I recently picked up an editing position with a company that helps self-publishing writers work through the writing and editing process to get their books out into the world. While this is my first official editing position, I have long been seen as the go-to person for editing projects by my friends, family, and co-workers. It has only become more commonplace since I picked up the official role.
Something happens, almost without fail, every single time someone asks me to edit something for them. I am blasted with preemptive apologies for poor grammar, incorrect word usage, misspellings, and lack of flow.
Maybe it's because I have a degree in English that people make the assumption that I'm some sort of Nazi when it comes to the "rules" of writing, but that's just not the case. Yes, of course I appreciate well-written and well-composed writing, but I understand that not everyone learns the same way. Not everyone understands the rules of good writing, and that's okay.
What are the rules? When I ask my peers what they believe makes a well-written piece, a lot of what I hear is that there are no rules. That assertion is a bit loaded, in my opinion, but that does not necessarily mean I believe there has to be a strict set of guidelines followed without fault in order for a written work to be good.
Grammar is important; as is punctuation. But a comma splice, or a misused semicolon here and there should not completely discredit a writer’s skill. Spelling is important, but not knowing the difference between “affect” and “effect” does not necessarily discredit a writer’s knowledge, nor does it mean that they lack creativity and cohesive thought. Good writing cannot be bound to a strict set of rules, but rather, should follow rules one creates for themselves based around the standards that have been put in place for a good reason.
One of the first things I will tell someone upon being asked what I think could help them write well is that a writer must like reading. A writer should not just be capable of reading, but to actually enjoy it as well. This is especially the case if a person is more of a creative writer. Nothing will spark creativity more than books. While a lot of folks might feel that reading other writers’ works and spiraling off what they have written is borderline plagiarism, there is nothing wrong with having your own ideas come to fruition based on an idea you saw another writer put in play. As an example, Max Brooks never would have written such an amazing documentary-style book about a post-zombie-apocalypse world had zombie fiction not existed in the first place. Of course, there is the occasion that someone comes up with a completely original concept that no one had thought of before, but those instances are rare and far between. The fact that people who like to read tend to have a specific genre that they favor is proof alone that ideas create more ideas that create different ideas, and so forth. It is a never-ending cycle.
The next step in the process is to follow your gut, and listen to the voice in your head. While we can all be our own worst enemy, and our own worst critic, we are also solely responsible for our own satisfaction. Every person in the world can tell us that our work is great, or, conversely, terrible, but it is only when we feel confident that what we’ve written is good that it will be. Stephanie Meyer isn’t a terrible author just because I say so. No author writes something and publishes it knowing that it’s garbage; only the critic can make that assertion, and a critic’s opinion doesn’t constitute as untouchable fact, no matter how tenured they are or how many books they’ve read and reviewed.
The final thing I can say is that being aware of the standards is important. While it is okay to bend the rules to add a sense of uniqueness to a piece of writing, it is also imperative to know that if your work is unreadable from a structural standpoint, readers will not find it accessible and ultimately it will turn into a failure. One instance where there is an exception would be in Mark Z. Danielewski’s "House of Leaves," though some would not consider it readable. Free-verse poetry is another example where the rules can be thrown out the window, but it’s important to understand that if you jam random words into poorly formed sentences, purposely misspell and leave out any semblance of punctuation, a reader will become lost and likely write a strongly-worded, detrimental review. Yes, you can still believe it’s a good piece of work, but you will not likely find success as a writer.
Ultimately, a writer simply needs to follow their heart, love the written word, and at least have some sense of familiarity with the standards in order to write well and possibly attain success, even if that success is just completing a piece of work that only they will ever read. As a matter of fact, some of the best written works to ever be published were done so posthumously without the author ever intending for the work to be put out for the public to see.
