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Quiet Man Cometh
We're all mad here.
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101 things you're tired of reading... | #1 | ||
Okay, the title is being a little more polite than what goes through my head when I read some of this stuff but thought I'd put it here.
1. Woe is me! This one makes my eye twitch. When the character utters something about their personal state and how much it sucks, usually in some hopeless, dramatic fashion, especially at the beginning of a story when we pretty much know that things are going to get fixed. Oh will this sorry state of affairs ever end? Will I ever find true happiness? Will my dog ever come back home? The character may as well hold their wrist to their forehead or throw their arm over their eyes and shout "Woe is me!" *holds hand to chest and faints* 2. Eyeballs are orbs. This one is just overuse. I've probably used it at some point myself. No more orbs. Really, "eyes" is just fine. Please no more orbs.
Last edited by Quiet Man Cometh; 11-14-2013 at 11:33 PM.
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Posted 11-14-2013, 11:30 PM |
#2 |
Suzerain of Sheol
Desolation Denizen
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Anyway. 3. Referring to personal combat as a "dance". Stop doing that, people. Call it a frenzy. A slaughterfall. A weighing of lives and deaths, of hopes and fatal deeds, of mercy and murder... just not a dance, I beg. :P 4. Stock phrases. Shorthand for actual imagination in prose. Please invest more energy in defining your own style instead of miming things like "quick as the wind", "razor-sharp", or especially anything as awful as "blind as a bat". 5. Descriptors appended to dialogue tags. "Said harshly", "replied sarcastically", or "quipped cheerfully", and the like. That needs to go away and never come back. Alternatives to said are fine, in moderation, "roared", "whispered", whatever, but only use them when they're really needed and try to convey the effective in a less blatant way. It's shorthand, again, for inventive writing. 6. Just... adverbs. Ever. Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers. Between supposed brothers. | |||||
Posted 11-14-2013, 11:46 PM |
Quiet Man Cometh
We're all mad here.
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#3 | |||
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7. Capital letters where capital letters are not grammatically needed. This is okay in moderate amounts, but when used to emphasize a word it bothers me. 'His eyes were Blue! They were so very Blue...' I can see that he has blue eyes, thank you very much. -.- | ||||
Posted 11-15-2013, 12:00 AM |
#4 |
Suzerain of Sheol
Desolation Denizen
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8. Happy-go-lucky-murderer-heroes. If your character makes a career of cutting or blasting through vast swathes of other members of their own species, and is routinely involved in traumatic and violent situations... please ensure that these events and actions have an effect on their psyche and change them in some way. 9. Unrealistically prolonged and intricate fight scenes. People tire, especially when exerting explosive force through all their muscles over sustained periods. Also, fighting is messy. People make mistakes, everything doesn't look choreographed. Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers. Between supposed brothers. | ||||
Posted 11-15-2013, 12:14 AM |
Espy
Wanderer
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#5 | |||
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And yeah, 8 bothers me and is a thing I've been messing with for my characters. 10. Short choppy sentences. Yes, I get that they're structurally correct, but reading that makes my head hurt. It feels like everything is moving at a really fast pace. I do the short-sentences thing maybe once in a while, but usually in action scenes where the action is rapid and abrupt. STONEWALL WAS A RIOT | ||||
Posted 11-15-2013, 09:37 PM |
#6 |
Suzerain of Sheol
Desolation Denizen
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I know the style you're talking about, it can be effective in small doses, but an entire book written that way would be maddening. 11. Description of character's appearance. I really don't care what color eyes a character has, where their oh-so-badass scar is located, and what kind of silk their doublet is stitched from. If it doesn't have some narrative relevance, I'm not interested. It's just filler and another crutch for engaging prose. Unless the PoV character has some kind of OCD related to what people wear, I'd give that a pass for a short story, but even still, no way in a novel. Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers. Between supposed brothers. | ||||
Posted 11-15-2013, 10:11 PM |
Quiet Man Cometh
We're all mad here.
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#7 | |||
As an exercise one time, I took every character in a story of mine and changed their ethnicity, just to see what it would do. (Was watching a show that was talking about the sort of roles actors are able to get according to their ethnicity, like African Americans usually getting the roles of villains or uneducated types.) Previously, everyone was white, not out of conscious thought, but out of habit. I made one character African American, another Asian, and another Eastern European. It didn't change a bean.
12: Info dump! I shouldn't have to say this but I still see it. Please, keep information to what's needed at the moment in time. I don't need to know a character's life history when they are first introduced. It's especially annoying when it happens during something else. I don't need to know where a character found their sword, what they named it, why, and who they already killed with it in the middle of a fight. Managing info-dump might mean that you don't get to tell your reader everything you want to about your lovingly crafted setting or characters. It sucks sometimes, but keeping things trim really helps the writing, and there will be other moments to show off stuff. | ||||
Posted 11-15-2013, 10:33 PM |
#8 |
Suzerain of Sheol
Desolation Denizen
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13. Resurrection/cheating death. Unless it's a plot point, like, "If you kill the bodily form of the Nazgul, they'll simply fly back to Sauron and be re-endowed with earthly essence", if someone is killed... leave them dead. And pulling the ol' "Let's have Aragorn fall off a cliff, won't that be DRAMATIC?!?!?!" is a horrible idea. Unless you're writing some kind of avant-garde literary short fiction, having your character die of freak natural causes really shouldn't happen, and you shouldn't waste time trying to trick the reader into thinking it did, only so you can say "Gotcha!" ten pages later. Unless your name is John Ronald Reuel. :P Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers. Between supposed brothers. | ||||
Posted 11-15-2013, 10:48 PM |
Quiet Man Cometh
We're all mad here.
