On Rules

Visit any critique group and you'll find people virtually yelling about the so-called rules of writing. Yet, read any best seller and you'll find just about every rule broken at least once.

So, what are the real rules? In my humble opinion (and it's pretty darn humble) the only rule is don't break the same rule repetitively. In other words, once or twice is cute; more than that is annoying.

So, in a nutshell, here are my rules for writing:

Try to show not tell. But, telling is okay sometimes.
Try to use strong verbs rather than propping weak ones up with modifiers.
Don't let great strings of adjectives swish around your nouns unless you really, really have to.
And finally, for heaven's sake, just let your characters speak rather than laughing or sighing their comments.

So there you have--my rules of writing.