Wednesday, July 29, 2015

3 Things Writers Should Never Do

Don't you like declarative, forceful blog post titles like that? They're so confident and bossy. It's like my inner eight-year-old gets to come out and tell everybody what to do.

BUT. On with the DECLARATIVE DIRECTIVES!

These are all things you should never do in your writing, not in general. Man, that would be a long list, wouldn't it? They are also things that are huge pet peeves for me, and I do quite a bit of editing and proofreading, both for my betas, CPs, writing group, and friends, and also as freelance work on the side. Which means I have rather a large amount of experience, and am not completely unqualified to write this. It also means that this is not the only list of things you should never do, but is instead a small sampling of Stuff That Pisses Me Off, Which You Should Avoid Doing Because It Also Pisses Most People - Including Editors, Agents, and Other Important Industry Types - Off.

1. Ignore Grammar Rules

This one could be broken down into about 4,573 (as a rough count) separate common grammar issues, but instead of boring you all to tears, I decided to lump them all together. I am not referring to the poetic license type of ignoring grammar, but the much more common, and MUCH more annoying ignorance/laziness that leads people to eschew all basic grammar rules. I see everything from missing quotation marks to bad or missing paragraph breaks to sentence fragments to tense changes to inappropriate apostrophes and more.

Here's the bottom line: it makes me focus on your grammar (or lack thereof) instead of your content, and that is a very bad thing. There's no way I'll be engaged by your story if I'm not focused on the content. Please, use all the resources the electronic world provides, from style guides to grammar sites to the grammar check in Microsoft Word. If you need help, ask for it. Even when you're sending things to betas or CPs, save them some time and do your basic proofreading first, so that they can focus on the meat of your work, and on catching the little typos that slip past even the most strict grammarians.

2. Go For Melodrama Instead of Drama

(Small caveat: unless you're writing Gothic Romance or absurd comedy, in which case, go for it.)

For the rest of us, this is to be avoided at all costs. I define melodrama, personally (and for the purposes of this post) as unearned emotion. In other words, a scene that comes three-quarters of the way through a long story, in which Joe is screaming at Betty because Betty has been deliberately pushing his buttons and provoking him and trying to get him to explode is probably earned (probably. But still should be watched.) However, a scene that comes in the second chapter, after we've just met the characters, in which Joe is screaming at Betty because Betty just doesn't understand him and oh god the pain is probably melodrama.

I'm saying the emotions have to match the stakes, and have to follow an arc of rising tension that leads us to the big emotional moment. That arc can take place on a small scale in one scene, but the emotion should be subsequently smaller, too. The bigger the rising arc, the bigger the emotion. Earn that drama. Earn that weeping or the screaming or the throwing things (unless it's comedy, of course.)

Why? Because you need to take your readers with you, and let their emotions and investment rise, too, so that when the big moment happens, they're just as devastated as your characters. Don't rush it. Build it.

3. Favor Facts Over Emotion

This is the 180 degree opposite of #2, in which you throw all drama out the window and tell your story in a dry, yet thorough and detailed, way.

Your plot points are stellar. Your story lines are masterfully woven together. Your writing craft is exquisite and careful and exacting. And yet people read your work and yawn, because they have no investment in your characters.

We need emotion - we are (most of us) emotional beings. The why of an action is just as important as the how. So Joe can throw a plate at Betty, but if we don't know how he's feeling when he does it, or understand his motivation, it will just be one more dry fact.

Color things up. Shake 'em up. Just not too much (see #2 above.)

That's a small sample of MY pet peeves. What are yours? What else drives you crazy when you read/edit/offer critiques?

27 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tips! Not being able to connect w/characters if they're flat and boring is one of the fastest reasons I'll put down a book. I definitely need some sort of connection there!

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  2. What drives me crazy? When too many characters suddenly appear and it's impossible to figure out who this dubious new person is.

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  3. great tips...if I can't connect to a character I'm done after a few pages. It doesn't take more than a few good sentences to draw me in, so those early pages need to be awesome! and yes, GRAMMAR. Someone once said to me (after I told them they need to brush up on grammar and actually use at least some punctuation before submitting) that "that's what an editor is for" ugh lol

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  4. Hey! It sounds like you just described my writing. :D

    I'm a person who hasn't mastered emotions yet. When I try to do anything that requires a character showing they care for another character, it borders on melodrama. Most of the time, my characters come off as inappropriately unconcerned. I'm working on trying to fix that...

