Reader Question: Are there any script rules that really shouldn’t be broken?

Or this: “How can you break screenwriting rules if there are none?”

From @CaveDude21:

I know all rules are made to be broken, but are there any Script rules that really shouldn’t?

I don’t think there are any rules for screenwriting. There are important principles, and dozens of tips and techniques. There is also a lot of ‘conventional wisdom’ floating around that gets transmogrified into being perceived as rules, and that is where the problem lies.

Stories are organic. Even in a screenplay, which is heavily structured by virtue of it being the blueprint for producing a movie, the underlying story — that universe, its characters, the events that transpire there — all have to feel alive, spontaneous, and native to that narrative environment.

Enter the plethora of screenwriting approaches, theories, paradigms, models, and formulas. While some of them reflect dynamics that are innate to story itself and what people expect when they read or see a story, once they get codified in the minds of writers, a big problem arises: The writer can write to the formula instead of to the story. Hence all the complaints from moviegoers about formulaic movies. And by the way, the complaint exists within Hollywood script development…