Breaking rules

[Chel]

Exactly, Tinkerdan...

I go by ear. Ear and instinct.
But then, English is not my first language. It's my third. I learned my English by watching kid's shows without subtitles years before I started studying it in school. By then, I heard what was right or wrong (most of the time at least) and my poor teachers despaired.
They would ask all these questions about grammatical rules, wanting me to explain why and how I had come to the correct answer. I would shrug and reply "It sounds right."

I'm sure I break a lot of rules in my writing, although I am trying to learn (passively). But if it sounds good and it works, it can't be that bad. Right?



...right?

 

[The Storyteller]

Well I only recently discovered there were so many rules (or guidelines), and it freaked me out a little bit! But I decided not to get too worried about it at this stage in the writing.


So far, I use other words than said and a lot of adverbs. I use sentence fragments quite a bit and coma splices. I use ellipses too. And probably passive voice, though that might come out with more editing!


It is actually kinda encouraging to see how many people deviate from the 'rules'; it makes me a little less intimidated!