Talk:Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses

There is of course much to be said for putting the rules in order. So I'll just make an argument for not putting them in order. Rule #5 and rule #11 are both statements that characters must be in character. To me it therefore makes sense that these should be close together. And if I had been Mark Twain's beta on his essay I would have advised him to do just that, because when put together they make a stronger argument than when repeated later on. Compare rules #1 and #2 that both refer to plot. As it is, it looks either like rule #11 was added as an after thought, or that Twain didn't have time to rewrite his essay.

Because this is a summary of the rules, and they are thus not copied literally, I don't see why the wording can be changed but the order cannot. IndeMaat 16:59, 17 September 2008 (UTC)