WEBINAR | Writing That Breaks the Rules: 10 Craft “Laws” You Can Defy
August 12 @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm EDT
Every genre has its sacred rules. Learn what they actually protect — so you can break them with confidence.
For writers at all stages, in all genres
Included in the Season Pass
Every writer collects a list of commandments. Show, don’t tell. Don’t start a scene with dialogue. One point-of-view per scene. Search and destroy all adverbs. Memoir must be told in the first person. These rules are repeated in workshops and webinars until we think they’re all true, all the time, but most of them are shorthand for a much more useful question: Am I making the best craft choices for readers to experience these words as I intend?
In this webinar, Allison K Williams (author of Seven Drafts and editor of NYT bestselling memoirs and novels) debunks the “rules” writers hear most often in workshops, craft classes, and query guidance and unpacks the real craft principle underneath each one. You’ll learn which rules are structural (break them, and the story stops working) and which are stylistic conventions (break them deliberately, and readers barely notice—or love you for it). We’ll use examples from published books that defy every dictum on this list and succeed anyway, plus a clear-eyed look at when breaking a rule reads as “bold choice” versus “rookie mistake.”
You’ll leave knowing exactly which rules support the writing you want to do—and which ones were never really rules at all.
In this webinar, you will:
- IDENTIFY the difference between structural craft principles and stylistic conventions
- LEARN why POV discipline, tense consistency, and dialogue-opening “rules” exist—and what actually breaks when you ignore them
- EXAMINE notable published novels, essays and memoirs that violate these rules on purpose, and why they work
- WALK AWAY with a framework for deciding, scene by scene, when a “rule” is serving your story and when it’s safe to ignore—or gleefully defy
This webinar is ideal for writers at any level who…
- keep getting the same craft note in workshop and want to understand why, not just fix it
- have gotten craft feedback that doesn’t resonate or feels just plain wrong
- are drafting memoir, YA, or genre fiction and want to know which conventions their category actually enforces (and what to do if you’re not going to play along)
- have a bold structural choice in mind and want to pressure-test it before committing
- are tired of contradictory advice and want one clear-eyed pass through the “rules” that matter
Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔
ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER
Sharp, funny, and genuinely useful from the first five minutes, Allison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro from First Draft to Book Deal and Managing Editor of the Brevity Blog. She teaches memoir and novel craft through Rebirth Your Writing, leads retreats from Maine to Morocco to the middle of the Atlantic, and has a well-earned reputation for advice that improves your pages the same day you hear it.
Allison holds an MFA from Western Michigan University, and her own work has appeared in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, and Brevity (the magazine) as well as on NPR, The Moth, Snap Judgement, and CBC-Canada. She is the co-producer of CRAFT TALKS and founder of The Writers Bridge.
REFUNDS (less a $10 processing fee) ARE AVAILABLE before the replay is sent out. For a refund, EMAIL us at info@WritingCraft.com. Canceling your Zoom invite will not initiate this process.
There are no refunds after the replay is sent.
Questions? Please email Info@writingcraft.com
