Entry posted by Fishwings
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I am by no means an expert at writing, but I am a very avid reader of all sorts of genres -- published, not published, gay, straight, sci-fi, horror, romance -- and I've noticed some very common writing faux pas that are present in a lot of non-published works -- and in some published works as well (*cough* 50 Shades of Grey).
Some of these fuckups are subjective and some of these fuckups are bigger than others, but I have found all of them hindering to the reading process.
1) Long paragraphs.
Believe it or not, the white space of your paragraphs does matter to a certain degree. If you have paragraphs that go on and on and on, like huge bricks of text, readers will much less likely want to start reading your stuff, or be willing to continue. Mental breaks are important. Break it up around thoughts and your prose instantly becomes much more easier to digest, both visually and mentally.
If you REALLY don't wanna break up your paragraphs, interrupt them with pictures of cats.
It will also make your view count and ratings skyrocket.
(btw, that is a picture of James Savik getting his latest paycheck).
2) Monotone sentence structure.
If all of your sentences are long, pedantic, and contemplative, interject them with shorter sentences involving action. Likewise, if all of your sentences consist of short, action type sentences, connect some of them together so you're left with asymmetrical sentence lengths. Similarly, you need to start off a lot of your sentences differently too. If you tend to start them off with subjects (Edward put down the phone. He sighed. He then walked over to the couch), switch it up! Tie in a verb (Putting down the phone, Edward sighed. He then walked over to the couch). As a reader, I need variation to keep me stimulated.
3) Lack of speech tags.
This is a necessity. I've read far too many stories where the author just neglects "he said" or "she said" and instead puts... nothing. You might have read it a lot in some published novels or whatever but it's a pain in the ass for readers when they don't know who exactly is talking. It also doesn't do anything for the reader visually -- they have no idea what your characters are doing in the conversation. Tie in action with speech to make it interesting and less confusing!
- Example:
Edward groaned. "What the hell are you doing?"
I don't know, what are you doing?" Jacob asked.
"Hey Bella's coming... what's up homie G?"
"Nothing much brohams. I see y'all starting to neglect the use of speech tags. You know our reader is going to get really confused in no time."
"Nah man, I doubt it."
"Yeah don't be an idiot, we got this."
"Yeah we got this."
"Wait who's got this?"
"I dunno, who are you?"
"I'm not sure... who am I?"
"I don't know but this is starting to sound like a fucking interior monologue."
I'd go in more detail but here is a great article by Libby Drew that you should really check out if you haven't already:
4) Wrong speech punctuation.
Learning punctuation regarding speech is like giving birth -- one of the most painful things in the world.
I'm kidding.
Getting kicked in the balls is more painful. (Kidding again)
- Example: "You look so sexy in that black swimsuit," He smiled.
Is totally wrong. "Smiled" is not a speech tag, so you need a period after "swimsuit." If it was a speech tag, "he" should not be capitalized.
- Correct: "You look so sexy in that tiny black swimsuit." He smiled.
- Correct: "You look so sexy in that tiny black swimsuit," he said.
You need to get this (somewhat) right because incorrect usage of speech tags is a surefire way to make veteran readers ditch your work, and there are a lot of veteran readers out there. I mean, before I wrote my latest story just a month ago I was just relying on instinct and I thought I had it all right.
I was wrong. Totally wrong.
Refer to this article first and brush up on your dialogue skills. They seem very un-intuitive but eventually you'll sort of get it.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/punctuation-in-direct-speech
Memorize everything. I did (not).
After you make a bit of effort in fixing up your story, get yourself an editor or a beta reader. I recommend Sharon as an editor 'cause she knows her shit. She does a lot of editing for like half the GA population. I think LJH does the other half. And then Cia does the one half as well. I also almost failed math in grade 6.
5) Use of speech tag variations and speech tag adverbs.
- Example:
"Your pulsating dick is so veiny and sexy and hot," Jacob crooned lecherously.
"I want you to do me hard," Edward groaned hornily.
"No you. I'm a bottom," Jacob whined irritably.
"I'm going back to Bella," Edward droned neutrally.
The reason why so many authors use "he said" or neglect speech tags altogether in favour of using action to show what your characters are doing is because both methods make the tag practically invisible to the reader. Attaching adverbs to speech tags sometimes is unavoidable, but if you use them too often it's just a cheap way to get an image of your character's actions across. Likewise, if you catch yourself using "crooned" or "groaned" or "snorted" or "guffawed" too often, replace them with the old fashioned "said" or tie in action. It makes for a much less interrupting reading.
A good strategy is to not use both the adverb and the variation of the speech tag itself together. For example, If you use "said," it's relatively to safe to attach a non-distracting adverb to it, like "flatly."
- Example: "Yeah I so didn't know that Bella was a bitch," Edward said flatly.
Likewise, if you use "screamed," don't attach anything else to it or you'll be distracting the reader away from the conversation itself.
- Example: "I told you to hide Bella's head in the oven! Now the Volturi are going to rape us all!" Jacob screamed hotly.
(And that is a picture of James Savik... just before he seduces me successfully.)
For a complete example, check out Cia's article: http://www.gayauthors.org/forums/blog/258/entry-12265-tip-thursday-said-bookisms/
6) Use of adverbs.
The subject of the use of adverbs is often controversial. Adverbs are obviously necessary, but sometimes they are just not needed. I'll just give you a very common example to illustrate this point.
- Example: Edward couldn't stop crying, and his tears flowed easily over his cheekbones.
There is no point in using "easily." If Edward couldn't stop crying, readers can already infer the amount of tears that are falling from his eyes, so don't replace it with "freely" or "copiously" or "neutrally" either. A better strategy would be to say that "his tears poured over his cheekbones." You might argue that this is being nit-picky but trust me, people do notice details like these.
While eliminating these unnecessary adverbs, make yourself productive by describing things that set up the mood that you want to create. Write about how Edward's tears glistened in the fluorescent lighting, his expression, thoughts, feelings and how Jacob's throbbing cock was growing bigger every second in light of this confoundingly inappropriate and awkward situation.
7) Overuse of ellipsis and questions.
Ellipsises (what is the plural form of ellipsis?) should almost never be used in the middle of action. It should also never be overused, unless you interject them in speech. It does really big things to the pacing of your story and the moment you step over the threshold of the tolerable number of ellipsis (subjective number) your writing will feel contrived. It's the same with questions (Example: What am I doing here? Why am I all alone?). They are a good device to spark variation in your paragraphs but if you overuse them it has the same effect as overusing ellipsis.
The take home message of this point is: save your best tricks for last.
bonus) Bouncing eyes.
Okay I'm not really sure if this warrants a whole new point, but you need to be careful when you make your characters' eyes do things.
- Example: His eyes bounced with happiness as he laughed.
I read this "eyes bouncing" line in several novels and I have to say it cracks me up every single time. My eyes do not bounce when I laugh -- they stay in my motherfucken eye sockets.
If you've made one or all of these fuckups, don't worry about it. I, as a writer, have too. I've likely made like all of them before in the span of a single chapter. I'm probably still making some of them.
The point being is that you're acknowledging your mistakes, learning from them, and then improving.
With all this being said, if you write a really, really good story.............. disregard rules if you need to, people won't care as much. Although, if you aren't JK Rowling or Libby Drew or Domluka it's best to colour within the lines before you start scribbling outside of them.
So my question for you is: What deters you as a reader?
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