Writers in the Storm

When to NOT Follow Writing Advice

When I consider my decades as a writer, teacher, and book coach, sometimes I also think about how much writing has actually changed during that time. When I first started, writers were basically given a list of hard and fast rules, things that could turn an agent, a publisher, and/or a reader off so much that the book cover closed and your career could be over. Discouraging, right? It really was. Almost the only way you could sneak a “broken” rule into a story was to publish it yourself, something that was almost unheard of  forty years ago except in very rare occasions.

Times have changed.

Nowadays those “old rules” are absolutely not deal-breakers anymore and I see them a lot in different places. But maybe we can salvage some of them, because they really did make a difference in how a book is structured and how it reads. In fact, there was a reason for those rules. Maybe if we can figure that out, we can work around them.

For instance, writers were taught to never start a sentence with “and,” “but,” or “because.” Which was always hard for me, since I both think and talk like that. And you have to add, “so” to my list. But what if (oops!) it connects sentences in such a way that the words flow? I studied under and taught for Margie Lawson for years and I really like one of her Margie rules – “Flow trumps grammar every time.”

If a but or so makes the story flow, use it! 

Another one is to eliminate passive voice whenever possible. Passive voice is most associated with the word “was” but there are many examples. What a lot of people want from a story is a tight connection with a character where we can even pretend to be them, right? If we aren’t using an active voice, where we can talk like the character even in narrative, the depth of emotion and feelings can be lost. This actually wraps around another rule, “show, don’t tell.”

Here is a passive, telling sentence: “She was tired.” Yes, the reader can extrapolate from that, but let’s try this instead: “The kind of tired that follows a full day had settled in, and everything seemed to require just a little more effort than it should.” We’re saying the same thing, but we can really see this character fighting to get through a hard day. It’s doing two jobs – showing the reader and actively moving the story forward.

Next, never use sentence fragments. These still catch me up but, like all of the other rules, they have a place. Think of it this way: Periods mean more than just “stop.” They take a reader to the end of a thought. Our brains are used to periods; we’ve seen them our entire reading lives. So, (oops!) when we see one, we automatically think that we’re ready for the change in our tracking a story, and we get ready for the next sentence. A fragment, without the normal sentence fragment of noun, verb, object, gets mixed up a little and throws off that flow that Margie thinks is so important. But (oops!) we can certainly use fragments in places that need them. Maybe a hot argument. Maybe a tight, action-filled scene. Maybe even a sitting-in-the-corner ugly cry scene (oops!). Because we humans actually do speak and think in fragments. Why shouldn’t our characters?

One more of the dozens and dozens of rules:

Adverbs are lazy writing. I agree, most of the time. I have a friend who heard an adverb as a youngster in a girl-detective type book. “Slangily.” Like someone casually using a slang word. She put in into one of her own books and got her hand slapped. So, (oops!) that’s not one I’d use. But (oops!), does that mean we should never use them? My editor brain says no. Use them. Sparingly (oops!). With intention, not just because they’re easy.

Okay (oops!), so we can break rules if we want to. But let’s see if there may be a reason they were created in the first place. Rules are often built on bad writing. Most of them, at least in my humble opinion, resulted from overdone writing. After all, if one adverb works in a particular place, why won’t two dozen adverbs work too? Let’s just throw them in and see where they land. That’s what I consider bad writing. After all, each word is supposed to matter in story, right? We choose the words we think are the absolute best ones to move the story forward. Instead, if we can slow down and allow the word to do its job, it just becomes good writing.

And (one last oops!), bottom line. We may not understand the old rules but they were there for a reason. I truly believe it was a good one. Now, we just have to determine how to make it work for us. 

What favorite writing rule do you break all the time?

Sarah (Sally) Hamer is a lover of books, a teacher of writers, and a believer in a good story. Most of all, she is eternally fascinated by people and how they 'tick'. She’s passionate about helping people tell their own stories, whether through fiction or through memoir. Writing in many genres - mystery, science fiction, fantasy, romance, medieval history, non-fiction – she has won awards at both local and national levels, including two RWA Golden Heart finals.

