When to Break the Rules of Writing

Break writing rules with confidence—learn when bending them serves readers, not ego, using the 3 Keys to Reader Enchantment.

Is Your Story the Exception to the Rules?

…No. Next question?

Just kidding!

The truth is… most stories aren’t the exception. But yes, there are times when breaking the rules works. The tricky bit is knowing when it actually serves your story—or when it’s just your ego misguiding you.

That’s exactly what I’ll show you in this article.

The Problem with Rules

The problem is, you’ve probably found yourself in one of two places.

1. “The rules don’t apply to me.”

You tell yourself the rules don’t quite apply to this story because you’re doing something different here. Something unique. You don’t see how it fits into any usual kind of mold.

But no matter how true that may be, it’s causing your readers to check out or get lost in confusion. You might see how your choice serves the story, but you’re not delivering it in a way that serves your readers.

2. “I follow the rules too rigidly.”

On the other hand, maybe you’ve checked this ego so thoroughly that you try to follow writing advice too rigidly. You see where you need to diverge from some “rule” at a certain point, but hesitate.

You know you shouldn’t, but you can’t see how to make your story work if you don’t. Then you wonder if your story even works at all.

When I coach authors through this, I see both extremes. And neither approach works, because the rules aren’t really “rules” at all.

The Truth About Writing Rules

The only rule is… if it works, it works.

But here’s the catch—what “works” isn’t necessarily for your own whims to decide when it comes to crafting a marketable book meant to reach readers. These stories only work if they resonate with readers.

And that’s where these so-called rules come from in the first place: they reflect patterns that reliably deliver what readers are wired to expect and engage with.

There are still a lot of creative ways to deliver on these patterns, so it’s not like this means anything trite.

I tell my authors this all the time when they get nervous because they know they're doing something that goes against writing advice at face value.

The “rules”—those bits of advice—exist because, nine times out of ten, following them creates a clearer, more immersive experience for your readers.

When It’s Okay to Break the Rules

So when you break one of those rules, it has to be intentional. That means there’s actually a better reason than:

• You can’t let go of something you wrote
• You’re attached to an idea
• Or following the rule feels harder than breaking it

You break it intentionally when you understand what that “rule” is protecting in the reader’s experience—and you’ve found a better way to serve it in your story.

Sometimes, that really is possible. Writing advice taken at face value is more like a best-practice blanket statement that may not work in every instance. You don’t always have to follow every single one to the letter.

But if you’re going to deviate, there needs to be a stronger reason than how it’s not your favorite thing or it’s more work to bring your draft in line with the rule.

Examples of Intentional Rule-Breaking

For example, when the authors I work with do break a “rule,” it’s usually only one or two—and it’s intentional.

• Maybe they open a book with a slightly more distant point of view because it perfectly matches the tone of their story
• Or maybe they bend structural pacing within acceptable percentages to heighten their theme

They’ve thought it through, weighed the trade-offs, and made sure what they’re doing still serves the reader experience, not only their own ego.

Plus, they’re usually following all the best-practice advice in every other respect—because there’s simply no good reason not to.

They know the “rules,” and therefore know exactly when and how to break them.

When to Break Writing Rules

So how can you know when breaking a rule is actually helping your story instead of hurting it?

Here’s where I come back to my 3 Keys to Reader Enchantment framework: Expectations, Enlightenment, and Experience.

1. Expectations

Rules often exist to help you meet reader expectations. That includes things like pacing, scene structure, and keeping point of view consistent—but it also includes market expectations for your genre.

When you break a rule, ask yourself:

Is this still delivering the pattern readers are wired to predict and need for the story to feel satisfying?

Brain science backs this up. Studies show readers’ brains constantly simulate intentions and outcomes, tracking nested goal hierarchies at both the scene and story level.

Rules like:

• “Stick to one POV at a time”
• “Keep rising action escalating toward a climax”

exist because they support how readers build and update those predictions. Break them in a way that doesn’t better serve these expectations, and you risk breaking the story’s internal logic—or even disappointing the type of story your readers came for.

2. Enlightenment

This is your story’s ley line, its thematic truth. A lot of writing advice points you toward delivering that truth clearly:

• Avoid deus ex machina endings
• Don’t overuse exposition
• Make sure your character arcs resolve thematically

If you break one of these “rules,” it should be because you’ve found a stronger way to highlight your core truth—not because it’s easier than wrestling your draft into shape.

