Breaking the Law

[sincerely_helene]

I have been reading some of the replies to the "What Makes a Good/Bad story?" type threads, and it prompted a question in my mind that reflects my own style.

Are there any consistant "Laws of Writing" that you knowingly break on a regular basis? It could be something as simple as starting a sentence with "And" or "But," to over-using the elipse, or replacing the bracket with a comma or hyphen when it is inappropriate to do so.

Aside from trying to capture the readers attention, is there any other purpose behind doing this?

 

[tolyk]

Replacing the bracket? From everything I've read you aren't supposed to use brackets in fiction or non-fiction for that matter.. Mainly just in documentation is it appropriate. Such as scientific papers, etc.

I've always been under the impression that if you can avoid using brackets, to definately do so. They generally are to explain something, which if you feel you have to do you should explain it earlier in the story without brackets, or just right there, but without the brackets. (Yes I know it was a run on sentance, and yes I put this in brackets on purpose.)

 

[sincerely_helene]

Replacing the bracket? From everything I've read you aren't supposed to use brackets in fiction or non-fiction for that matter.. Mainly just in documentation is it appropriate. Such as scientific papers, etc.

I've always been under the impression that if you can avoid using brackets, to definately do so. They generally are to explain something, which if you feel you have to do you should explain it earlier in the story without brackets, or just right there, but without the brackets. (Yes I know it was a run on sentance, and yes I put this in brackets on purpose.)

I guess it's true that you learn something new every day. I was taught that the purpose of the bracket was to seperate a side thought from the original sentence. Then again, I admit to very limited education. Thanks, Tolyk.

 

[tolyk]

I guess it's true that you learn something new every day. I was taught that the purpose of the bracket was to seperate a side thought from the original sentence. Then again, I admit to very limited education. Thanks, Tolyk.

Well, I don't know if that is for sure or not. I'm no expert by any means. But I have read it in numerous places, and I think I even saw it in one of the writer's resources here at lit.

Now as to your question, I'm not entirely sure if there are any rules I break, on purpose at least. My writing goes through a lot of editting, so by the time I'm done anything it generally doesn't have many errors, or broken laws. Unfortunately, I have a very horrid memory, as I'm sure I've said many times but cannot recall, so it is hard for me to be accurate in that statement. I might very well have broken a rule or two on purpose, I just don't remember doing it.

 

[Weird Harold]

I guess it's true that you learn something new every day. I was taught that the purpose of the bracket was to seperate a side thought from the original sentence. Then again, I admit to very limited education. Thanks, Tolyk.

You're not incorrect, parentheses and/or brackets are used to set of "perenthetical phrases."

The problem is that "Parenthetical Phrases" are not a "good thing" in fiction -- it's also called "breaking the wall" or talking directly to the reader.

There are situations and writing styles where some use of parenthetical remarks are not completely out of place, but in general they tend to push the reader "out of the story."


I have a bad habit of thinking in parenthetical phrases so it's something I work very hard to eradicate from my writing -- I want to draw readers into my stories, not push them out of them.

 

[sincerely_helene]

You're not incorrect, parentheses and/or brackets are used to set of "perenthetical phrases."

The problem is that "Parenthetical Phrases" are not a "good thing" in fiction -- it's also called "breaking the wall" or talking directly to the reader.

There are situations and writing styles where some use of parenthetical remarks are not completely out of place, but in general they tend to push the reader "out of the story."


I have a bad habit of thinking in parenthetical phrases so it's something I work very hard to eradicate from my writing -- I want to draw readers into my stories, not push them out of them.

Hey, Harold. Thanks for your response. "Breaking the wall" sounds reasonably close to "breaking the law," so I can dig it.

Are the double hyphens/(double dash?) you use more appropriate for fiction than the semi colon? Sorry if this seems like a dense query. I have just noticed a couple of my favorite writers on Lit use it quite frequently.

 

[tolyk]

Hey, Harold. Thanks for your response. "Breaking the wall" sounds reasonably close to "breaking the law," so I can dig it.

Are the double hyphens/(double dash?) you use more appropriate for fiction than the semi colon? Sorry if this seems like a dense query. I have just noticed a couple of my favorite writers on Lit use it quite frequently.

I've never been adverse to the dash, or double dash. And it does appear in a wide assortment of the fiction I read. There are a few other ways too, but I cant' recall them at the moment.

