Grammar is a vital part of the literature and creative work we consume. Grammar allows writers and editors to adhere to rules that keep things organized without any question as to how things should be.
Sometimes poetry does not follow grammar rules. Starting a paragraph with capital letters? Rupi Kaur certainly doesn’t have to follow this rule to get her work on the New York Times bestseller list.
But poetry’s lack of adherence to grammar rules isn’t anything new. The argument in support of poetry breaking grammar rules is that as a creative outlet, it doesn’t need to follow these rules.
But what about novels? What if works of fiction break conventional grammar rules? Recently, I was in a conversation with a friend about Sally Rooney’s newest novel Beautiful World, Where Are You. My friend said she couldn’t bear to read it because she could not stand her writing style. Her biggest problem with Rooney’s writing style? The lack of quotation marks every time a person speaks.
I’d like to circle back to poetry. Poetry is given a creative license. The reasoning behind this act is explained well in the Letter Review‘s article on the topic of poetry conventions in terms of grammar. In fact, the article explains that certain poems actually require rigidity and rule following while other poem structures give you the liberty to be more creative.
Grammar rules, particularly spelling and punctuation, are nothing more than a creative tool for poets who choose to dismiss the rules altogether or use the them to decorate and add aesthetic elements to a poem.
Writing Forward
Knowing the logic behind grammar rules in poetry, I wondered what use does the lack of quotation marks in Rooney’s writing serve? I found answers in an interview with Sally Rooney in STET magazine. Here is a portion of that interview.
[Q:] On the topic of dialogue, it seems like you made a conscious decision not to use quotation marks – why was that? Were there other “rules” you purposely avoided following?
[A:] In my first draft I used em-dashes to introduce dialogue, but then in later drafts, I began to notice how much dialogue was contained inside longer paragraphs, undifferentiated from the narrative. I decided it didn’t really make sense to introduce some dialogue with dashes and some without, so l used Cmd+F and deleted every em-dash in the manuscript. That was one of the last changes I made before sending it away. I can’t remember ever really using quotation marks – I don’t see any need for them, and I don’t understand the function they perform in a novel, marking off some particular pieces of the text as quotations. I mean, it’s a novel written in the first person, isn’t it all a quotation?
EM DASHES? As someone who speaks Spanish and has a mother who loves to read Spanish novels, I know that dialogue in Spanish is often indicated through dashes rather than quotation marks. So it isn’t a foreign concept to me. But that’s an entirely different culture with different rules and mechanics.
Furthermore, I’m not entirely convinced that Rooney’s justification for her style of writing is warranted. Sally Rooney isn’t the only fictional author to have broken conventional rules, and she probably won’t be the last. Elie Wiesel uses fragments all throughout his novel Night. Lewis Carol uses run-on sentences in Alice in Wonderland. Jane Austen is guilty of utilizing double negatives.
When thinking deeply about this post and completing research on the topic, I found many readers of both poetry and novels state that “to break the rules you have to know the rules.” It reminded me of a screenwriting class I took. My professor described a student who was incorrectly formatting their screenplays.
He said, “But this is how Wes Anderson writes!”
“Ahh but you’re not Wes Anderson,” she said.
She proceeded to explain that once we know the rules for screenwriting and we are established as professionals, then we could write however we wanted. Personally, I find that whenever authors take creative liberties it’s distracting. I feel as though I have caught a mistake the editor has not found and feel giddy. But when the book is riddled with mistakes, I’m less likely to feel giddy and more likely to feel confused or annoyed.
Who’s to say these authors actually know the rules if all their work encompasses rules they’ve dictated?
Critics say this artistic liberty should be allowed as long as it’s consistent. I agree. If you’re going to go all out, make it consistent within the book. I buy that. What I don’t buy is that an author thinks they can do it within every book they write. The circumstance in which a certain “style” is utilized cannot fit every book they write.