The Myth of Rule-Breakers

Why I believe that “Rules are meant to be broken” is terrible writing advice for beginners

The more time passes, the more I think I should abandon every writing group I follow on Facebook. I believe in supporting fellow writers—this Substack exists because of it—but at some point, the endless circular discussions start to feel like a waste of time. Especially when these groups are flooded with people trying to sell their services as writing coaches, marketing consultants, copyeditors, and cover designers.

One question, in particular, seems to send everyone into a frenzy: someone posts an unreadable, unedited piece of writing, asks for free feedback, then ghosts when people respond, either with genuine advice or frustration. I saw one such post from an anonymous user, and the comments quickly spiraled into demands that they at least run it through Grammarly before expecting anyone to engage. Some laughed at them, and others told them to go to hell.

But that’s not what prompted me to write this. Trolls exist because people engage with them. It’s not a battle worth fighting.

What caught my attention was a debate that broke out under one of the comments.

User 1: I agree with those saying you should at least clean this up before posting. There are certain rules written text should follow—grammar, punctuation, formatting. This doesn’t follow any of them, so it’s nearly impossible to figure out what’s happening.

User 2: Well, to be fair, most Nobel Prize-winning authors don’t follow those rules either. The last three winners barely use proper grammar. But they’re amazing writers who know the rules and break them intentionally, from a place of skill, not ignorance.

When Rule-Breaking Becomes a Badge of Honor

When I was starting out as an author, I was the odd one out in my small literary scene. Not just because I was the only woman novelist, but because I was the only one writing general fiction with no pretensions of winning major literary prizes. I had a story to tell, and I wanted to tell it well.

My colleagues, however, were deep into postmodernism. This was especially true in playwriting. The traditional three-act or five-act structure was considered passé. Writers who stuck to it were labeled outdated. The goal was deconstruction, and anything that resembled structure was dismissed as unworthy.

The result? Complete alienation from readers and audiences.

I remember people asking how I managed to reach so many readers when, at that point in my career, my prose was far from perfect. My answer was always the same: maybe try telling a story instead of intellectualizing.

To be clear, I have nothing against intellectualizing. But in my country, we reached a point—and never recovered from it—where art became so elitist, so concerned with impressing the artistic establishment, that it forgot about the audience entirely. Whenever I brought this up at conferences or roundtables, I was told that artists have a duty to educate their audience.

Fine. But where does entertainment factor into that duty?

It doesn’t. Not for them, at least.

The Picasso Fallacy

“If Joan Miró could paint thirteen dots on a giant canvas and have it hang in the Reina Sofia Museum, why can’t we all do the same?”

Joan Miró, Untitled, 1973

Because Miró spent years mastering the craft before deconstructing it. As did Picasso, Pollock, and all the most famous rule-breakers who have changed the history of art.

This was Pollock at the beginning of his career:

Jackson Pollock, Camp with Oil Rig, 1930-1933

It took years and practice to evolve into what we now associate him with mostly:

Likewise, William Faulkner didn’t begin his career with Quentin’s stream-of-consciousness ramblings, stripped of punctuation. He started with well-structured, traditionally written prose and built his way up to The Sound and the Fury.

The point I’m making is that before you can break the rules, you have to know them. If you don’t, you’re not deconstructing—you’re posturing.

That’s why Miró’s dots tell a story, while a toddler’s scribbles don’t.

Back to the Editing Dilemma

So what does this have to do with the editing dilemma?

It’s simple: writing isn’t about following rules for the sake of it. It’s about mastering the craft so you can decide which rules to break, when, and why.

That’s what separates a Faulkner or a Picasso from the guy who thinks a first draft full of incoherent sentences is a revolutionary artistic statement. It’s also what separates a writer whose prose flows beautifully even when it bends grammatical rules, from someone whose writing is unreadable and unbearable.

If your goal is to write fiction that moves people, excites them, makes them lose sleep and remember about your story for years to come, you should consider learning the fundamentals first. Because unless your name is already on the Nobel shortlist, you probably don’t get to skip that part.

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P.S. Because Joan Miró happens to be my favorite artist, and Reina Sofía my favorite museum, here are three of my favorite Miró paintings at the Reina Sofía: