Things you hate to read

[LJCC]

One thing I've found out today that annoys the shit out of me, talking heads. 

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"Talking heads" or "talking heads syndrome" is a term used in the creative writing community for a passage of dialogue where all that exists is the dialogue. To the reader, it feels as if heads are floating in space, talking. We don't get any description. We don't get any blocking."

https://www.septembercfawkes.com/2024/03/how-to-fix-talking-heads-in-your-story.html#:~:text="Talking heads" or "talking,don't get any blocking.

Let’s say you never mention what George looks like, and then halfway through the novel, you suddenly reveal that he was the only one who could crawl through the ventilation duct because he's a dwarf and super thin. (a) If there were no hints before, the reader probably imagined George as an average guy, and now they have to rethink every scene they’ve pictured so far. (b) The reader might feel like, "Oh, come on, now the author needs a reason why only this guy can get into the locked room, so they just pull this out of nowhere."

But if you imagine a character with, say, a broad nose and a dark tan, and it never plays a role in the story, then sure, the author can leave it out. But if it does add to the immersion, then keep it, unless it adds to the clunkiness.

If you skip a description, the reader usually fills in the blanks with something familiar to them or assumes the character fits the setting. Like if I'm reading a story set in Japan with characters who have Japanese-sounding names, I'd naturally picture them as looking Japanese unless you say otherwise.

Currently editing a story that mentions several family members in the cast. None had a description. I was like...

Where are they seated?

What are they doing?

What the hell do they look like?

What the hell is happening in this story?

[Krista]

2 hours ago, LJCC said:

One thing I've found out today that annoys the shit out of me, talking heads. 

Let’s say you never mention what George looks like, and then halfway through the novel, you suddenly reveal that he was the only one who could crawl through the ventilation duct because he's a dwarf and super thin. (a) If there were no hints before, the reader probably imagined George as an average guy, and now they have to rethink every scene they’ve pictured so far. (b) The reader might feel like, "Oh, come on, now the author needs a reason why only this guy can get into the locked room, so they just pull this out of nowhere."

But if you imagine a character with, say, a broad nose and a dark tan, and it never plays a role in the story, then sure, the author can leave it out. But if it does add to the immersion, then keep it, unless it adds to the clunkiness.

If you skip a description, the reader usually fills in the blanks with something familiar to them or assumes the character fits the setting. Like if I'm reading a story set in Japan with characters who have Japanese-sounding names, I'd naturally picture them as looking Japanese unless you say otherwise.

Currently editing a story that mentions several family members in the cast. None had a description. I was like...

Where are they seated?

What are they doing?

What the hell do they look like?

What the hell is happening in this story?

Movement and senses are important. Have your characters smell, have them taste, hear things other than what other characters are saying... I call it being on a carnival ride. Those little cliche movie scenes where the world looks like it is spinning and one can only focus on who or what is directly in front of them. Talking heads are one thing, dialog after dialog with no movement, no world intrusions - be it a smell, a sound of a car horn/siren, bead of sweat... you lose so much immersion if you don't offer that and it is surprising how many stories I've picked up that doesn't take advantage. You notice so much in your day to day life, your characters need to as well. 

and don't be afraid to give your characters something to do whilst they're having a conversation. If I have to scroll back up to wonder who is talking, and what is happening, and cannot picture it as I go along I can't continue. 

I find it much more rewarding as a reader to be guided towards what the Author's intentions are with how a character should look, and to be that guide myself with my own writing. The characters are our characters, to truly flesh them out you have to give them actual flesh for people to work with. It's also the easiest tool to uniqueness, voices can be difficult, voices without a body should make that 10x worse. 

[JamesSavik]

@LJCC You are right. All the elements must be there to ground the story.

Consider this fragment of dialog. All it tells you that something is happening the speaker doesn't understand.

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"What the hell?"

Now, consider:
 

Quote

 

Dmitri Koslov, senior engineer on the night shit of the Kursk Regional Reactor Authority, shared a nip of vodka with the cute nurse in the dispensary before his shift started. February was cold in Russia.

