Rules That Aren’t Actually Rules
We have a surprising number of “rules” in writing—and in life—that only work until you look at them a little too closely.
You learn them early, or absorb them somewhere along the way. They feel solid. Universal. The kind of thing you don’t question because… why would you? Until something small breaks them.
Recently, I ran into this while writing a scene involving something deceptively simple: A wedding band. Specifically, which hand it goes on.
I’d written a character wearing his ring on his right hand and didn’t think much of it at first—until I stopped and realized I should think about it. So I did what writers do and went digging. And it turns out, it’s not universal at all.
Depending on where you are—or sometimes just who you’re talking to—a wedding band on the right hand can mean:
married
widowed
divorced
part of a cultural or religious tradition
or something else entirely
Same symbol. Completely different meanings.
Once I knew that, I couldn’t unsee it. So instead of treating it as a mistake to fix, I leaned into it. The character keeps the ring on his right hand. His romantic interest notices—and makes an assumption based on her own understanding of what that means. Which, of course, isn’t the same as his.
It becomes a small point of confusion between them. Not dramatic. Not world-altering. Just… slightly off. But that’s the kind of detail that makes a world feel lived in.
And once you notice that kind of thing, it’s hard not to start seeing it everywhere. Not just in the world, but in writing, too.
Some writing “rules” we repeat so often they start to feel absolute:
Show, don’t tell.
Avoid adverbs.
Start in the action.
Keep your sentences tight.
Don’t dump lore on the reader.
None of these are wrong, but none of them are universal.
“Show, don’t tell” is useful—until you need clarity more than atmosphere.
Avoiding adverbs makes writing cleaner—until removing them strips out voice.
Starting in the action creates momentum—until it robs a moment of the space it needs to land.
Keeping your sentences tight improves clarity—until a moment needs room to breathe.
And “don’t dump lore” works—until you’re writing in a world where the reader has no shared context to rely on. In fantasy especially, some amount of explanation isn’t optional. You can’t “show” everything if the reader doesn’t yet know what they’re looking at.
If magic has rules, if history matters, if the world operates differently than ours—then at some point, the reader needs that information. Not all at once, and not in a way that stops the story, but early enough that they can understand what’s happening when it matters. And ideally, early enough that they can start to anticipate what might happen next.
The problem isn’t the rule itself, it’s treating it like it always applies.
What I’ve been realizing more and more is that most of these “rules” are really just patterns that work often enough to be useful. Not laws or requirements. And definitely not guarantees.
That doesn’t make them meaningless, it just means they need context. The same way a ring on the right hand means something different depending on where or who you are, a writing “rule” only works in the right situation. Change the context, and the meaning shifts.
Which is both helpful… and slightly inconvenient. Because it means there’s no single set of instructions you can follow and always get it right. You have to make choices. And sometimes, that means breaking something that looks like a rule, in order to get the result you actually want.
It turns out the hardest part isn’t learning the rules, it’s learning when they stop applying.
Signed from the margins where meaning shifts with context,
S.G., Keeper of the Wondrous Ledger
