Little Red Riding Hood (drabble)

You seem to be someone who has a very specific definition for a good story and refuses to acknowledge anything else even having the slightest shred of merit if it doesn't follow your rules.

No one needs a page of footnotes for everything they read. Do you question why Harry's last name is Potter? Why wizards speak semi-latin? Do you question every single little detail and nitpick in everything you read?

Newsflash: You don't need to know the backstory of every little set piece to understand a story - and the only one who is complaining about the lack of explanation is you, with your inane statements.

Oh, and if you're wondering why people aren't bothered about the lack of a middle or beginning, it's because everyone knows the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Most people can infer things. Most people don't need things spoonfed to them by the author's pen.

If every single story in the world cohered to a strict set of rules, and didn't break them, Dawngate would never have existed and every MOBA would be like Smite. "Oh, you can't have ADCs jungle." "Oh, you can't have a trilane." "Oh, you can't have a melee ADC bot, that would break the game." Rules can be broken or ignored, as long as you do it right.

(If you think that story had a lot of gore, you must live a very sheltered life.)

Arguing about writing rules always ends up like this:

LEGIFERA: I contend that writing would be much improved if you followed certain rules, and I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a list. Firstly, you should not tell but only—
LIBERTUS: Hold, friend Legifera, before we listen to your rules, we need to address the issue of whether rules even apply to writers. Surely, a writer is best defined by their creativity?
LEGIFERA: I can grant that.
LIBERTUS: Then how can an endeavor marked most by its creativity be circumscribed by rules? Wouldn’t following these rules fetter creativity? And wouldn’t the tales of all conscientious rule-followers be identical?
LEGIFERA: Ah, but I can easily overcome that issue. These rules, you see, can be broken. None are iron-clad, so you see there’s room for creativity.
LIBERTUS: So they are breakable rules?
LEGIFERA: Yes.
LIBERTUS: When may they be broken?
LEGIFERA: Well, you can break them if you know what you are doing?
LIBERTUS: I see. So these are not writers’ rules, but rather rules for bad writers?
LEGIFERA: No!
LIBERTUS: Well, how else would you describe a writer who doesn’t know what they are doing?
LEGIFERA: Anyone can break these rules, but the trick is to know under which circumstances and how to do so.
LIBERTUS: So it is clear when the rules can be broken, and how to do so, it’s only a matter of knowing how?
LEGIFERA: Yes.
LIBERTUS: Doesn’t this imply a set of meta-rules that define when the rules hold and when they don’t and prescribe the correct courses of action when one does break them?
LEGIFERA: I don’t see how it does.
LIBERTUS: Well, how else do the writers who know what they are doing know this thing that they are doing? Do you mean to say that some just are writers and some just aren’t?
LEGIFERA: No, writing can be learned, which is rather the point of having rules.
LIBERTUS: And this which is learned, what can it be but a certain set of rules and actions both prescribed and proscribed?
LEGIFERA: I concede the point.
LIBERTUS: In which case your rules are useless without the meta-rules which we discussed.
LEGIFERA: Well, could I then write out meta-rules as well? For instance when you are writing a pastiche of a Victorian novel then telling is a good idea and—
LIBERTUS: The difficulty there, I fear, is that the existence of these meta-rules brings us to the start of this discussion. Are the meta-rules ironclad?
LEGIFERA: No, they can be broken… Ah, I see.
LIBERTUS: And so we are caught in an infinite regress with no clear termination in sight.
LEGIFERA: Well! We certainly seem to have reached a socratically appropriate state of aporia.
LIBERTUS: Indeed. Good thing too, because I can’t stand being written by this idiot.
LEGIFERA: Yes. Most annoying.
LEGIFERA and LIBERTUS both glare at the WRITER until he leaves.

That’s roughly the argument or rather an idealized version that has all the shouting and hand-waving boiled out of it. Generally things break down before the aporia, but I suspect this is how the argument would go. The question of rules in writing is a tricky one, and I suggest that it is a question of word-choice.

So which choice should we adopt if not ‘rules’ for writing? Or suggestions, heuristics, best practices &c &c &c?

