Rules to be broken?

If anything, the fact that these genres are so wide open mean that there are tons of rules out there, some unspoken and some written in black and white. And sometimes, breaking the rules is the only way to tell a really fascinating story. Here are 10 rules of SF and fantasy that more authors should consider breaking from time to time.

Go on you lot: get on with it! 😉

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They (not the movie)

Consider the following sentence:

A person who does not read this blog regularly may find that ____ grammar suffers.

Now fill in the blank with the appropriate pronoun. If you’re of a certain age, you’ll unflinchingly fill the blank with “his.” If you lean leftish sociopolitically, you’re more likely to provide “her” (or to alternate between “his” and “her” when using such sentences). If the thought of filling in that blank fills you with uncertainty or even dread, maybe you’d supply “their,” which makes the grammar nerds squirm.

Showing vs. Telling

“Writing instructors and editors often dole out the suggestion that writers should show rather than telling, but it’s really pretty abstract (telling!) advice.“

Lies Your English Teacher Told You

College English Tutor Lisa Muzaffar Kusko writes:

“As a college English instructor, I continually have to remove writing myths from my students’ brains. These rules don’t appear in any grammar book, but they are taught year after year.“

Since writing properly is, here at MonstaPro, dear to our hearts (and it’s created a small storm in its comments section) we’d thought we’d share!

Related articles

• Lies Your English Teacher Told You (lisakusko.wordpress.com)
• Appreciation Of My English Teacher (dewnestry.wordpress.com)
• Reflection: The Influence of Belief on Motivation to Learn (mmselsectionc.wordpress.com)

Publishing and Coping With Rejection

Here at MonstaPro, we like to think we know a thing or two about writing; particularly what it takes to get some words down in the right order.

This is why we feel that, when other like-minded souls scribble a few things in order to help that situation, we’d like to spread the word in order to help the general populace. We’re nice like that.