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I remember very clearly the first time I thought up "Christopher Curtis's Three Absolutely Immutable Rules for Good Writing." I was speaking to an auditorium full of young people and somebody asked me if I had any tips for kids who'd like to become writers. "Of course I do," I said, intending to wing an answer. Occasionally, speaking spontaneously is great—a lot of wonderful ideas can come to you in a flash, and as the words issue from your lips you can't help thinking, "Oooh! I'm good!" But most often speaking spontaneously produces a different result—besides muttering a lot of "uhs," and "you knows," and whatever other vocal tics you prefer, you hear the words pouring from your mouth and think, "I hope no one's recording this mess," or, "Why are they still sitting there listening to this drivel, I'd have left twenty 'ums' ago." But that particular day, in that particular auditorium, I was engaged in an orgy of self-congratulatory "Ooh, I'm goods," and it was because I sincerely felt what I was saying. I told the boy who asked for my writing tips:
Rule #1: Write every day. Writing is like anything else that you do, the more you do it, the better you get at it.
Rule #2: Have fun with your writing. You are a god when you write, you can do anything, so stretch out and see what your imagination comes up with.
And finally the most important rule,
Rule #3: Ignore the rules.
The reason I remember this so clearly is because while many students in the auditorium nodded in agreement or cheered, every single English teacher gasped and looked horrified. I heard one girl say to her teacher, "See, Ms. Stanley, I told you!" Ms. Stanley shot me one of those looks only an English teacher can, suddenly I was in fourth grade again and realized what a dunce I was. In a few seconds, I had gone from giving myself a raft of attaboys to worriedly scanning the rows for tape recorders and wondering if I'd ever be allowed to speak to students again.
I was new at speaking to young people and had forgotten how literally they take everything. To most of the students, saying "ignore the rules" was the same as saying, "Forget about spelling, punctuation, clarity, length, and readability, write whatever you feel like writing, baby!" Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Later, after a tense, unpleasant conversation with Ms. Stanley and several of her English teacher accomplices, and since I'm an old vet at this now, I have learned to add the following caveat to Rule #3, "Ignore the rules—once you learn the basics from a highly educated, grossly overworked, criminally underpaid teacher. " Dirty looks from Ms. Stanley or not, I refuse to back down any further.
Why? Why do I think the ignoring of all rules is important when it comes to writing? Why would I risk the wrath of Ms. Stanley and her fellow English teachers? Because I believe good writing is a skill that is developed in a most intensely personal way. Comparisons can be made to learning a proper golf swing or shooting a solid jump shot, or landing a perfect triple axel, but these comparisons go only so far. In those three, and most other pursuits, it is almost essential that the student learn very controlled, very established, very regular patterns to reach a desired skill level. Once that level is reached, the student must constantly reinforce and repeat these patterns to be successful. Writing should be different. Writing should be more open to personal interpretation, to improvisation.
Perhaps athletics is not a fair comparison to make, maybe the analogy would be better served if writing were likened to other arts, drawing or painting or sculpting, say. But even here writing is different, while these arts have produced genuine prodigies, I feel it can be safely said that no such gifted young person can be cited in the field of writing. (Well, almost no such young person. I must admit at ten I considered myself to have been one hell of a writer, but sadly this is not verifiable, since it was something I decided to keep well-hidden until I reached my early forties.)
Maybe the art that writing can most closely and fairly be compared to is music, and more specifically musical composition. Although there are musical prodigies, they are gifted in the playing of an instrument, not in the art of composing. Good writing is based on some of the same principles that good musical composition is; originality, freshness, the ability to walk on the edge without going over. And that can usually be accomplished only by trying new things, by expanding on what's already been done, by ignoring the rules.
If I were to further clarify Rule #3 to a young writer and Ms. Stanley and her ilk, I would say, "Not only is each writer (be they student, teacher, or professional) an absolutely unique filter of what happens to and around them, they also have an absolutely unique way of interpreting and relating these happenings. This uniqueness needs to be celebrated and encouraged. This uniqueness is what makes the next bit of writing interesting and enjoyable."
Maybe I can avoid the confusion altogether by simply stating Rule #3 in a completely different way, maybe instead of telling the young ones to ignore the rules I should say,
Rule #3: Make sure the writing's got your own natural funk all over it.
Yeah, I like that better. Christopher Curtis's Three Absolutely Immutable Rules for Good Writing just mutated. Besides, now I don't think Rule #3 will draw any chastising, withering looks from Ms. Stanley. Maybe looks of bewilderment, but that's often the first reaction when rules are ignored and your own funk is amply applied. •
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About the Author:
Christopher Paul Curtis is the bestselling author of Bud, Not Buddy (winner of the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott King Medal, among many other honors) and most recently of Bucking the Sarge and Mr. Chickee's Funny Money. His first novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, was also singled out for many awards, among them a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Honor. Christopher Paul Curtis grew up in Flint, Michigan. After high school, he began working on the assembly line at Fisher Body Flint Plant No. 1 while attending the Flint branch of the University of Michigan, where he began writing essays and fiction. He is now a full-time writer. Christopher Paul Curtis and his wife, Kay, have two children and live in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Recent Titles:
• Mr. Chickee's Funny Money (Random House Children's Books 2005)
• Bucking the Sarge (Golden Kite Awards) (Random House Children's Books 2004)
• Bud, Not Buddy (Newbery Medal Winner) (Random House Children's Books 1999)
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 (Newbery Honor Book) (Delacorte Press 1995)
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