Are Rules Made to Be Broken?

 Q:  Crime fiction has tried and true conventions, such as a murder/crime in the first chapter (or soon thereafter), an investigation, believable motive, hidden clues etc. Add to this, the conventions for each subgenre, such as cozy or police procedural. Have you ever ignored or deviated from these established conventions? Do you find them restrictive or do you like working within them?

-from Susan

 

My first thought when I looked at this week’s question was that rules make me itchy. But that’s from the perspective of someone who’s found a voice, a rhythm of writing, and who reads widely and in great gobs within the crime fiction genre. It’s easier for me to say to hell with abstract rules, I write from my own confidence, than it is for a writer just feeling her way into the profession.

 

The examples in the question of conventions to follow are not wrong as long as they’re not accepted as rigid rules. It helps to understand the scaffolding that supports a genre, and to use it to build a story – as long as it doesn’t squash a good tale. I’ve been flattered to be part of a crime writing conference faculty and we’re gearing up for the 2024 program. When I was a learning writer and attended this same conference, I wanted to know what the rules were, in part because I feared I’d never get published if I colored outside the lines. It gave me confidence to know how to create the story within some kind of frame, so it didn’t just drift around. Now, I share many of those ideas with other writers trying to do the same thing. Many of the other faculty say the same thing: you need to know what the conventions are, and to follow the ones that will get your book into the hands of readers, but not to feel so bound by them that you get blocked.

 

One aspect of the conventions is significant and has to be faced: It’s often the readers who are the strictest followers of the rules. We love readers, their opinions mean a great deal. But think about it – are we self-censoring, giving up on our belief in what makes the best story, if we’re writing too much in response to what we fear readers will say? How many of us who’ve become published have gotten blowback in reader reviews because we didn’t hew to a convention?

 

“There was swearing!”

 

“It started too slowly!”

 

“I knew who the killer was right away!”

 

“I never figured out who did it – not enough clues!”

 

“It was depressing!”

 

“A dog died – I’ll never read him again!”

 

Get too many of those and any author has to face the crits honestly. Am I going to lose readers (and, therefore publishers) by ignoring a major expectation? Did I make some unforced errors in the book that I can learn from? Who am I writing for? 

As an unpublished author getting feedback from beta readers, those responses properly demand attention and serious, non-defensive thinking. Are there ways to re-frame what you’ve written so it doesn’t bury clues too deeply, starts a bit faster, eliminates all but the essential expletives. (Don’t tell me, dear reader, that someone who stumbles over a dead body in 2024 says “Oh dear.”) As a published author, you may have a strong following of readers who love what you do your way. Then, the complaints may be outliers and you can smile, bless them, and keep on your chosen path.

 

I think following the conventions at least loosely is a good thing, as long as it doesn’t mean you’re trying to fit your size 10 foot into a size 8 shoe! It helps agents sell your book, it helps publishers market it, it helps booksellers shelve it, and it helps readers who have preferences for a sub-genre find it. The caveat for me is that if you believe it’s vitally important to the story to have readers get to know and care about the characters before one of them is killed, for example, and a death on page two crushes that, then you have to write so persuasively and engagingly that the readers you want stick with you. 

 

Rules, someone has said, are made to be broken. I would only add, yes, but proceed with caution.

Two current books. If you read them, you can look for the breaks from convention and decide if I blew it!