditions established within any given genre. The desire to follow their inner voice and create something original can lead beginning writers to disregard established formats in favor of flexibility. However, rules can aid creativity as much as they can limit it. The blank page has unlimited potential, but it also provides no tools to realize that potential. Conversely, the formal rules of closed poetry, for example, provide clear footholds for an author to work from. The framework that rules provide can thus be more generative than no framework at all. Still, sometimes you have a good line that doesn’t fit the pattern of the rest of the poem. Should the rules or the line then be discarded? To answer this question, one must learn the art of rule-breaking.

Before you can break the rules, you need to understand them. Most rules exist for a reason. Understanding the underlying principles behind rules helps one to engage with the tradition from which they emerge. For example, let’s take a look at the haiku. Its traditional 3-line, 5/7/5 syllable format seems rather arbitrary. There is no magical element in these numbers that makes a good haiku. Indeed, many famous haikus break this format, being composed of more or less lines or syllables. But the traditional 3-line, 5/7/5 format guides writers to the central philosophy of haikus: “the focus on a brief moment in time… an ability to be read in one breath; and a sense of sudden enlightenment” (Source). By limiting oneself with this format, a writer is forced to narrow their message to a single, breath-long instance.

Once you understand the meaning of rules and the tradition from which they emerged, you may break the rules in meaningful ways. In poetry, variance from the established pattern tends to create emphasis and is often best utilized at key lines within the poem. When well employed, the variance serves the greater meaning of the poem. The same idea might underlie rule-breaking in other literature as well: good rule-breaking is that which emphasizes or contributes to the greater meaning of the piece. Further, understanding the tradition from which rules emerge helps one to break them meaningfully. For example, if you know that haikus are traditionally written about nature, writing one about technology conveys something distinct by challenging this norm. A word of caution, though: In artists’ never-ending quest for the “new,” it is often alluring to flagrantly break an established rule simply for the act of breaking it. However, pieces that hinge on the transgression of any given formal rule tend to lack durability. The blank canvas displayed in a museum is cool, but it’s only cool once.

With these tips and guidelines in mind, go forth and break rules! (Or don’t.)