Koslov asked the day-shift leader, "Victor, is there anything we need to know about?"

Victor shook his head and said, "The Geology people from the Oblast reported a series of small earthquakes near Belograd this afternoon. The most serious was 3.3."

Dmitri shrugged, "They call whenever there's anything worse than a 3 in the Oblast(1), but that's more than a hundred kilometers away. It's always nothing, but we log it anyway. Goodnight."

Boris and Pyotr, his fellow night shift workers, brought up their workstations and the three engineers began their careful watch over the cluster of four fifty-year-old R7000 series light-water reactors. In their day, which was the 1970s, the R7000 had been the cutting edge of Soviet technology. It delivered 8.8 at peak output or 4.4 megawatts of reliable power to the industrial heartland of Mother Russia.

Thankfully, there was none of the liquid-sodium cooled madness of the Chernobyl nightmare still festering in Ukraine. Anyone who looked at it could see that it was merely a copy of the Westinghouse design with a few Russian touches thanks to the old KGB and GRU.

A bad as the Soviet era had been, the current era had its downsides, too. Mother Russia had adopted capitalism, or at least its worst aspects like greed and corruption. Now the oligarchs did what they wanted while ruling over the decaying infrastructure of a gigantic country. Every Engineer knows it's not just building Rome that is the true challenge, it must also be maintained for in every way that matters, that infrastructure is the country.

At 20:41, an unfamiliar yellow light began flashing on Boris's panel. He muttered, "What the hell?" as he grabbed the manual with the error codes listings. He flipped pages:

3717 - Environmental monitor alert

Dmitri stood with his hand over the big red SCRAM button that would crash the reactors and send them into safe mode. He tried to keep his voice level as Boris fumbled with a manual, "What is it Boris?"

Boris put the manual down and changed the screens to the Environmental monitor overview and looked at it. The power station had a ring of radiation detectors at various distances outside the plant as far out as ten kilometers. Any leak of radiation from the plant would be instantly detected. They were displayed by green dots on a map of the area. Some of the dots were yellow instead of green.

Boris finally said, "There's a slight rise in radioactivity but, it's not the plant. The closest is three kilometers away."

If they had known an out gassing of Xenon was often a precursor to a massive quake, they might have survived the rare 8.1 intraplate slip-thrust earthquake that flattened old Soviet concrete buildings in a region 1200 kilometers across.

________________

(1) state

 

 

Whose what the hell carries more weight?

Which one is more interesting?

The unnamed person or the engineer running the nuclear plant who had a shot of vodka with his girlfriend before his shift?

The talking head what the hell has no context other than that provided by dialog. That can work, but it's tedious, and you must take care not to lose your reader.

[LJCC]

1 hour ago, JamesSavik said:

@LJCC You are right. All the elements must be there to ground the story.

Consider this fragment of dialog. All it tells you that something is happening the speaker doesn't understand.

Now, consider:
 

Whose what the hell carries more weight?

Which one is more interesting?

The unnamed person or the engineer running the nuclear plant who had a shot of vodka with his girlfriend before his shift?

The talking head what the hell has no context other than that provided by dialog. That can work, but it's tedious, and you must take care not to lose your reader.

I had fun rewriting this:

 

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On his night shift, Dmitri Koslov, senior engineer at the Kursk Regional Reactor Authority, shared a nip of vodka with the cute nurse in the dispensary before his shift started. February was cold in Russia. Laminated like a powder keg, the retired naval commander's hawk-like nose rumbled under the cold draft, staring out on the cold Siberian front. Rubbing the mop of brown hair under an Ushanka, he went inside the observation tower and glanced at his watch. Reminiscing about his days on the Baltic Fleet left a sour aftertaste meant to ruin his night. He'd rather not think about it.

Koslov asked the day-shift leader, "Victor, is there anything we need to know about?"

