The longer I write and try to "break into" paid publication, the more I become aware that nothing in writing is as set in stone as it appears. Oh, there are the "markers" of good fiction, the characteristics of plot, character, setting, and everything else that goes into telling a story well that writers are told make the "best" fiction; but even with these there are writers and stories that ignore or contradict those standards and still somehow qualify as "good fiction." This can make it pretty damn hard for a writer to figure out exactly how to revise his or her work so it falls into the "good" category and, hopefully, gets selected for publication. In an art where contradiction reigns, how do you learn what works?

Take a recent rejection I received for one of my short stories. The story was read by four different editors and I was sent the comment sheets from all four. Two said the story set up, plot, and conflict all needed work, but the remaining two said these elements worked fine. Then there's the story that was rejected by three different markets: one said the beginning needed to be reworked; the second didn't like the middle and, in essence, told me to write a completely different story; while the third said the ending should be rewritten. None of them had any trouble with what the other two had problems with, but, according to these comments, a story loved as is by a number of critiquers and "just" plain readers is so completely flawed that it needs to be totally rewritten or, better yet, tossed aside and just the germ of the idea used to write a whole new story.

Writers who are an active part of a workshop get to see this inherent contradiction at work even more frequently and blatantly. Rarely will all the comments on a particular piece agree. Usually what one reader liked, another despises, or at least feels should be "fixed" in some way. Description, for example, can get reactions that fall across the spectrum. Some adore detailed descriptions a paragraph long, others don't even want to know the eye and hair color of a character, preferring to fill in the details themselves. Then we get to the stylistic issues of the day. At one time adverbs were okay to use quite liberally, now it's preferred that they aren't used at all. The poor 'to be' verb is becoming a victim of a stylistic passion that demands active, descriptive verbs whenever possible. On and on it goes, becoming a maze that the writer finds ever more difficult to navigate in an ever changing writing atmosphere.

And yet. without these contradictions, there would be no reason to discuss writing as a process of craft. We would learn its absolutes and that would be it. There certainly would not be a market for the how to write better books because it would have all been said long ago. And, most importantly, there wouldn?t be the diversity we enjoy in what we read. Harry Potter would not sit on the same shelves as Ahab and his whale. Writing would be static, the individual voices stifled. Taking away the contradictions would make it easier to be a writer, the "rules" more easily learned, but the depth and richness of the stories we offer would be lost, and that's a price far too high to pay.

The next time you are given contradictory advice or editorial comments that don't agree, turn to your story and let it tell you what it needs. Find your own path to being a writer, even if it requires a few more adverbs than current standards would consider wise. It worked for J. K. Rowling, why not you?