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Comment by klodolph | Hacker News Reader

> You could argue that anything that smacks of formulaic storytelling should be avoided at all costs…

People say the same thing about music theory. It gets tiring.

Same as with music theory, writing, programming, or other creative endeavors or art. The thing is that when someone creates something from their heart, from an incredible desire to create and share their vision or experience, it often ends up following some kind of storytelling guideline. And that is because stories worth listening to have a structure that makes them engaging.

The problem comes in when someone tries to analyse the structure of stories and assume that they can create a template for telling new stories. If you start with the template (or the music theory, or the best practices) you end up with something that feels formulaic and like crap.

Theories of art are always descriptive and inductive, not proscriptive or deductive.

A common aphorism for this is often "you need to know the rules to know when to break the rules". It does seem common in creative arts that the novices are not beholden to rules because they do not know them, the intermediate practitioners stick strictly to the rules because they know them, and the proficient practitioners are not beholden to the rules because they know them too well and understand the consequences of what happens when they break them.

It can be the consequences that are the interesting part. "Rules" provide structure and maps, and people like that up to a point. Sometimes it can be fun to stick to the map. Sometimes it's fun to take people off the map and make them a little uncomfortable, when you know how to reward them for taking that journey off the map with you.

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