Well, let me paint you an allegorical picture:

Imagine us all as explorers in this vast trackless landscape of such inherent danger and mindless malice that it can only be described as ‘Australian.’ This landscape is full of deadly drop-bears, free-floating box jellyfish, lethal ninja-sheep, deadfalls, inclement weather, and substandard Wi-Fi reception. We all derive sometimes material gain, but mostly a mad sort of pleasure from traversing this place, trying to learn its secrets and completing journeys across it in as little time as possible. And since we are fond of each other we seek to help. Sometimes it’s sharing tales of our exploits around a cheery venom-fire, but mostly (since the place is vast, and we rarely meet) it’s in leaving signposts.

Whenever we stumble, bleeding heavily, from a thicket infested with drop-bears, or limp out of a gulch protected by a dojo of ninja-sheep, we stop for a second, and scribble a description of the hazard on some handy bit of rock: “DROP-BEARS AHEAD” or “WARE THE NINJA-SHEEP.” Now, we don’t demand that people follow our signposts. Indeed, we privately suspect that an experienced explorer might carve the way through with a machete and a suitable supply of dynamite, but it’s still dangerous and we think they’d appreciate the heads-up.

And when we find a sign left by someone else warning us of HEATSEEKING CROCODILES AHEAD, we make a calculation. Can we fight them off? Do we have enough heat signature-obscuring mud to daube ourselves? Can we get to the choppa without incident? Either way, the information is precious to us.
To have someone react to every signpost with a defiant “Well what do I care that there are INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC SHARKS in that gulch? I’m no slave of any random signpost writer! I’ll power ahead! That’ll show them! That’ll show them all!” would just be silly and lead to a drastically increased insurance premium. On the other hand, if nobody ever cuts across cross-country and ignores the odd sign warning of CANNIBAL GOURD SWARMS, we’d all take ages to get anywhere and we’d get very little exploring done.

So, yeah. They aren’t writing rules. They are writing signposts.

Of course, it’s easier to call them rules just as it is easier to say “Show don’t tell” (which is nonsense) rather than, say, “Consider that when you tell your reader what to think of a character, the reader may object,” or, “WARNING READER REVOLT HAZARD TURN BACK.” And that’s not necessarily wrong since we often don’t even know what precisely will go wrong when we do something. All we know is that people wander into the, say, Second Person Forest, and very few make it back out. We don’t know precisely what the problem is so we just shrug and write “Don’t Go Into The Forest” on easily visible signs.

Still, even if it is easier and more natural to think of them as rules and formulate them as rules, these still aren’t rules, and thinking about them like that while having the argument between Legifera and Libertus will just lead to a lot of unnecessary shouting.

(Not from me.)

Mortal Kombat, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, GTA (debatable), any zombie game ever (Im talking to you The Last of Us), Until Dawn like have you seen the death scenes cause holy ****, Amnesia, Gmod (its not even gory just ****ing funny unless you count the "gory mod" cause holy ****), and many others I dont wanna name.

Also some fps games (Black Ops 3 coming soon!!!)

@Sub, did you make that Legifera & Libertus bit up or was that created by someone else? Because that pretty much covers my opinion on writing rules. This is part of why I'm not a fan of writing literature, the writing community is really divided on this subject (teachers included) and it doesn't lend itself to actually making good writing.

Fact is, whether a piece of writing is good is relatively subjective. Once a piece of writing has gone beyond a certain level (like that written by a 7 year old and grammar rules) it becomes much harder to tell what is and what isn't good writing.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading Sub's piece. It was made as a form of short entertainment essentially, so I'd say it accomplished its goal, at least for me. 'nuff said.

I wish. It was made by someone else.

It doesn't apply in just in creative fiction, but stuff like actual essays you'd write in school - hook + thesis + intro, X body paragraphs with their own main points and transitions, restated conclusion - it's terribly restrictive and makes essays dull and repetitive.

Of course, teaching people how to write is just such a convoluted and difficult process, I can't think of a better solution than "teach people how to write mediocre-good, standardized stuff," because that's better than "teach people to blunder around writing whatever and tossing at the wall until it sticks."

And thanks for the good words.