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#9 | |||
14: "Blood red"
I have no actual objections to something being described as blood red, so long as what we are looking at is actually that colour and not just red. I've seen blood often enough to have a fair idea of it's colour, and it shifts, and no, it's usually not that red unless it's a thin layer smeared on something. Seriously, a tomato isn't red like blood. It's red like a tomato. Please don't use such descriptions for colour unless it's actually the right colour. I'd also like to know where people go the idea that "ginger" means red, too (talking about colour here, not references to red-headed people). What about ginger is red? I've never seen red ginger before. Ginger root is brown and pickled ginger is often pinkish. What's the deal? On the capitals thing: I've seen it around, but more often in amateur fiction then published fiction but I've seen it there too. It's just irritating to me. | ||||
Posted 11-17-2013, 07:19 PM |
#10 |
Liethell
Psych
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15. Unnecessary Violence. I see this in a lot of books nowadays, and maybe some fanfiction. Sometimes a character will simply smash a hole in a wall to get his point across. I understand the character is needlessly violent, and that can be a great character point, but doing so five times in a row lessens the impact of violence. (I suppose unnecessary romance can go with this.) Violence and romance are like spices; use sparingly! Always Accepting Commissions! Commission information here
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Posted 12-06-2013, 01:02 AM |
Suzerain of Sheol
Desolation Denizen
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#11 | |||
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16. Shallow and weak portrayals of female characters. This is really pretty simple, I don't know why so many writers struggle with it. A. Female characters are not prizes for male characters to win. B. Female characters have lives and interests beyond being inanely in love with your protagonist,or romance in general. C. To make a female character cool and enjoyable to read about, she doesn't need to be a man on the inside. You *can* have a badass female warrior or two, but give a fair amount of thought to what makes them tick, and keep in mind the characters (of any gender) don't need to be murdering monsters on the battlefield to be strong. D. Actually, as a rule, just... don't identify your characters by their gender so much as their motivations, personalities, experiences, social status, religious beliefs or lack thereof, or any number of other more interesting, complex, and fulfilling psychological perspectives. (What Suze really means is don't Twilight your female Characters. -Nexy) Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers. Between supposed brothers. | ||||
Posted 12-06-2013, 01:20 AM |
#12 |
Poggio
Bald and loving it!
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So XD I am not sure if I am allowed to add to this list, if not I can delete it but … 17: “Olive Skin ” It is actually one of my biggest pet peeves when describing an ethic character of the Mediterranean origin or tanned skin individuals. I know that food descriptions can be overused in general especially when describing African Americans but this one is particularly bothersome. Unless the person is sickly and dying or as black as an actual olive (Which I have not met a person with a slimy green twinge in their skin.) It shouldn’t be used. Especially given the rich adjectives that neutral tones can be called. | ||||
Posted 12-07-2013, 01:30 AM |
Suzerain of Sheol
Desolation Denizen
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#13 | |||
Of course you're allowed to, Pog. :)
And that's a really good one, it has some unfortunate implications, and should really have every attempt made to eliminate it. 18. Breaking perspective This is one of my personal gripes, it might not apply to everyone's taste. Essentially, when you're writing from a character's perspective, you don't give details that are outside their perception, and you don't have them talk to the audience with their thoughts. Unless they have some reason to cogitate upon their own remarkably oh-so-beautiful blue eyes like azure sapphirean orbs upon the sea kissed by a balmy sunrise... spare the audience the mention of them. It breaks suspension of disbelief, among other sins... Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers. Between supposed brothers. | ||||
Posted 12-07-2013, 02:27 AM |
#14 |
Espy
Wanderer
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I struggled with "olive skin" for the longest time ever. I think it's supposed to be like...tan? From what I remember, "olive" is referring to the gold-ness that some olives can have (not all olives are green/black), and it includes such a broad range that I really don't know what authors are describing when they use that term.
STONEWALL WAS A RIOT | ||||
Posted 12-07-2013, 02:31 AM |
Quiet Man Cometh
We're all mad here.
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#15 | |||
"Olive" does seem to be some means of referring to people in a non-white/black/Asian fashion. Pog probably has it right with Mediterranean. I think it is supposed to lean towards tan-ish, but it's probably one of those things where someone liked the word and used it, and then someone else thought it worked and used it, and so on. I wouldn't be surprised if it's getting to the point where it's becoming the standard word to use just like "black' or "white" even though, technically speaking, they could be just as inaccurate, colour-wise.
To expand on what Suze said, another thing that gets to me is when authors appear to forget that their characters are not reading what is happening, so say things that don't make sense verbally, such as when comparing the spelling of word without having the character sound it out letter by letter. I've only seen it a couple of times, so not sick of it, but it does come off as odd.
Last edited by Quiet Man Cometh; 12-07-2013 at 04:01 AM.
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Posted 12-07-2013, 03:40 AM |
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