Rules are important, but many rules misdirect writers — especially beginners. The masters, the ones who insist you should avoid this and always do that, ignore their own advice. So how valuable is that advice?

Today’s post is #2 in the rules series. Some of the points I discuss today haven’t been covered in previous posts. Please join me and decide whether they’re valid.

See also The Master List of So-called “Rules” for Writers.

Rule 7: Only Write About What You Know

I’ve never scaled Mount Everest, so that means I can’t include a protagonist who has?

Really!

Writers can perform research on Google, find videos on YouTube, and watch documentaries on television. They can read memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies of successful mountaineers. They might also interview people who have attempted or completed the climb.

Nobody knows for sure how the dinosaurs were destroyed, but writers can find numerous resources that speculate about their extinction.

And let’s consider speculative fiction. How many sci-fi writers have met aliens? How many fantasy writers have encountered dragons? Probably zero, although we may have aliens among us. (Hey, if you’re an alien, please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.)

Rule 7 may have worked well decades or centuries ago, but with modern investigative capabilities, it’s usually safe to disregard it.

Rule 8: Exclamation Points Are Bad

Zip back to the second paragraph under Rule 7. Would it have the same impact without an exclamation point? A question mark wouldn’t provide the same snarky tone, and it might seem repetitive, because the sentence preceding it is a question.

Mark Twain said, “But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at you — every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany, and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whooping exclamation-points after it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life.”

However, Twain was often liberal with exclamation points. Consider The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The book begins as follows:

”TOM!”

No answer.

“TOM!”

No answer.

“What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!”

Three exclamation points in fifteen words of text — combined with all-caps, another writing no-no.

The second paragraph of This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (another renowned exclamation-point hater) begins as follows:

But Beatrice Blaine! There was a woman!

Two exclamation points in six words. In fact, the novel contains scores of them.

This comes from the man who said, “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”

Elmore Leonard said, “Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.”

If you were to count the number of exclamation points Leonard used in the numerous books and short stories he wrote, you’d discover many more of these rogue symbols than he recommended: 15+ per 100,000 words of prose.

Another quote from Leonard that many writing pundits ignore: “If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.”

In the case of Famous Authors v. The Exclamation Point, the Defense rests.

Rule 9: Never Begin a Story With Dialogue

The rationale behind this rule is that readers don’t know your characters at the outset. Dialogue will be spoken by mysterious entities — faceless, possibly genderless, without profession, and devoid of clothing.

Review the following three beginnings, and decide whether you’d continue reading.

#1: A child’s scream pierced through the thunder of the whitewater rapids, followed by a heart-wrenching, “Mummy Mummy Mummy I’m drownding.”

#2: The Elvis lookalike swiveled his hips and stared into the eyes of the women in the front row. “Love me honey, hug me tight, before I slit your throat.”

#3: “Your license and registration please, Ma’am,” drawled the tall red-haired Texas State Trooper, “or a date.”

Do you need to know the characters? In each case, an instant scenario, complete with physical description and type of voice, springs to mind. Gender, profession, and clothing are irrelevant in the first example. Those details are obvious in #2 and #3.

Yes, drawled in #3 breaks the rule about only using said for dialogue. However, a single word provides an instantaneous impression of the man’s voice. I refer you to Rule 5 in the preceding post.

In all three snippets, the narrative starts in medias res (in the middle of the story). The writer can provide backstory as needed.

But now the dark side:

#1: “Yeah,” the man said, “I know what you’re talkin’ about. I agree. Totally.”

#2: “You’ll never make it as a writer,” she said, “so get back to work and back down to Earth.”

#3: “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, stop that, or I swear I’ll …”

Other than gender in the first two examples, we have no idea of who the characters are or what kind of setting they’re in. The situations are unidentified. There’s no action, no intrigue, no reason for readers to keep reading.

Rule 10: Never Begin a Story With an Alarm Clock or Phone Waking a Character

Let’s examine this rule by evaluating two story beginnings.

Beginning #1:

Lori’s restless sleep was disrupted by the distorted guitars and drums of her heavy-metal phone alarm. She sighed as she turned it off. Another boring shift as a telemarketer loomed: angry protests, angry threats, angry disconnects …

This isn’t horrible, but it isn’t spectacular, either. It depicts a mundane moment from a mundane routine. Do you see anything that would make you want to continue reading?

Let’s try a quick edit.

Lori’s restless sleep was disrupted by the distorted guitars and drums of her SymphoSavage phone alarm. She grinned and turned it off. Another exciting shift as a telemarketer! Today she’d finally call Serpent, the lead singer …

Now we have a specific band name and a different reaction to the alarm. One exclamation point emphasizes Lori’s mood. She plans to call the lead singer. Hmm. Is she a stalker?

The edited paragraph contains the same number of words as the first one. It breaks Rule 10, but it provides a smidgen of intrigue. We want to know what happens next.

Beginning #2:

Trent’s fantasy threesome dream took a strange turn — an insistent ringing. Where was it? Ah, there, next to the bed. Wait. What? He realized he’d been sleeping, and he reached for the phone. But not soon enough. Nobody was there. Oh well, it was time to get up anyway.

The phone call is a so-so detail. We all receive dropped calls. This paragraph also breaks the rule about not opening with a dream. (See the next post in this series.)  Although the dream might have provided a moment of interest, it’s another so-so moment.

Can we turn this into a more engaging beginning?

Trent’s fantasy threesome dream took a strange turn — an insistent ringing. Where was it? Ah, there, next to the bed. Wait. What? He realized he’d been sleeping, and he reached for the phone. But an unfamiliar feminine voice next to him said, “Leave it, babe. I want you. Now.”

Is Trent’s dream a reminder of something that happened the previous night? Now we have the makings of a story, in the same number of words as the unedited beginning.

Takeaway: Pay attention to the rule, and use it as leverage to strengthen your story.

See also The Master List of So-called “Rules” for Writers.