The Value of Literary Techniques

Question

"Don't take this question the wrong way, I'm just curious. You teach a lot of literary techniques on your site (and you do it brilliantly) but can you ever become a great artist by sticking to the novel writing rules alone? I mean, isn't artistic talent and natural flair and doing things your own way just as important?"

- Louise Harrison, Salisbury

Answer

Both things are important, Louise...

• Every successful writer needs to follow their artistic sensibilities - and that often involves ripping up the rule book and navigating by instinct instead.

• But without a firm grasp of the various literary techniques - not least, how to construct a good plot and how to create believable characters - the novel won't have any framework to support it.

I don't feel like I explained that very well, so I'll try again...

Think of a novel like a beautiful building. The thing that makes it beautiful is the design: the shape, the symmetry, the perspective, the materials used - all those things which make us look at it and recognize as being pleasing to the eye.

The thing that makes it stand up is engineering: the technical, mathematical stuff that keeps it standing.

A novel, too needs both these things...

• It needs to be well-engineered, and that requires that the novelist be a master of all the writing techniques I talk about here at Novel Writing Help - the plot rules, character rules, viewpoint rules and all the rest of it. This is the craft of novel writing.

• But it also needs to have artistic beauty, and that comes from the writer putting the rules to the back of her mind and following her creative muse instead. This is the art of novel writing.

And both things are dependent on each other, in a kind of symbiotic relationship. Without craft, the art is formless. Without art, the craft is mechanical and robotic.

Learning the literary techniques first is vital - as a matter of fact, you must master them. Only then can you learn to bend or break them as you follow your heart instead.

Harvey