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— Mark Paxson

We spend a lot of time around here bashing the idea of rules for writing. Particularly in our video chats. But …

The local writers’ group is hosting a conference in September. I was looking at the speakers. One of them teaches creative writing at a local community college and will be teaching writers how to write a dynamic scene that moves the story along.

Just the idea of teaching a creative writing class made me wonder and ask the question in the title of this post. Are we wrong about our ridiculing of the rules of writing?

The reality is that all writers are guided by conventions or rules or structures or something similar in their writing. Whether writing to the conventions of a particular genre or following the three act structure or paying attention to voice or countless other things, we all do some of this. Some more consciously than others.

I know that if I do it, it is in my subconscious. I just come up with an idea and start writing and go from here to there and to over there and eventually wind my way to an ending. Without regard to genre needs or three acts or needing a conflict here or a dramatic scene there. I just … write.

But I do know that there are things that I’ve learned in decades of reading books voraciously. That had to do something to me that impacts how I tell a story when I sit down to write. All of the books I’ve read over the years taught me something. They must have. And so, maybe the “rules” have been embedded in my subconscious and I follow them, or at least some of them, without even thinking about it.

But back to that speaker who teaches creative writing. I shudder at the idea of taking a creative writing class. I shudder at the idea of an MFA program. I just feel like those are environments that demand … rules!!

A couple of months ago I participated in a book fair at a local book store. they had an author speak about her writing and publishing process. Throughout her presentation she kept on saying things with the lead in “okay, you have to do x.” I wanted to run up there and tell her to stop. To knock it off.

But maybe there is a point to some of this for some writers. Maybe a lot of writers. Maybe the “rules” need to be stated for some instead of being processed below the surface by others. Maybe there’s something to be said for providing the guidelines and structures for writers and not being so dismissive of the “rules” of writing.

I don’t know. I still think that a lot of what passes for the “rules” is nonsense, but if it helps some writers do their thing, I’ll let it go. Even if I occasionally ridicule those “rules” here and elsewhere.

I’m faced with a potential conundrum, one of my own making, and I’d be curious to know what the collective writer/reader wisdom around here might think.

A couple of years ago, I published a contemporary YA novel. It is a story that isn’t necessarily finished and I planned on writing another volume in the tale at some point. And maybe even a third. The story about these characters could go on for some time, if I wanted to let it.

But there are other stories and characters I want to spend my time with. There is, however, an open storyline from what I published a couple of years ago that I want to provide closure to. I’ve now started writing what comes next. Which leads to my question.

The published book consists of three parts that are each in the 25,000-30,000 word range. If I do what I am planning, I’ll be writing a fourth part of comparable length. (There is a slim chance that I’ll end up writing more as I get back into the story, but for sake of this question, assume that I’m just writing one more part equal in length to the first three parts.)

How do I go about publishing that? Do I tack it on to the end of the first book and publish the entire thing? (What does that mean for the people who have already purchased and read the first three parts? I’m assuming they won’t really want to pay for what is essentially 75% something they’ve already read before.) Do I publish the fourth part separately? (If I hit 30,000 words, it can be a stand alone ebook and a slim paperback. But then how do I market it to make clear that potential readers should buy the novel first.) Do I do both? Or maybe none of the above? Or … do I suck it up and write a full novel-length sequel to the thing?

I’m not the most organized person.

In the early years of my life as a writer, I was in a writing group. We would start each session with a short writing exercise. One such exercise went like this. Write for five minutes about a place. Then five minutes about a person in that place. And finally, five minutes about something that happens in that place.

I wrote about a church on a hill and an old priest who presided there. And finally, about a man who came to the church to find answers to his life’s struggles. When we read our efforts, others seemed to really like what I had done, and I did feel like I had caught something in those 15 minutes of writing.

I didn’t follow up on what I produced for a couple of years. Why? Because I lost it. At some point, I decided to return to that piece and carry it forward. I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it. I gave up.

Around six months later, I thought of it again and searched again. I couldn’t find it anywhere. At some point, I decided to try to recreate it, but what I produced lacked what I had captured in the earlier piece. I gave up again.

Around another six months later, I searched again and found it buried in a notebook. I then took that piece and wrote my second novel — what I think is my best work, but it was published for only a short period of time because it has some autobiographical details that caused too much hurt for others.

More recently, I was searching on my blog for something I wrote for Father’s Day a number of years ago. The search terms resulted in the first result being a story I wrote in response to a writing exercise on Toasted Cheese. The exercise was a more manageable version of NaNoWriMo. Instead of 50,000 words in a month, write 167 words a day for a 5,000 word short story.

I have absolutely no memory of the story I found. It’s not complete and now it’s been added to the ever-growing list of ideas, starts, and half-completed stories I hope to get to before my time on earth is done. Finding this story makes me wonder what else I’ve forgotten about, either in notebooks or in the bowels of my blogs.

So … how do you maintain your story files? Like me, are they everywhere and anywhere? I have notebooks from the early days of my writing life, scraps of paper, folders and piles from those days. These days, everything I write ends up on the computer, on my laptop’s hard drive, an external drive, and more recently in the OneDrive Cloud. But there may be other things on my blogs that aren’t in any of those locations.

Or, have you managed to maintain some semblance of organization and know that all of your stops and starts are in one location and you remember everything you’ve written?

If you have ever wondered what you’re missing as an indie author vs a traditionally published author, now you can find out. All you have to do is listen to the Publishing Rodeo Podcast to hear traditionally published authors candidly talking about their experiences in getting their books published and then decide for yourself if the grass is really greener on the trad side.

I find myself looking forward to it each week, even though I have no interest in traditional publishing. I just find writing and publishing a very interesting subject. If you are interested, it is best to start at episode 1, as that episode lays out what most traditional authors won’t say for fear of getting on the wrong side of their publisher.

The latest WSW chat is up! We discuss progress on our latest projects, as well as our thoughts on what AI means for writers.

(Apologies for some technical issues. Edited most audio-related issues out, but the result is that Lucinda moves around the screen a bit.)