Those Rules, the capital R ones, can stifle a young writer (and by young I mean novice). You can spend so much time on your first draft making sure that you don’t overuse adverbs, use correct grammar, don’t head hop, include enough description–augh, the list is endless. You can spend so much time following all of those Rules that you don’t give yourself permission to write badly. But I promise you this, if you don’t let yourself just freaking write, you will never find your voice.
Let your characters say what they need to say. Infodump if you have to. That’s right. I went there. Make up bad metaphors. Just write what’s in your heart, what comes up and into your mind and let it all go. The Rules are for rewriting. Writing is the fun part. Writing is where you let go, and just be YOU and write your story the only way it can be written–with your voice. Write it the way you hear it in your head, the way you see it, and leave the Rules for after. I promise this, too: you won’t regret it.
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totally agree- rewriting and editing are where the rules are important. I think it majorly stifles creativity to worry too much about it in the first draft. Great post!
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