A teacher of memoir, beginning and advanced creative fiction writing, and screenwriting at Louisiana State University in Shreveport for over twenty years, she also teaches online at both margielawson.com and nostresswriting.com and blogs for writersinthestormblog.com/ and thewriteconversation.blogspot.com. Sally is a free-lance editor and book coach at Mind Potential, with many of her students and clients becoming successful, award-winning authors. Find her at sally@mindpotential.org

Featured photo courtesy of Unsplash.

One of my beta readers doesn't believe my protagonist would make a decision that's essential to the plot.

The troubling part? I understand her objection.

Believable character decisions don't have to be smart decisions, but readers need to understand why a character would make them. In the opening chapters of Tempered by Darkness, Sam is searching a neighborhood devastated by an earthquake when she discovers an injured dog. She's already witnessed so much destruction that her need to save something has become almost overwhelming. But Sam isn't an ordinary teenager. She's a trained guardian who knows supernatural creatures can be dangerous, and the dog is displaying warning signs she should recognize.

Sam notices those signs but finds other explanations for them. After all, an injured animal frightened by an earthquake might behave strangely. She convinces herself the dog is safe and picks it up.

My beta reader wasn't convinced. She's also a developmental editor whose judgment I trust, which made her objection difficult to dismiss.

She understood Sam's desperate need to save something but questioned whether someone with her training would allow that desperation to override her instincts. I strengthened Sam's emotional motivation, yet when my beta reader read the revised chapter, she remained  unconvinced. I wanted readers to recognize the warning signs and worry that Sam was making a terrible mistake. What I didn't want was for them to stop believing in her as a character.

There's a considerable difference between a reader thinking, Don't do it, Sam! and Sam would never be foolish enough to do that.

I wondered whether another thought or visceral reaction would help readers understand why Sam dismissed the warning signs. But the more I considered that approach, the more I suspected I was trying to solve the wrong problem.

When Stronger Character Motivation Isn't the Answer

In my recent Writers in the Storm articles, I've shared several discoveries that have changed the way I revise emotional scenes. One involved recognizing how often I relied on visceral reactions to reinforce emotions I'd already established through a character's actions or thoughts.

Yet even when I preferred a revision, I sometimes hesitated before removing an explanation. I knew what my characters were feeling and understood the experiences behind those emotions. Readers could only interpret what I'd placed on the page. Was I trusting them to recognize what I'd intended, or relying on knowledge they didn't possess?

My beta reader's objection made me suspect the problem wasn't how clearly I'd established Sam's emotions. It was whether those emotions made her decision believable.

What Makes a Character's Decision Believable?

Sam has been taught that demons don't bleed, and the injured dog has a visible wound. She also checks for the supernatural signs she's learned to recognize, but none appear. Those details give her reasons to believe the animal is harmless, even though other aspects of its behavior make her uneasy.

The problem is that I'd surrounded those reassuring details with so many warnings that I may have undermined the very reasoning I wanted readers to accept. The dog's unnatural stillness, strange behavior, and unusual physical characteristics all contribute to the suspense. Taken together, though, they may make the danger so obvious that readers question Sam's judgment rather than worrying about the consequences of her decision.

As I examined the precautions Sam takes, another possibility occurred to me.

What if trusting her training, instead of ignoring it, was the real problem?

Sam knows the rules for identifying supernatural threats. If the dog appears to pass those tests, she has reason to believe it’s safe. Her need to save the animal might make her more willing to accept that evidence, but she wouldn’t have to disregard her training to justify the decision.

Readers might recognize something troubling about the dog while understanding why Sam doesn’t interpret it the same way. They could worry that her knowledge is incomplete without concluding that she’s behaving foolishly.

I was beginning to see why adding more emotional explanation hadn’t satisfied my beta reader. I'd been concentrating on what Sam wanted without considering whether I'd given readers enough to find her decision believable.

And that raised another question.

How could I recognize the same problem elsewhere in my manuscript, particularly when I already knew so much more about my characters than my readers did?

I needed something more reliable than my familiarity with the story.

The REASON Test for Believable Character Decisions

As writers, we know far more about our characters than readers do. We understand their histories, motivations, and information that won't be revealed until much later. But readers can only evaluate what we've placed on the page.

