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But then there's this French phrase called Denameaut (sp?) (falling action), where after the climax the story begins to fall.
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I think it's
Denoument? I know exactly what it means, but as shown in my lifelong struggle with the word
beauracrat, I struggle with French words.
This topic has got the old cogs turning as I'm someone who not only enjoys writing, but has also taught writing, has been taught writing, and who does it professionally. Firstly, looking at this from the point of view as the teacher, it is vital that children are taught grammar, but this needs to be done as early as possible; in my own case, I was taught grammar from the age of five, and hence it became second nature to apply it. I don’t know many of the names of the rules, as it is almost instinct to apply them having learned them at such a young age. But coupled with this, nothing can beat reading as a way of assimilating the rules of spelling and grammar.
I can see why a teacher would want their students to learn to write in a structured manner. Learning rules of story writing helps assist students to think about what they are writing and to structure it; I have taught teenagers how to write, and we experimented with a comparison of free-form writing and using structure and planning, thus demonstrating how well an idea can be conveyed if laid out appropriately. In addition, in the UK at least, one of the ‘roles’ of an English teacher is to guide students in how to set out essays correctly, and in such a manner that they make their point coherently; this is a vital skill in achieving A levels.
I also studied writing at university, where we eventually learned quite the opposite, and that was how to break the rules. After a grilling in the basics, e.g. how to write a Petrarchan sonnet, we were then ‘set free’ to do our own work. One of my experiments included an autobiography without any description; I used line drawings instead. And now, in my work, I must not only write according to strict standards, but (when I get the chance) write creative speeches. This is yet another area of writing which I had to learn. I have been taught never to begin a sentence with a number, always to write Government with a capital (it is blasphemy not to do so as Government equals God), and to make liberal use of beginning sentences with ‘And’ and ‘But’ when speechwriting.
So, what I’m saying is that yes, there are rules, and it helps enormously to learn them, but out there, in the heady world of words, the rules don’t necessarily count. On the one hand we have the official documents which must be written to specified standards, and on the other we have
Finnegan's Wake (which are perhaps not so far apart actually). And throw into all of this the fact that grammatical and spelling rules are constantly altering, which is a marvellous thing as it keeps the English language alive, and keeps me from being a pedant as I have to accept that this language would just die if we were all too pedantic.
