Words on a page

It doesn’t matter what your high school English teacher said. It doesn’t matter what your university composition instructor said. And it definitely doesn’t matter what Microsoft Word’s grammar checker tells you.

When writing, there are times when you need to break the rules.

Shocking. Perhaps even sacrilegious. But why do it? There are a number of reasons. I tend to break the rules for three reasons:

1. Your writing will sound (or at least seem) more conversational.
2. A piece of writing that breaks the rules, and does the job properly, is often more memorable and has a bit more impact than a properly-formed sentence.
3. Shock value. if someone is expecting a so-called proper constructions and don’t get them, they’ll either be surprised, or (I hope) intrigued enough to keep reading.

Here are some of my thoughts about this.

Some rules you can break

There are four rules that I usually break:

First, starting a sentence with a conjunction. If you’ve read the posts in this space for any amount of time, you know that I regularly begin sentences and paragraphs with and or but.

Second, starting or finishing a sentence with a preposition. There’s no reason why words like with or about can’t begin or end a sentence. If the sentence flows, makes sense, and delivers information in an effective and entertaining way then why not?

Third, writing in sentence fragments. Often, a word processor’s grammar checker will often point out that a perfectly readable sentence is a sentence fragment. And that checker will advise you to rewrite that sentence. Often, though, a sentence fragment is easier to read than a wordy sentence, and carries the same (often more) impact.

Finally, using one sentence, or even one word, paragraphs. This rule doesn’t seem to be as contentious as it once was. It appears in a lot of Web writing, copywriting, and in newspaper articles. Still, there are people who rail against this sort of thing. I figure that if writing in one-sentence or one-word paragraphs adds impact to your writing then do it.

Don’t break rules just for the sake of breaking them

That’s what a lot of would-be writers do. You need to have a reason for breaking the rules. Don’t break the rules simply because they exist. Understand how the rules work and why and when you can break them. If you have to, brush up on your grammar. Then go out and effectively twist grammar to your own ends: entertaining your readers.

Don’t overdo it. If you continually break the rules, especially in the same ways all the time, you’ll be perceived as a one-trick pony. Your readers will get bored, and your writing will seem telegraphic. You don’t want to be known for either.

Thoughts? Feel free to leave a comment.

Photo credit: iMAGINE from PhotoXpress

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 6:39 am and is filed under advice, opinion, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.