I know the injured dog is dangerous. Sam doesn't. What matters is whether I've given readers enough to follow her reasoning at that moment.

That’s what led me to develop the REASON Test, a revision tool for creating believable character decisions, even when those decisions turn out to be wrong.

R — Reality: What does the character believe is true at this moment? Have I established the knowledge and assumptions influencing the decision, or am I relying on information that exists only in my head?

E — Evidence: What information supports the character's choice? Even if the conclusion is wrong, have I shown readers why the character considers it reasonable?

A — Affect: How are the character's emotions influencing their judgment? Are those emotions shaping how they interpret the situation, or am I using them to excuse behavior that contradicts their established abilities?

S — Suspense: What does the reader recognize that the character doesn't? Does that difference create tension, or have I made the danger so obvious that the character appears foolish for overlooking it?

O — Options: What alternatives are available to the character? Have I shown why this particular choice seems preferable to the others?

N — Natural: Does the decision grow naturally from the character's personality, experience, and circumstances? Would readers believe this character would make the same choice based on what they know about them?

Applying these questions to Sam's encounter has already revealed possibilities I hadn't considered when I was concentrating on her desperation.

The question of options, for example, made me look more closely at why Sam picks up the dog rather than finding another way to help it. If I establish that the animal can barely put weight on its injured leg, carrying it becomes a practical response rather than an impulsive decision. Readers may still worry about what Sam is doing, but they'll have a clearer understanding of why she considers it necessary.

I can imagine using the same approach when a character trusts someone they shouldn't, ignores a warning, or takes a dangerous risk to protect another person. In each situation, the goal isn't to prove that the character made the right decision. It's to establish why that decision made sense to them.

How to Fix an Unbelievable Character Decision

The next time you're revising a scene where a character makes an important decision, stop reading just before that choice. Set aside everything you know about the character and consider only what you've established on the page.

Can you follow the reasoning that leads to the decision? If something doesn't feel convincing, look for what's missing. The problem might be insufficient evidence, an alternative the character hasn't considered, or warning signs so obvious that ignoring them seems inconsistent with the character's abilities.

Sometimes, a small practical detail can make a choice more believable than another paragraph explaining how desperately the character wants something. The goal isn't to eliminate mistakes from our stories. It's to help readers understand why our characters do what they do.

I haven't yet tested these possible changes to Sam's encounter, so I don't know whether they'll resolve my beta reader's concern. But examining the objection has already changed how I approach the problem.

What I don't want is for someone to reach the moment when Sam picks up the dog and puts the book down because they no longer believe in her. I'd much rather have that reader leaning forward, recognizing the danger Sam has convinced herself isn't there, and thinking, Sam, please don't pick up that dog.

Because ultimately, believable character decisions aren't necessarily the right decisions. I don't need readers to agree with every choice Sam makes. I need them to understand her well enough to believe she would make it.

Have you ever had a reader question a character's decision even though you believed the motivation was clear? What helped you make that decision more convincing?

About Susan

Under the pen name Michelle Allums, Susan Watts has authored a young adult urban fantasy titled, The Jade Amulet and is currently writing the sequel. Her short stories are also included in the anthologies Christmas Roses and Forever and Always.

Susan has dedicated over four decades to training in multiple martial arts styles and holds the impressive title of a five-time US Karate Alliance world black belt fighting grand champion. Through her karate school, she is able to impart martial arts and life skills. Susan also incorporates her martial arts knowledge into her writing.

An avid triathlete, she keeps in shape by running, biking, and swimming. She lives in the country with her husband, where they raise animals and enjoy being outdoors. Susan also has three grown children and numerous grandchildren. In addition, she is a CPA and VP of finance for a company in her hometown. 

Some other WITS posts by Susan Watts:

• How Repeating Character Emotion Weakens an Emotional Scene
• What Your Character Notices Reveal More Than You Think

Photo by Unseen Studio on Unsplash

by Lisa Norman

The other day I walked into my doctor’s office, miserable. It was hot. Everything hurt. The waiting room felt small and stuffy, the chairs were hard, and I was counting the minutes until somebody called my name.