Tall, lean, and garrulous under the right conditions, but mostly strict and an Америкос, termed an American-born country hick who grew up in Irkutsk fucking sheep and cows, as his friends on the mainland had sparingly teased him, Victor stood up on the swivel chair and said, "The Geology people from the Oblast reported a series of small earthquakes near Belograd this afternoon. The most serious was 3.3."

Dmitri, the bol'shoy paren' or big man with the stature of a retired bodybuilder and a former heavyweight division wrestler, swiveled on his chair to face Koslov, whose frown battled with Dmitri's discerning shrug. "They call whenever there's anything worse than a 3 in the Oblast (1), but that's more than a hundred kilometers away. It's always nothing, but we log it anyway. Goodnight." He picked up his lunchbox and left, convinced there was nothing more to report.

And yeah, very true. When I was trying to edit it, I had no idea which was which and who was who. Everyone was an enigma.

[LJCC]

1 hour ago, Krista said:

...you have to give them actual flesh for people to work with. It's also the easiest tool to uniqueness, voices can be difficult, voices without a body should make that 10x worse. 

Here I am, editing a story with:

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He was 5'11, slightly tall, a slightly crooked nose. Had a great back. He loves to wear shirts and khakis. That's his signature.

I don't know why I edit shit as a hobby for friends, but geezus christ.

I'm such a great friend.

[Krista]

53 minutes ago, LJCC said:

Here I am, editing a story with:

I don't know why I edit shit as a hobby for friends, but geezus christ.

I'm such a great friend.

Yeah the Roster Chart or Wrap Sheet character descriptions are a non-starter for me. If your second or third paragraph tells me everything about Paul right down to his 500th freckle... I'm done. 

It is far more interesting and worthwhile to be shown how characters look through observations, comparisons, off-handed comments, etc. 

Also, what does a great back even mean? Sturdy? A great back for heavy lifting, or difficult work? Sounds like something you'd describe if you were describing a pack mule.. not a person. 

You are a better friend than me.  

Edited August 18, 2024 by Krista

[LJCC]

On 8/18/2024 at 3:00 PM, Krista said:

Yeah the Roster Chart or Wrap Sheet character descriptions are a non-starter for me. If your second or third paragraph tells me everything about Paul right down to his 500th freckle... I'm done. 

It is far more interesting and worthwhile to be shown how characters look through observations, comparisons, off-handed comments, etc. 

Also, what does a great back even mean? Sturdy? A great back for heavy lifting, or difficult work? Sounds like something you'd describe if you were describing a pack mule.. not a person. 

You are a better friend than me.  

That is so true.

To said friend, Great Back = Can weightlift 200 lbs, as per his description. Friend's a dumbass, my apologies.

And you don't need long-winded explanations or descriptions of your characters, which is what I explained.

Like great authors literally employed one-liners that are packed to the core to describe their characters:

• ” … Her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever.” - Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita.

• “His hand was over his eyes. He looked like a failed soldier. Dirt seemed so worked into him that the lines of his face were like writing.” - China Mieville, The Census Taker.

And even this, this very simple description is actually A DESCRIPTION:

• “He did not look like anything special at all.” - Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated.

And honestly, one of my favorite descriptions:

• “But her will had left her. A strange weight was on her limbs. She was giving way. She was giving up…”- D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterly's Lover.

I mean, you honestly don't need heavy-handed descriptions. Sometimes the most basic of it all, written in the most meaningful or sometimes gut-wrenching way that allows you to see a glimpse of who that character truly is in that moment, in that opportune time to see what your characters are made of, are the best descriptions imaginable.

[Krista]

8 hours ago, LJCC said:

That is so true.

To said friend, Great Back = Can weightlift 200 lbs, as per his description. Friend's a dumbass, my apologies.

And you don't need long-winded explanations or descriptions of your characters, which is what I explained.

Like great authors literally employed one-liners that are packed to the core to describe their characters:

• ” … Her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever.” - Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita.

• “His hand was over his eyes. He looked like a failed soldier. Dirt seemed so worked into him that the lines of his face were like writing.” - China Mieville, The Census Taker.

