Any seasoned writer will tell you that writing ‘rules’ abound. Over the past hundred years or so, it has become de vogue for renowned writers and impassioned grammarians to publish ‘rules’ by which others should, they are certain, abide.

Sometimes, these rules have merit – for example, Elmore Leonard’s ‘Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip’ and Henry Miller’s ‘Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand’.

Sometimes, these rules are far more arbitrary – for example, Stephen King bans adverbs, declaring, ‘The road to hell is paved with adverbs’, and Kurt Vonnegut detested semi-colons, saying, ‘All they do is show you’ve been to college.’

For a student of literature – as I was at university, and have remained since through my reading list, which always comprises both modern and classic texts – a truth emerges: a modern style of writing has evolved that is quite different to the classic style.

Today, writers are faced with these core rules:

• Show, don’t tell.
• Write succinctly (omit needless words).
• Choose short words rather than long words, and carefully control the length of sentences and paragraphs.
• Write in the active voice (he opened the door, not the door was opened).

The essence of this modern style is formalised in a very influential American guide called The Elements of Style, first written by William Strunk Jr. and published in 1918, and then revised by E.B. White in 1959. It’s a book that many writers have read and followed. It’s also a book that some – academics among them – have criticised, for being far too rigid and prescriptive.

According to proponents of the modern rules, the resulting narrative is ‘tighter’ and ‘cleaner’. Just as films have become faster paced, with cuts to new scenes more frequently, so do many books have galloping paces and only the bare essentials required to set the scene. ‘Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue,’ Elmore Leonard advised; thus the average novel may employ that verb many times.

Personally, in my own writing I stand somewhere between the old and the new. I take on board modern rules and guidance, but I will always be the writer who was born and shaped out of a love for classic literature. I don’t always use the simplest, shortest word; I use the word that best encapsulates the meaning, and that works poetically. I don’t always break my prose into short, choppy sentences and paragraphs – I write romantic fiction, and the rhythm must be flowing and beautiful. I don’t live in horror of moving into the passive voice; sometimes, the writing is all the better for it. I do use semi-colons, and certainly I use adverbs – there is such a difference between the connotations of ‘Please, he said’ and ‘Please, he said desperately’.

The final popular rule, ‘Show, don’t tell’, is the most interesting to me. It harks back to Chekov’s advice to writers: ‘Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.’ This, above all other rules, most affected me as a novice writer. He is talking of description – of masterfully setting the scene for the reader, so that it is vivid in the mind. All authors of great classic literature adhered to this rule; how well we can picture Dicken’s Fagin, and Brontë’s windswept moor, and Leroux’s Paris Opera House with its disturbed phantom. But Chekov’s guidance has come to be seen as a call for avoiding the time-old tradition of storytelling in favour of story-showing.

Recently, writer Namrata Poddar wrote a fascinating piece for the Lit Hub website entitled ‘Is “show don’t tell” a universal truth or a colonial relic?’. She explores the modern preference in the West for ‘visual’ over oral storytelling – the way people have told stories for centuries. Having found a strong oral tradition in the works of various writers, her conclusion is that ‘what we consume as universal in story craft, literary history, or aesthetic taste is anything but universal’.

Thank goodness, I thought as I read. For each time I have written the word ‘convention’ or ‘rule’ in this article, something deep inside me has clenched uncomfortably. In truth, writing is art, and in art there are no rules – or if rules are laid out, then surely they are made to be broken, for that is the very creation of art.