The science behind this: readers use memory and meaning-making networks to connect story events to bigger truths. Cognitive research shows that when a narrative pays off thematically, readers engage brain regions linked to reflection and autobiographical memory.

That’s why advice like:

• Plant and pay off (Chekhov’s gun)
• Wants vs. needs
• Tying everything back to a character’s internal conflict

isn’t arbitrary—it’s how readers make and internalize meaning.

3. Experience

Finally, consider the experience you want readers to have. Stories are emotional simulations; readers mirror character emotions and draw on their own memory to feel what’s happening.

This is why advice like:

• “Show, don’t tell”
• “Avoid head-hopping”
• “Layer conflict in every scene”

shows up everywhere—it directly maps onto how readers’ brains create empathy and immersion.

Neuroscience studies reveal that mirror neurons fire when readers imagine what a character feels, and immersion deepens when stories follow the disruption–escalation–payoff rhythm.

That’s why advice about deeper POV, scene escalation, or keeping tension active works—it scaffolds the brain’s natural way of processing story as a lived experience. Breaking those rules might work, but only if the choice makes the experience even stronger.

Using the 3 Keys as Your Decision Filter

When you use the 3 Keys as your decision filter, you’ll know whether breaking a rule serves your story—or whether it’s just ego or avoidance creeping in.

And to help you make sure your story is delivering all three keys to your readers, you can grab my Spellbook Outline: it’s a tool to help you see whether your story is hitting the right turning points for reader expectations, how they’re working for both the plot and internal character arc for meaningful reader impact, and the best immersive experience so you can decide with confidence when bending or breaking a rule might actually work.

When the Writing Rules Are Useful

But before I see all the comments about such-and-such author who is super popular and successful and breaks common rules all the time—likely even many of the examples I mentioned—remember the 3 Keys and why that might work for this other author:

Is the author already successful by whatever metric you want to go with and has a built-up audience eager for the next story? That’s the key of Expectations at play. They know well what their audience wants, and maybe going a little rogue totally works for that audience—the audience may even be in on such shenanigans. Think of Easter eggs that might not pay off until another whole series in a connected universe, for instance!

Even when such an author breaks a rule poorly, they’re still likely delivering on the more important expectations their readers trust them for. Their audience knows what they’re going to get in terms of tone, genre, and payoffs—so they’ll often stick around through a clunky moment or a risky choice, because they know the author always delivers in the end.

And… you also have to consider that if this author is already multi-published, they have the craft experience. They’re not breaking rules in ignorance. They know the patterns inside and out. So at times they break the rules at face value, but follow the spirit of the rule in other ways—ways that, for whatever reason, worked better for the story they were telling.

That’s not just for successful, bestselling authors with a huge following. That’s something you can do too. But it is why it’s even more important to understand these rules well. Especially if you’re not published yet, the rules matter even more. They’re not about boxing you in, making you formulaic in a tedious way, or only applicable for authors telling less unique and more straightforward stories than you are.

Think of the “writing rules” as shortcuts to craft mastery. They capture the best practices that reliably create immersion and impact.

Once you understand them, you’ll know when breaking a rule actually makes your story stronger—and you’ll have the confidence to do it well.

So if you want the freedom to break the rules, the fastest way there is to first learn them deeply.

Your Turn

I’m curious about this, so let me know in the comments (on the video version):

• What rules do you chafe against, even if you know it’s probably a good rule to follow?
• Or what piece of writing advice is one of your favorites?

Because there actually are some “rules” or oft-told pieces of writing advice that are truly terrible… and some that you really do need to know.

So before you head off to bend or break any rules in your own story, there’s one in particular you absolutely cannot get away with breaking if you want your readers to care. It’s the foundation underneath every great story, no matter the genre.

That’s what I’ll show you in the next article.

Selected Bibliography

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37269956/
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2819196/
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4733342/
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3559433/
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0163853X.2023.2206773
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7413736/
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9328199/
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885201424001217
• https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13421-025-01736-7
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11851491/
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15213269.2023.2247322
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-56800-0
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3079278/

This field is quite theoretical. I'm extrapolating for authors what I can based on the findings we do have (and I'm certainly not a neuroscientist!). To explore a fuller background, you can see this article about a breadth of brain science sources (and their abstracts/descriptions) in my site's private resource library. Note: You'll need to register a free student account to access it: https://www.inkybookwyrm.com/blog/sources-on-the-science-of-story-craft-and-creativity

Categories: : creativity, novel drafting, revision, self-editing, writer mindset