Breaking someone's Thou Shall Nots with writing.
The majority of editors cannot cite for the fucking life of them why a writing rule exists. They think it's a good rule because someone else who cited nothing also was told it was a good rule, but if you ask tem, "Why is this a good rule." They DO NOT KNOW.
This drives me up the wall and I hate it. The swath of Youtubers who do this, I see you.
Can you cite when this became a rule?
Who came up with it definitively?
If the rule is subtlely sexist in nature and it was a bunch of white men trying to hate on white women (a lot of the rules are this way as I've gone over in this blog, pulling linguistics)
What psychological trick, philosophy or linguistics reasoning does this tickle?
What exceptions are there to the rule?
Where does breaking the rule work in theory and WHY? What psychological trick are you making by doing this?
But OMG, I'm an editor. And my great grand sensei told me many moons ago that this rule was true.
Yes. And still, you should be able to cite your sources and not retcon it into place and ask the blind to follow you into battle.
If you have been reading this blog you see that writing theorists pull from history, philosophy, sociology, science, social sciences and psychology to try to get certain effects (Not Poe, BTW, though I was taught it was Poe, which is why I'm calling out Lit Professors to check and give their sources if you want your students to give their sources) out of the reader, in what Gertrude Stein argued for. (Take a drink every time a structuralist bashes her).
I know. Critical thinking and actual literary discussion. Oh Noes.
Some of my hits I've posted on this blog have included the original of man v. man which was really man v. mankind and the others that came later were pulled from philosophers. And finding out that stakes was an accidental addition to Writing vocabulary (Hilarious, BTW), Finding out about 98% of the vocabulary of the 3 act story structure. I'm missing the justification phase (the new Emic) for conflict "being interesting".
I also figured out that a lot of the sentence level common ad nauseum repeated writing rules are anti-PoC and anti-women's writing, mostly to the 19th century. (The way adjectives and adverbs are disciplined particularly targets white women and Black people...)
I also tracked down the origin of the conflict theory into books... and how and why other story drivers came to be.
And I did some tracking down of oral storytelling as well.
I can tell you why and also some of my more self minted writing theories and where I got those ideas from:
The dialogue upgraded philosophy is mostly from learning various languages, and reading psychology books. I try to cite it if I remember the source.
The Description vs. detail mostly comes from reading way too many psychology books. (Attention taxation is mostly the core philosophy there.)
I do put an effort into citing things where I didn't come up with them. say the rules to giving and receiving a Critique which I posted on Nanowrimo, which got corrupted, but came from my late great writing teacher, Tom Joyce and he would cite exactly why he had those rules. Since he's passed on, I put up his name, so he does get credit. His rules on how to shut up, combined with Holly Lisle's Mugging the Muse more people need to read, in general, outside of writing.
This is also why one should read widely. One can come up with the next writing theory revolution if one is basically a nerd extraordinaire.
Example of one of the Nevers.
So let's see one of the theories I saw posted where someone admonished it as "wrong" and one should "Never" do this.
She saw...
She realized
She noticed
He heard
He thought
He felt
The usual clap trap of OMG, I'm an editor, but I don't know the origin of this rule.
Usually the justification for this rule is as follows, "Show me the action. It's show, not tell."
The origin of this idea of show don't tell from what I can find, dates mostly from white men in the 20th century. SOME of it, is hating on women, but mostly it's a reaction to 19th century moralizing energy. There are more cushion words from women (which I've covered), but also in the 19th century, in general, there are more cushioning/hedging than in the 1950's. I can cover this in minutia using Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, and comparing them to later authors. But I think this is excessive and this is not a college essay going over the particulars of the subject.
Generally, the next generation hates what the previous generation did and the whole these people are invading in academia and writing is not a new thing. Aristotle was complaining about a version of it from his time period (Epic Plays are horrible, mainly. We should have a simple, straight-forward storyline no side event threads, quiet bashing of Ta'zieh...)
Since books, particularly in the 20th century were heavily influenced by the advent of movies, where there was a contingent of people that believed books and movies should be the same plot-wise, I think justified by the idea that books would be easier to adapt into movies this way... (this is a whole philosophical debate that was being had in the background of many of the writing books I read, where some strongly where against it like Sheldon Lincoln Whitcomb.) As I've said a lot, the 3-act and 5-act are by their nature meant to be event-based, not character based, because the y axis is TENSION, not emotion, and one can manufacture tension without character, which is why there is often a tug-of-war in writing rhetoric over character v. events that's absent in other descriptions of other story structures.
What removing the "She saw"... really does is make it more "action based" and more "action forward" by removing her from the picture and framing only on the action itself.
BUT there is a secondary problem that arises from doing this which editors should ALSO flag. By making the character not observe these things and often inserting an opinion, often the writing takes a very US stance which might not work for all worldviews.
Let's play with an example:
She saw a black cat cross the road.
A typical editor would edit it to great white US expectations:
A black cat crossed the road, sending a chill down her spine.
Perfect. You've passed level 1. You cut the "She saw." and added an opinion/reaction.
But wait. What if the character is not a white abled person from the US. Why would you use "She saw"?
Play with psychology of the character here:
They feel distant from the action because they are dissociating.
They are hallucinating and you need to emphasize this is true.
They are having a mental breakdown.
They have issues with their inner feelings, but this is an outward manifestation.
They are not very self aware.
They live in a society that does NOT emphasie ME FIRST like the US does, and they are more thinking about collective actions, so by having a detached she saw, is a way to compartmentalize before having an opinion.
It's supposed to be a cold observation.
To which the person on the other end usually retorts, "But but, this is unusual."
YES! Which is why you should be listing these things in the video so you don't look clueless???
There's a host of other reasons on the reader effect end that on might want to harness by doing this.
Reader Effect reasons:
Sometimes holding the reader at a distance is key for setting things up like unreliable narrator. If the whole book is narrated with all of these cushion words, sometimes that can lead to mistrust in the narrator.
Showing the character is entirely unsure of everything/insecure. She THOUGHT she saw the black cat. But she blinked and it was gone. This sets up a lot.
One can set up tension between narrator and reader.
Cushion words in white US and UK English are often used to hedge or for politeness. "I said, yep, I said to her, 'You know what she saw a black cat.' and she disbelieved me."
The action is not the point. The character's emotions and reactions to everything are the point.
Beyond this, there are dialects that do use more cushion and hedging words.
"had had" shows up in BAE, mostly NE US and would be flagged by white editors. (Again, read more than your worldview.)
This is a swift reminder that story rules over everything. A good editor will flag the above with a rule book. A great editor will read through it and figure out why you've done something and see if and how it works or does not work in the larger framework and if there is a better way to create the effect you want.