I was there for dry needling, a pain treatment for the autoimmune condition I live with. (Yes, a perfectly nice person sticks needles into me on purpose. And I pay her for it! We’ll come back to that.)

When I walked out afterward, I stopped in the parking lot.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. A fresh breeze was coming in off the ocean, cool and clean. The kind of day I live for. Breathtaking.

Nothing about the weather had changed in that hour. What changed was me. The pain had backed off, and with it out of the way, I could see the beauty of the world.

I’ve been thinking about that parking lot, because what we notice tells us a lot about where we are emotionally.

The same thing applies to our characters.

What Our Characters Notice

When it comes to characters, we’ve talked about this often here at WITS, so I’ll keep it short. What a character notices tells the reader who that character is. It also tells the reader what emotional state the character is in right now.

One of the hardest characters I’ve ever written is Kevin, from my novel Sisterhood. Kevin has been through so much trauma that he behaves in ways that could easily be read as evil. He’s actually the hero of the story.

Writing him involved revealing his mental state through what he notices.

Kevin sees danger. He sees threats. And he sees potential.

When he looks at Dana, my main character, he sees her strengths without really understanding her weaknesses. When he looks at his brothers, he sees their potential for harm, because he knows exactly what he is capable of. Nothing they do feels neutral to him. He expects them to have dark, ulterior motives. And to be fair, they often do.

Kevin is a protector. He would do anything to keep Dana safe. But he can’t see that his brothers might be protective, too.

What he knows about himself decides what he’s able to notice in other people.

What Kevin notices shows us details about his inner life, just like what I noticed outside that doctor’s office revealed how I was feeling better than a pain scale ever could.

Kevin doesn’t always see the world as it is any more than I saw the beauty of the day while I was in pain.

How Self-Doubt Changes What We Notice

I work with authors at every stage of their careers, and lately I keep hearing the same thing from the newer ones, the authors who haven’t hit their stride yet.

They question their skill, their abilities, their work ethic. They judge their future success harshly and critique everything from their own headshot to their writing skill.

When they look at other writers on social media, or look at the platform and work an established author has created, they notice all of the good things while missing the weak points. They notice the polish, like the author who seems to have her whole business together, website and release schedule and all. But maybe they don’t notice that this author is a year behind on a deadline. They don’t know that the sales on that last book, the one that has such great advertising, have been weak.

When they look at themselves, they see every flaw and every weakness, but often miss their strengths entirely. And as authors, it is often hard to distinguish our humanity from our craft. A critique of craft can become a personal attack.

When they look at others, they often see only strengths and miss the struggles. That’s a part of our social media polished world, and it is all too easy to fall into. We compare ourselves at our worst to others at their best.

I recognize this because I do it, too. Listen to me talk about my own writing sometime. My books are “adequate.” “Okay.” “Passable.” Meanwhile, other people are having amazing success.

(I can hear myself doing it as I type this. Okay, so maybe I heard myself because I was using dictation… but whatever.)

“They’re just better than I am” is a comfortable sentence. It ends the conversation. It blends a personal critique with a skill judgment. But when I actually look at the gap between my work and someone else’s, I know there’s more to it. It’s time spent writing, and time spent focused, and I often let my writing self down by not giving her focused time to write.

“They’re better” is noticing me, and ignoring what I’d need to do to become better.

Critiquing myself instead of my work habits makes the analysis more brutal and less actionable. It is also frequently cruelly unfair. I’ve heard writers put themselves and their work down because they’ve taken time off to be caregivers or they’ve had to step away to deal with serious health issues. They’re noticing the lack of time rather than the gift of themselves that they gave to a person they were caring for, or the courage it took to battle a health issue.

We need to see the strengths and weaknesses in ourselves and in others, and we need to make an effort to separate reality from social media hype.

What if instead of just assuming my lack of focused time writing is a personal flaw, I instead notice that successful authors spend more time in the chair? What if I gave myself some grace for the life events that distract, and some credit for using the time I have as wisely as possible? That’s something I can act on, and something that will encourage me to be a better writer tomorrow. “They’re better” isn’t helpful.