(Thanks for making a writing question thread, its been a whiles since we had one )

 

[sincerely_helene]

I've never been adverse to the dash, or double dash. And it does appear in a wide assortment of the fiction I read. There are a few other ways too, but I cant' recall them at the moment.

(Thanks for making a writing question thread, its been a whiles since we had one )

Questions? I got lots of questions!
(Now if only you and Harold can help me find which answers they go to.)

 

[tolyk]

Questions? I got lots of questions!
(Now if only you and Harold can help me find which answers they go to.)

Oh, I'm rather certain Harold is a more authorative figure on this kind of information. I never really did pay much attention in English class, it bored the hell out of me.

When I have questions I have a handbook I turn too. its called "A Canadian Writer's Reference" by Diana Hacker.. generally has most of the answers I need, and is concise and understable..

 

[Chimney Sweep]

A wink at the camera

Remember Magnum P.I.? About once an episode he would look right at the camera and give a grin/wink/eyebrow wiggle/whatever, backhandedly breaking the boundary between actor and viewer. I often throw moments like that in my writing. At least, I try for that effect.

Apparently that is called "breaking the wall," which makes sense, but I had never realy equated it with "breaking the rules." I know I play fast and loose with the laws of grammar but I was always much better at communicating a thought than rigidly following rules for comma placement and whatnot. I am still haunted by the dreaded comma splice, a flaw my 11th grade English teacher tried to beat out of me.

Screw you Mrs. Gooch! I'll use commas any, damn, place, I want to!



I don't think I could identify a prticiple to save my life.

 

[eric shawn listo]

[breaking the fourth wall would be a theatrical term for talking directly to the audience]

 

[EnglishMuffin]

[breaking the fourth wall would be a theatrical term for talking directly to the audience]

https://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?threadid=305445

it's in my sig-line, i think

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Sentence fragments. I use them all the time. I think they're effective, so I don't much care what the rules say. I turned off my MSWord grammar checker long ago.

Colons and semicolons: I'm getting kind of idiosyncratic in their use. I use an awful lot of semi's to indicate a strong pause, and colons where probably someone else would start a new sentence. I even use more than one colon or semicolon in s sentence, or mix the two together. It's a technique I just kind of absorbed from reading Patrick O'Brian, who does it very well.

I might have used parentheses in some stories. I'm pretty sure I've used them in first-person narratives. Parentheses and parentheses inside parentheses can be a pretty effective comic device to show someone dithering around in their mind and the sloppiness of internal thought.

I don't follow any set rules in my use of dashes and parentheses. I go by sound and feel. To me, a double dash indicates a discontinuity in thought. "He jumped from the roof--it wasn't very high--and landed on his feet." Parentheses indicate things you add in a hurried whisper. They're like footnotes in an academic paper.

I stay away from ellipses. Ellipses to me have a very specific meaning: they either indicate missing text, or they signify a kind of trailing off of speech, and not an interruption. An interruption is indicated by an open double dash. I won't even read a story that suffers from ellipsomania. It's like the author can't ever finish a thought. It drives me nuts.

I use two or three exclamation marks to indicate a loud noise, a bang!!! or a slap!!!, although I stay away from all sound effects except in a spanking story, and I hate the overuse of exclamation marks.

I also have no objection to using "them" instead of "his" as the possessive form of "everyone" and "anyone", as in "Everyone's entitled to their own opinion", when the correct form is "... his own opinion."

I'm sure there are plenty more, but that's all I can think of offhand.

---dr.M.

 

[Liar]

I use two or three exclamation marks to indicate a loud noise, a bang!!! or a slap!!!

I heard somewhere that you should never use two exclamation marks. Either one, or three. Can't say there's any logic behind it, but it does imo make visual sense. It looks better.

#L

 

[eric shawn listo]

I heard somewhere that you should never use two exclamation marks. Either one, or three. Can't say there's any logic behind it, but it does imo make visual sense. It looks better.

#L

OUCH!!

 

[cantdog]

Hey, Harold. Thanks for your response. "Breaking the wall" sounds reasonably close to "breaking the law," so I can dig it.

Are the double hyphens/(double dash?) you use more appropriate for fiction than the semi colon? Sorry if this seems like a dense query. I have just noticed a couple of my favorite writers on Lit use it quite frequently.