And even this, this very simple description is actually A DESCRIPTION:

• “He did not look like anything special at all.” - Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated.

And honestly, one of my favorite descriptions:

• “But her will had left her. A strange weight was on her limbs. She was giving way. She was giving up…”- D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterly's Lover.

I mean, you honestly don't need heavy-handed descriptions. Sometimes the most basic of it all, written in the most meaningful or sometimes gut-wrenching way that allows you to see a glimpse of who that character truly is in that moment, in that opportune time to see what your characters are made of, are the best descriptions imaginable.

The 2nd and 4th.... 

[Krista]

I recently started reading a story. Not on here, but as I read (mind you I didn't get too far into the writing), I noticed that I was pressing myself to go further. It is written in first person, which I do enjoy reading, so it wasn't the perspective.

What I figured out though is that the main character wasn't doing anything. The world and people around him were. His best friend kept leading the conversation, the conflict, and some plot elements. To the point where I was far more invested what she had to say. So, the story felt more like her story, but told in the perspective of the main protagonist. And there wasn't much of anything the protagonist accomplished that couldn't have been credited to his friend's direct involvement.

And I recently read an article about "why" people hate your protagonists. And, one of the reasons listed were: You wrote a passive protagonist. The example given, was imagine if Dr. Watson solved every case in the Sherlock Holmes series with little input or help from Holmes.

They made mention that your protagonist can follow here and there, but they need to remain the focal drive of the plot. They went on to say, that as an editor, this is one of the more common issues they find with writing, that many authors don't realize just how much of a passive follower they made their character out to be, specifically in fantasy stories with multiple characters. The story I read was a Romance and I gave up  when I was about 60ish pages in and I thought his love interest and the best friend were better suited to be together... and I shouldn't be rooting for the main character to be a side piece.  

Edited May 4, 2025 by Krista

[CassieQ]

Sounds like the writer chose the wrong person to be the protagonist. 

I recently read a book that my sister gave to me...a paranormal investigator falls in love with a demon.  I wanted to like it.  It was pretty smutty and the demon was pretty fun, but the main love interest just kept on doing the dumbest stuff over and over.  It made it hard to root for them.  

Luckily, there is another book in the series with another really fun demon and a love interest that looks more crazy than stupid, so maybe the author can redeem themselves. 

[Krista]

30 minutes ago, CassieQ said:

Sounds like the writer chose the wrong person to be the protagonist. 

I recently read a book that my sister gave to me...a paranormal investigator falls in love with a demon.  I wanted to like it.  It was pretty smutty and the demon was pretty fun, but the main love interest just kept on doing the dumbest stuff over and over.  It made it hard to root for them.  

Luckily, there is another book in the series with another really fun demon and a love interest that looks more crazy than stupid, so maybe the author can redeem themselves. 

Curiosity is running high after that description, not going to lie. Although, I can't handle annoying main love interests. Angels and demons have always been an interest of mine for different reasons. I find the more paranormal lore around them fascinating. There's also so much creative freedom with demons. 

[CassieQ]

40 minutes ago, Krista said:

Curiosity is running high after that description, not going to lie. Although, I can't handle annoying main love interests. Angels and demons have always been an interest of mine for different reasons. I find the more paranormal lore around them fascinating. There's also so much creative freedom with demons. 

It's called Her Soul to Take.

[Krista]

Unintentionally toxic relationships.  Think Edward/Bella, Bella/Jacob. What I mean by unintentional, the author obviously thought that the relationship's foundation was well developed and the characters over all were good for one another. What makes Edward/Bella's relationship unintentionally toxic, is the severe codependency issue they had since meeting. It was to the level that neither of them could function outside of the physical presence of one another. They always had to have one another in their sight lines to feel comfortable in their own skin.

But, that's not really why I posted. You see it more in YA writing to be honest. It is like these authors don't know how map out and foundationally build two people into a relationship. The attempt is too abrupt, too situational, and too focused on physical attractions usually holding hands with one or both characters being flawed from the start - to where any sane person of any age would take a step back and maybe think: This person is doing and saying things that I don't like... or consider. Edward told Bella he was dangerous and that seemed to make her ovaries burn.  

