The Rules for Writing (anything) (005)

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham

If you know me, then you know my life-story involves a lot of baby Kimboo reading many writing guides as I attempted to figure out what kind of writer I am. One of the things I learned early on was that there were (are!) rules for everything. 

It did not take me long, though, to figure out that many of these rules contradicted each other. Not always, of course. There do seem to be a very few “universal laws” that get repeated often, such as the demand to write everyday. There are also the strictures about using outlines and to always have an editor read over your work. Universal constants, at least!

Every writing guide seemed to have its own take on how to be a writer, though. There was a lot of variation depending on what I might want to write, but there was also a lot of variation based on what the author of the writing thought was important. While I could figure out that some of the advice was not good for me personally, it proved that all the expertise in the world would not result in agreement on how to write a book. 

In this episode, I dig into the idea that there are rules for writing a novel and, using the wise words of W. Somerset Maugham, I explain how there are no rules.