Ah, I see someone else has brought up one of my favorite high school rants!
I, too, have found it most annoying to be told "This is how you write a story," then have points taken off if I diverge from the pet formula. I even had a story handed back once with a large "C-" in red ink on the top, below which was written, "I want you to know that I really enjoyed this story - some of your descriptions were absolutely magical, and you tied all the events together beautifully! But I'm afraid I had to mark you down for leaving out most of the rising action and dumping the reader in at the climax. It was effective, but not what I wanted." That was the very first time I ever blew up at a teacher. She had said herself that the way I wrote the story was effective. I kept asking why she had marked me down if she had liked the story so much, and she kept saying "Because you left out the rising action." I finally asked her if she would rather I had made the story boring by leaving the rising action in, and she said no. "Then why the bloody hell did you mark it down?" "Because you left out the rising action." That's when I stormed out and demanded a new writing teacher.
Fortunately, my creative writing teacher senior year actually
encouraged experimenting with our writing styles, though he did question me as to why I insisted on spelling it "grey." (I've spelled it "grey" my whole life...what's wrong with everyone else?
) My reason is that I
pronounce it "grey." "Gray," to me, implies a harsher vowel sound than I prefer...but then I'm a dork.
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His use of "archaic" language too has, I believe, been criticised as inappropriate in a "modern" novel.
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This particular argument has always bothered me. What, exactly, is wrong with writing in an archaic or anachronistic form? I find archaic prose to be much more pleasing to read than "modern" writing - it has a different flow, with a hint of rhythm passed down from epic poetry that grabs the pleasure center of my brain and won't let go. In fact, on late nights when I know I don't have to get up early the next day, I can sometimes be found hiding under my down comforter with a Tolkien book or Norse saga and a flashlight, reading aloud to myself for the pure joy of listening to the flow of the writing.
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One "bad habit" that The Lord of the Rings taught me, and that my English teacher pounces on me for, is beginning a sentence with the word 'and'.
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You, too? I've been taught my whole life that you
never begin a sentence with "and." Sometimes, however, I find that a sentence flows better if it begins with "and." I'll probably get a lovely red mark on my paper for it, but I found myself in that situation with the research paper I should be working on right now. The "and" stands, and I'll not remove it.
Another "bad habit" (according to my teachers) that I picked up from Tolkien is a love of the semi-colon. I don't feel that I over-use the friendly hybrid of the period and the comma - I always try to avoid using it two sentences in a row - but it certainly can be found more often in my papers than in those of my classmates. I don't know why, but they seem to feel that the semi-colon is like cayenne pepper, to be used very sparingly; I think of it more like tarragon, to be used liberally to bring out the flavor of the piece.
Now, before I forget, I'd like to compliment
The Saucepan Man for his incredibly clever post on sentence length. Well done, sir, well done indeed! *applauds*