Also, usually one character will do something and get off freely. Cheating within the relationship being the most common. There is something that typically comes along that makes the attempt to eclipse that error in judgment too. The character might have a tragedy, a family member dies... or they are in an accident themselves and it "rights their perspective," or makes the "mistake" suddenly lesser than. 

Which is fine if the groundwork laid before the incident is done. Usually it isn't. The characters are together because they're lovestruck puppies, they have no built foundation carrying the relationship. There isn't enough history, and the history there is constructed on the basics of attraction, proximity, mystery, and probably overlooking of flaws.

Make no mistake, cheating is a choice. Getting drunk and killing someone is a choice. Robbing that bank and being an accomplice to a crime is a choice. Writers need to wake up and realize that people who participate in these acts 'do not deserve' the outcome of little to no consequence and easy resolutions.

If your character goes from cheating to being engaged to the "real person they love.." in a matter of pages, and nothing ever comes back to haunt them, no consequences, or limited fall-out - then most definitely the writing of that relationship no long reads true to me. It becomes flawed and if there isn't a correction or growth there, I will always be of that opinion.

And you get bonus points if you turn every other character in your story into offshoot villains for being voices of reason. If you allow your writing to turn typically sensible characters with good intentions into obstacles... you lose me and I will shut it off or close the book. 

Characters and readers can survive the aftermath of bad decisions. Overlooking that, at least for me, will be a misstep.

Edited July 31, 2025 by Krista

[ReaderPaul]

Well said, @Krista.  I especially agree with the following quote from above:

     "Make no mistake, cheating is a choice.  Getting drunk and killing someone is a choice.  Robbing that bank and being an accomplice to a crime is a choice.  Writers need to wake up and realize that people who participate in these acts 'do not deserve' the outcome of little to no consequence and easy resolutions."

I saw a program on paternity determination recently where a woman hauled six men into court for DNA tests to see which was the father of her babe.  The DNA proved none of them were the father.  Under sharp questioning from the judge, she admitted to intercourse with seven other men during the window of conception time.  The six men were quite upset with her (especially her husband) for the lying and cheating.  She drug those six guys into court because she saw them as the most financially stable.

Most of what we do in life is a choice in one way or another.  We can have weak moments, but some persons have a pattern of lies that collapses around them.

I like your other points above, as well.

[Mikiesboy]

15 hours ago, Krista said:

Writers need to wake up and realize that people who participate in these acts 'do not deserve' the outcome of little to no consequence and easy resolutions.

I agree with this. I remember after i first arrived on GA (ten years ago now) I asked my then editor about killing off a main character. He said, you can, but be prepared to write the fallout. You have to write how that death will affect the other characters in the story. 

It was harder than I imagined it would be, but worth the effort. 

That goes for every situation you write. How does it affect people around that character? And if the character manages to get away with something, and no one else knows, how does it affect them over the course of time? 

I know a number of TV/film scriptwriters that would benefit from this conversation. Lazy writing abounds. 

[Wayne Gray]

Huh. I can't recall ever seeing this topic. But it's a good one.

I hate perfect characters. I hate characters who are barely legal who have their whole lives together, planned, have all the answers, are rich, hung, never work out but are physically beautiful, never worry about disease while barebacking the world, could have anyone, take pity on the ugly duckling and change them into something totally different so they can be loved.

Huh. Apparently, I have opinions on this. LOL

One of the most engaging stories I have read on this site is Dissonance by @MacGreg. And it hooked me because his main characters were so, so flawed. Relatable. Knowable. I can understand how they could exist in the world. I could feel and believe their struggles.

I just can't get into a tale where the MC is perfect. I want to see a struggle apart from the one the author decided is the main storyline. I want a MC who is late, who struggles with anxiety, who screws things up, who tries to fix the messes they've caused. I want someone real. I want someone flawed. Like me.