Which brings me back to the needles.

A nice person poked holes in me, and I walked out feeling better. Poking holes in a story makes it better, too. Noticing what we need to make our writing better and acting on it improves our craft. Beating ourselves up just leaves the problems in place. The needles that we notice belong in the draft, not in the writer.

Self-Doubt in a Room Full of Bestsellers

Years ago, I went to a retreat and ended up in a class with five other authors. Every one of them had already made the New York Times or USA Today bestseller list.

And then there was me.

I wasn’t new to this. I’d been writing for years. I have a degree. I had studied the material for that class, probably more than anyone else in the room. None of that mattered to the voice in my head. I wanted to hide. I seriously considered sitting quietly and letting the real authors talk.

I mean, had I been invited to be the maid? Certainly I wasn’t there to sit next to these people and participate, right?

When I offered to go and help get lunch ready, the teacher insisted I take part.

So I did, and I had a great time. Once I was sitting at the table with them, instead of watching from what felt like across the room, I started noticing different things.

They were fighting with their technology. They were trying new tools and scrambling to keep up, exactly like every author I work with. They were trying to decide where to put their effort and which series to work on next. They debated words. They struggled with plot. They had characters misbehaving and wanting to go off the rails, the same as anybody does.

By the end of the class, I didn’t feel that far out of my league. I definitely wished I’d spent more time writing! But the distance I’d felt walking in was gone.

From across the room, they had looked polished. Up close, they were wrestling with the same draft problems as everybody else.

Successful Authors Still Struggle

That struggle doesn’t magically go away when somebody becomes successful. They have to face it again with every new series and every new book. Each one gets approached fresh.

I’ve watched New York Times bestselling authors melt down. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get this book together. I don’t know if I’ll get it done on time. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

And then I hear newer authors saying nearly the same words, convinced the professionals never feel this way.

They do.

So when you hold your messy draft up against someone else’s finished, polished career, you’re looking at your own work with a magnifying glass while seeing theirs from a distance. Of course your work looks worse by comparison. You’re noticing the flaws in your work, and you aren’t seeing the struggle they’ve gone through. You’re noticing different things, looking at things without perspective.

What Experience Gives You That Self-Doubt Can’t Take Away

If there’s a difference between the bestsellers and the newer authors I work with, I think it’s this: the experienced ones seem a little more confident that they’ll pull it together. They get through the “I don’t know” faster.

That confidence comes from a track record. They’ve finished a book before, and then another one, so they have evidence they can do it again. Oh, they still have angst, but it is less paralyzing.

You build that faith in yourself the same way they did. One finished draft at a time.

And remember Kevin? He couldn’t see his brothers’ protectiveness because of what he believed about himself. Self-doubt does the same thing to writers. We look at other writers through what we believe about ourselves, and we miss that they’re in the same struggle we are.

Final Thoughts

The day outside my doctor’s office was beautiful the whole time. I just couldn’t see it until the pain backed off.

If your writing life hurts right now, your world may have shrunk down to the hard parts. That’s what pain does. It isn’t a verdict on you or your work.

You don’t have to have your act together to be a real writer.

When the hurt eases, even a little, look up. Notice what’s alive on your pages. And if you find yourself making judgments about yourself instead of the work, refocus on what you can improve. Don’t attack yourself and feed self-doubt.

What are you noticing today? Is there a focus shift that will help conquer a challenge in your writing world? And have you ever sat in a room certain that everyone else had it figured out? What did you notice once you looked closer? Please share in the comments!

About Lisa:

Lisa Norman (writing as Deleyna Marr) is a writer, a teacher, and by her own cheerful confession a control freak about her words. She wrote a book about working with AI as a creative partner, Reflections from the Mirror, which you can read for free on her Substack or purchase wherever you like to buy your books. She also teaches a class, Creative Collaboration with AI.

And if you're feeling like you need a little joy in your life, check out her latest book, The Work of Joy, or spend December with her in It's a Wonderful Writer's Life, the class that book grew from. Find her at deleyna.com or her school: NoStressWriting.com.

Featured image purchased from depositphotos.com.