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The Man Behind the Screen's avatar

I need Substack to give me a few dozen more like buttons to smash here. Hamish McKenzie, please get on that.

What you're discussing here in terms of the pitfalls of the postmodern "I don't need no rules" style of writing versus those that come with pure and rigid adherence to a rubric hit on the lessons I learned when I studied fiction in college. From what I've seen among our contemporaries who play around with our theme days and try to make our marks as independents, I'm the only one who's done this, and I can tell you now the approach that my professors took was a world apart from the instructor you encountered. Writing absolutely has rules and fundamentals, both on the technical and creative sides. No matter what process is taken to do so, I consider learning them to be a necessity, and by that same vein I consider learning how to properly break them necessary as well.

The rules and fundamentals of fiction will give you the solid foundation needed to build your story. Learning how to bend and break them based on the needs of your writing is how you develop your style.

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Sujan Sundareswaran's avatar

Great insights here, man!

Reminds me of that Tumblr post that says how Tolkien would get destroyed by modern writing workshops.

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