Currently in an Eng 200 class (no they don’t know I write novels), but I’m rankling at the requirements: No sentence fragments/contractions/etc. Makes for dry/blah writing. After peer editing some stuff I truly can’t understand, I realize that-when starting-knowing the rules is essential to making [writing] comprehensible. But at a certain point, to make [it] really sing, the rules need to be ditched deliberately, fully knowing WHY they need to be ditched.
(Insert favored endeavor between the [ ] brackets)
Dirty Sci-Fi Buddha 
Academia…
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First, you must learn everything. Then, you must unlearn everything.
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Yes, yes, and YES! Sometimes we have to toss the rules out to achieve our goal.
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I feel the exact same way. I love figuring out what rules I can break.
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And how sweet it is to be rewarded for breaking them… 🙂
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Exactly! That’s what I tell my students. I teach the rules so they can be broken with purpose!
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Then you’re a great teacher! I bet you get tired of butting heads with some specific colleagues…. 🙂
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Oh, I sure do! I’m the renegade.
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I love this. So true. I have to break rules for my writing to make me happy – for it to truly be mine.
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And didn’t the rules come from genius rule breakers in the first place? 🙂
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Also true!
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Truth. My writing style obviously isn’t for everyone…. But I get a lot of compliments on my style and flow… All while using the heck out of fragments and other broken rules 😉
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