I use both the double dash (em dash if I'm printing) and the semicolon. There are distinct places to use each one. I follow the semicolon rules in Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, because that was the book I learned prescriptive grammar from. In the Maine schools, they had an edition of it for every class level from at least fifth grade through graduation.

Semicolons can be used as a kind of higher-order comma. If you have a list of items, and some of the items contain their own commas, then using simple commas to separate the list items will be confusing. So you separate with semicolons and leave the commas only inside the items themselves. If you follow me.

Aside from that , which is a special case, semicolons come into use in certain cases separating clauses. They are only used for independent ones. Dependent clauses are nearly always in the comma's domain. Independent ones are clauses which would otherwise qualify as entire sentences. The reason a person doesn't simply make them separate sentences is that she sees them as closely related to another statement, another independent clause. You see that kind of writing in contracts, wills, and such. Often the two will be linked by a word or construction to indicate the relationship between the two, and set off from each other by a semicolon, thus:

[first clause]; on the other hand, [second clause].

You don't need the construction :

[first clause]; [second clause].

In a case like this, the relationship is obvious, or at least implicit in the concepts themselves.

If you find your writing, derived merely from the way you thought of it at the time, is producing long strings of clauses connected by and, then you have to get out the periods and the semicolons. That's a run-on sentence, that and and and
monster you have there.

Then, in place of the and, you go through and separate your sentences. Mostly, you can just set them off as whole sentences, with periods. Sometimes, you will want to keep them together. But a semicolon will make it more readable than the ands.

Em dashes can be used to set off parentheticals, little comments, all kinds of things. The writing will seem breezy and informal. Some people's speech is littered with that kind of interjection. I find myself using the em dash in dialogue more than elsewhere.

cantdog

edited to add:

from Zoot: An interruption is indicated by an open double dash.

John and Renee are talking.
John put down the phone and turned a frown on her. "But--"

"It's true, John! You always--"

"I never intend--"

"That's how it makes me feel, though!"

 

[EnglishMuffin]

have u ever counted how many times deliah smith says "and then" over the course of 30 minutes cooking program?

or, how many times tom cruise says "you know" during his interviews?

they r pretty annoying.

 

[eric shawn listo]

[breaking the fourth wall would be a theatrical term for talking directly to the audience]

LOOT by JOE ORTON

INSPECTOR: Just between you and me and these three walls...

 

[Pure]

I'm quite partial to starting sentences with 'but' and sometimes 'and.' But most of you already know that. And that's a good thing.

 

[cantdog]

I do frags for effect, too. Fuck 'em.

 

[Guest]

I do frags for effect, too. Fuck 'em.

Fuck-frags can be very pleasant.

Hiya, handsome.

Perdita

 

[hmmnmm]

A confirmed But man here.
And that's not all.
I don't remember where, maybe long ago in high school, but I was indoctrinated about the dangers of using 'there', I think especially at the beginning of sentences. But sometimes there seems no other way. So there.
Ellipses: If I were to write a letter (email or paper) the recipient would likely be terribly victimized by many ellipses. But, if I work on more literary efforts, then the ellipses appear very seldom, and if so, then hopefully because there is no other alternative.
Commas: gone through many a battle with those commas. Overuse without paying attention, then realizing, the overuse, and then, in order to redress that overuse issue, go the other way and use them almost never.
semi-colons: bad addiction, which I am looking closer at. Sometimes the overall effect pops out better by creating complete shorter sentences, other times... well... I've never told anybody this... but, sometimes, if, I'm, like, unsure, then I hit the period key and the semi-colon key at the same time. If what comes down really does not seem to work, then I know to go the other way.
Oh I could think more.
And Or... yes, I think an occasional paragraph kicked off with a nice short big-O'ed Or, can work very well.
But not to excess... that is the whole dang... something... knowing when to do what. I also tend to ramble... sorry... oh, and apologizing too much...

 

[Guest]

 

[oggbashan]

Whatever works for you

You can break any rule of grammar or composition if it works in the story you are writing.

However you should do it consciously and deliberately. You should know the rules before you break them and only break them for a purpose.

E.g. Winston Churchill: 'This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.'

Og

 

[hmmnmm]

The aside, wink, intermission comment from writer to reader: sometimes it can work wonders, sometimes it can destroy the whole thing. A matter of what to do where and when - and when not to do what where and when.