These rules are great for most writers to follow, but if you follow them too closed-mindedly they will limit you. Same with Stephen kings famous writing book: a

These rules are great for most writers to follow, but if you follow them too closed-mindedly they will limit you. Same with Stephen kings famous writing book: also excellent, but it’s more of a guide on how to write like Stephen king, who stopped experimenting with style years ago and who sadly might never write something beautiful like Jerusalems Lot again (if I’m wrong, please let me know) You can break all of these rules for specific stylistic reasons. Eg, deliberately using a familiar metaphor or simile to evoke the attitude of those who say it. Or to convey that a character is unoriginal via dialogue. Or maybe you use a long or extraneous word because it fits the rhythm better, which matters a lot for highly stylized works. Don Delilo changed his words for the sake of syllable rhythm a lot, his prose is incredible. Netflix just made a movie based on his book, White Noise actually which was a fun watch The passive voice can be useful to convey things about a speaker or narrator, or even a place, or to evoke a classical feeling because the style you are using is an old one 6 is a fully trustworthy rule however. This is just off the top of my head. I wrote articles about these things sometimes [1] [1] https://barbariangrunge.substack.com/ https://barbariangrunge.substack.com/