Writing Excuses 8.5: Breaking the Rules

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Writing Excuses 8.5: Breaking the Rules

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2013/02/03/writing-excuses-8-5-breaking-the-rules/

Key Points: Rules are really guidelines. There is a cost to breaking the rules. Rules make it easier for the reader to follow the story. Before you break a rule, know what the effect on the reader will be! Sometimes you break the rules for comic effect, or for parody. Hang a flag on breaking the rule.
( Do not spindle, fold, or mutilate... )

[Howard] I've got a writing prompt. Writing prompt. Here is a rule for rule breaking. The best format for experimenting with rule breaking is the short. Short fiction. Okay? So pick your three favorite, most sacrosanctish rules of fiction, and break all three of them in a short story.
[Brandon] Man, we're going to get like a bunch of stories of... Second person stories told as if you were a book traveling backward in time...
[Mary] [laughter]
[Dan] Looking at yourself in a mirror.
[Howard] Second person... Second person...
[Brandon] Inanimate object...
[Howard] Second person... Was it omniscient?
[Mary] Second person omniscient?
[Howard] No. Second person omnipotent mirror scene.
[Brandon] This is been Writing Excuses. We hope we didn't give you any excuses. Go write.