Breaking a Writing Rule to Humorous Effect

Two years ago, the fine folks at Crippen & Landru released an anthology called School of Hard Knox, in which all the stories broke one of the ten rules handed down by Father Ronald Knox back in the golden age of mysteries. Last year, I was pleased to be asked to contribute to the follow-up anthology, in which all the stories would break one of the twenty rules for writing detective stories handed down by golden age author S. S. Van Dine. That book, titled Double Crossing Van Dine, was released two weeks ago.

When Donna Andrews, one of the editors of these two anthologies (along with Greg Herren and Art Taylor), asked me to write a story, I quickly looked at the twenty rules to see which one might inspire me. As soon as I saw rule #3, my mind was off and running. This rule states:  

"There must be no love interest in the story. To introduce amour is to clutter up a purely intellectual experience with irrelevant sentiment. The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar."

Heavens, we wouldn't want a little love--and lust--to gum up the works.

Or would we? 

What if, I thought, a private eye is hired by his next-door neighbor to solve a case dear to the PI's heart, but at the same time his ovulating wife is eager to get pregnant, and she keeps trying to lure him to bed. It is an amusing premise. I figured this scenario would drive Van Dine up the wall. It is exactly why he declared there should be no romance in detective stories--a desire for amour should not impede an investigation. 

But I wasn't done. I love writing funny stories, and I had an idea to ratchet up the humor: Every seductive step the wife takes gives her husband an idea for the next step he should take in his investigation. In the end, it is the wife's desire to distract her husband that leads him to solve the case. 

Take that, Van Dine! I think if he were to read this story, "Baby Love," he might decide he was a bit too harsh with rule #3. In the right circumstance, amour could be just what the detective needs.

I think Van Dine's ghost is working at the
fortune cookie factory.

I hope you will check out this anthology, which has a great list of contributors and an introduction by Catriona McPherson. The trade paperback version can be bought from the usual sources, as well as directly from the publisher. Just click here. (You also can purchase straight from the publisher a clothbound numbered edition--signed by the editors--with a Van Dine pastiche written by Jon L. Breen thrown in.) I believe an ebook version will be coming out soon too. 

Professional Tips, and/or Exceptions to the Rules

Often I turn to mystery writers for professional tips, but my friend, editor, writer, teacher Sharon sent me a Paris Review article by Benjamin Dreyer, author of Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. He presents a sensible, literate, and wonderfully enjoyable defense of bending, even breaking the rules.

The Village Explainer

The ‘4 Cs’ represent the real axioms of good writing, convention, consensus, clarity, comprehension. I suspect even these rules can be carefully broken, but not with impunity. Dreyer uses an example of ‘not only x but y’, but he didn’t extend the explanation to its conclusion. I’d back into one more in his C list, logiC.

I just single-handedly Crumpled my Credibility, but writing requires a certain logic, not merely plot, not merely sensible characterization, but how we string words together. Logic, for example, might include arguments for the Oxford comma, that clarity demands all items in a list should be separated by commas.

To Be and Not to Be (Schrödinger’s Last Meow)

Writers understand the difference between ‘and’ and ‘or’, but is ‘and/or’ a legitimate construction? One of my esteemed colleagues chided me for using it in an email, arguing it’s redundant. Use one or the other, he said, preferably ‘or’. He pointed out the persistent bugger has been criticized for at least a century. Even Strunk and White weighed in The Elements of Style. The manual says, ‘and/or’ “damages a sentence and often leads to confusion or ambiguity.”

What does the phrase “Abel, Baker and/or Charlie” mean in a contract or a bank check? My favorite YouTube attorney, Steve Lehto, recorded a lecture on the topic. Courts have had to decide the meaning of ‘and/or’ in legal cases, where they usually, but not always, arrive at a consensus of any or all.

While the awkward phrase should never appear in professional writing, I disagree ‘and/or’ can simply be replaced with one conjunction or the other. As I prepared this article, I looked up the combination to see if anyone else felt similarly. To my surprise, I came across a number of articles including a Wikipedia entry.

In a case of being wrong but right, I discovered ‘and/or’ can’t be simply reduced to ‘and’ or ‘or’. This has led grammarians to propose using the most appropriate of three constructs:

• x or y or both
• either x or y
• x and any y

While the first has its proponents, especially amid legal circles, Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Girl, argues the third example can have its uses. She contends the first recommendation is awkward, through perhaps not quite as awful as the original ‘and/or’ phrase. She further suggests that if one insists upon using ‘and/or’, then treat the sentence as if the subject is plural, not singular.

Meanwhile, Back at the ProVerbial Ranch…

Check out Dreyer’s Non-Rules. Students have read others discussing the topics before, all basic rules, but not with this light-touch analysis you shouldn’t miss.

1. Never Begin a Sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’
2. Never Split an Infinitive
3. Never End a Sentence with a Preposition

As Dreyer points out, there’s more than meets the eye.

Rules, love ’em, hate ’em. What are your (dis)favorites?

TidByts for Grammar Geeks

[TL;DR] But wait! There’s more!