Is Writing a True Form of Art?

The question is somewhat rhetorical. I mean, of course writing can be art, right? That's something I think we can all reasonably agree on. We wouldn't be on this website if we didn't enjoy a well-written story from time to time, but isn't art supposed to allow for flaws and imperfections? Some art is almost completely defined by what some might label as errors, but writing can be nearly destroyed by the mistakes it may contain. So I'll ask again: is writing a true form of art?

Thought on it for a moment? Well, let me elaborate a bit further with an example. Let us say a person attempts to create a painting or sculpture, but it doesn't even come close to resembling what they were trying to create, or maybe it has several flaws that noticeably differ from what the artist was trying to capture. Someone may look at it and say, "You got it wrong. It's not supposed to look like that. You could definitely benefit from more practice," while others might say, "I love the artistic license you took with this piece! It really adds your own flair and style making it a very unique and intriguing work! I think it's absolutely amazing!" The same can seemingly apply to other art forms, such as music, acting, dancing, and so on, but not to writing. If you don't use the right grammar, misspell or misuse words, or simply break one of the many rules of writing in some way, it is unquestionably wrong. It wasn't "personality" or "free-form," it's just plain wrong.

Well, I may have to somewhat digress from that statement. Some forms of writing, such as poems and the like, can occasionally break free from these aforementioned restraints. Some poems are defined by their deviations from the established rules of writing. I suppose what I'm talking about applies more to story writing, the thing that this website is dedicated to hosting, the thing that we love but criticize harshly for any mistakes within it's words.

Unlike most of the arts, story writing seems to be more of a science than the rest. So, is it more a science and less an art, then? I think the reason writing differs so much is because it has a very frequently used practical application in the communication of our daily lives, while the other arts tend to exist primarily to serve a non-practical purpose. We could live easily without almost all the other arts (although some may not call that "living") while writing, either electronically or the old-fashioned way, is a nearly indispensable form of communication that we use to accomplish innumerable tasks. It is because of this importance of having clear communication that it is such a science, but I personally feel that it goes too far.

Sure, there are completely necessary rules. The placement (or exclusion) of a comma can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Punctuation helps to separate ideas and allows the reader to not be confused by combining two or more thoughts that are meant to be separate. Capitalization at the beginning of a sentence? It looks nice, I guess. Oh no, I don't think that "capitalization" question was technically a complete sentence, was it? But you still understood what I meant, didn't you? Whoops, looks like I used a conjunction to begin a sentence. More bad ju-ju.

Some of my old English teachers might have hairs standing up on the backs of their necks right now while I'm committing these acts heresy against the written language, but what's the big deal? Using all capital letters or doubles of punctuation marks such as exclamation points is considered bad from, but doesn't it help with delivery and getting the point across? What does it really matter whether or not you use a comma to separate two independent statements that are combined with a conjunction and not use one when combining a dependent and independent clause? If you intend for there to be a pause in what's being read, what harm is there in placing a comma to indicate that? I think we need to take a step back and evaluate what's truly important: understanding.

I suppose because understanding is key when it comes to writing, there has to be a set of universal rules and guidelines to assist people in comprehending the correct meaning of what they're reading. But many of these rules seem to exist without contributing towards that end. Here's my opinion: as long as the sentence you've written can be properly and easily understood by those reading it, then that's all that truly matters. If you break the established rules to augment the delivery without hindering the reader's understanding, then break those rules.

Before you might point it out, of course you'll always understand what you've written. It came from your mind. Have you ever read any of those jumbled up sentences before and noticed that you didn't even have to think for your mind to just fill in the blanks or rearrange letters for it to make sense? How much better do you think your mind is at filling in your own blanks? From what I've observed, when reading your own material, your mind is really remembering what you intended to write and just using the words on the page as a tool to help it recall that information. Most of the time, you aren't really reading the words as they're written, but as your mind thinks they were intended to be written. This demonstrates the importance of outside feedback, the importance of "pre-readers" as many call them. Having another's perspective to point out what is and is not clearly communicated is invaluable. If the readers are getting it, who cares if that comma's not technically supposed to be there? So what if you used onomatopoeia for an event or used all capital letters for someone's dialogue? In my mind, it's not important. I think we need to exercise what little freedom we have as writers and ignore the rules that have no relevance to helping the reader understand what you've written, and we should instead focus on imparting the delivery of events in the way that best matches what we are trying to impart.

Now let me ask you this: What do you think?