Learn from others and adapt, but also respect your own style and resist changes to it unless you yourself believe that the proposed change improves it.  There are many styles of writing and many do’s and don’ts.   Remember to distinguish dogma – like good grammar – from doctrine like style.  Take for example narration.  The doctrine is that all stories – particularly children’s stories must stick to one style of narration.  Sometimes, it works to take some liberties with this “rule” - for emphasis, for example.  It can sometimes work to blur the distinction between the character and the narrator.  In my latest book, the narrator comments on an annoying teenagerthat always slept late – “because that’s what teenagers do.”  In this case, the narrator is actually slipping into the voice of the main character and expressing the characters disdain.  The true omniscient narrator would not make such a biased remark.  I think it works and that reader effortlessly follows this "slippage."

My point here is stick to your guns if you like the way something unconventional in your writing works.  Don’t let some editor tell you that doctrine is dogma.  After all, it’s your name after the “by”!

 


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