    My pet peeves? Nasty protagonists who are mean and assume the worst about another character without cause. Why in the world would I feel sympathy for them? I've nearly chucked a few books across the room because of that. (But I didn't want to damage my kindle on the account of an annoying book.)

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  5. Well, now that you've said not to do those things, I'm going to have to run right out and do them.

    But on a more serious note, excellent tips. If I'm not invested in a character, or if a story is littered with grammatical errors, it becomes very difficult for me to finish a novel.

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  6. Definitely with you on the grammar thing. >_< Seeing a grammar or punctuation mistake, even a simple one, pulls me completely out of whatever I'm reading. It's fine when dealing with dialogue, but the wrong form of "there/their/they're" or a tense change and suddenly I'm not reading a story anymore, I'm proofreading it. And that ruins everything.

    As for 2 and 3, I know I have issues with not getting into my characters' emotions enough, but I don't think I delve into melodrama. I'm trying to get better at it either way.

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  7. My biggest pet peeve usually falls under the grammar category, particularly people misusing and abusing participial phrases as well as semicolons. I still don't care for people using "then" in place of a conjunction either.

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  8. I think I suffer from that last one. It's easier for me to provide facts than show emotions, so I tend to just put the facts out there and assume the reader can figure out the emotions themselves. Not good.

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  9. Simple but to the point rules. Can't handle melodrama either. That's why I can't relate to teen angst.

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  10. Great tips! I do like to break some grammar rules, but more like say, using a fragment here and there, or starting a sentence with a conjunction (do people still care about that after elementary school???). Nothing too crazy. If you ignore grammar altogether it makes things very hard to follow.

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  11. It was a wonderful chance to visit this kind of site and I am happy to know. thank you so much for giving us a chance to have this opportunity! I will be back soon for updates.

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  12. I hope I haven't broken any of these rules. The first one is pretty easy for me to follow, but the other two are hard for me to spot in my own work...

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  13. Great list. Agree, agree, agree. :)

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  14. This is a great list and now I am biting my nails thinking of any run on sentences or grammar goofs that I feel I often do. I wish I had a bigger vocabulary than I do but I even have written my Canadian "Eh's" . I hate melodrama when I see people actually act it out. This makes me want to trip them. The same goes for all the Mr. Spocks out there who bore me with their science of blah blah. Hope you are keeping cool since this must be very difficult for you right now carrying twins. I hope you can have your feet up with a nice cool drink, a fan and a good book

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  15. Great pointers! Emotions are always key and beta readers are the best at pointing these things out. I know one who helped me find places to add more emotion.

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  16. All of these! Yes. I will take emotion over fact anytime when it comes to fiction. Keep the facts with the non-fiction! :)

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  17. Nice tips! Melodrama particularly annoys me (except in, as you say, Gothic romances).

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  18. I definitely agree with your tips. At one point or another, I've put down a book for all the reasons above. I especially hate when the emotion doesn't match the arc!

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  19. #1 is a big pet peeve of mine. I'm even more discouraged when I see it in published work. I really liked your point 2/3, because I struggle with how to infuse emotion into my writing without veering into melodrama.
    My biggest pet peeve is when the reader is left in the dark about too many things and I'm totally confused instead of intrigued (although I've been told I do this too).
    Great trips!

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  20. I love the melodrama one. There's one book that shall remain nameless but I think everyone in the world loved it but me, and the main reason I hated it was the melodrama. The "Oh God the Pain" was way too much LOL.

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  21. Yes! I love reading the melodramatic ones.

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  22. I can't handle willful ignoring of grammar rules. I tend to have to add in a bit more emotion, because I'm so locked up personally. So here's hoping I never go too far! Great post, thanks.

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  23. First off, I love bossy titles because they always get my attention. They're click bait, for sure:) But man, this list could go on and on. One thing I hate is when an author throws a curveball at you just for the sake of doing it. "Bam! Bet you didn't see that one coming, reader!" Um, no, because it doesn't make any sense. Not all surprises are good!

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  24. I agree with all of these, but if there's any grammar errors in my writing it's purposeful. Mostly, sentence fragments. And I don't care if you don't like it! :P

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  25. Those are biggies for me too.

    But my current (constantly evolving) top three would be:

    Purposeless Prologues
    Deus Ex Machina
    and all nature of scenes written in to "create interest and excitement" when it does nothing to strengthen the story.

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  26. great advice pieces! i can't stand grammatical errors, esp in my own piece (hate finding typos after the fact! ah!)
    and once in a while i get a little melodramatic... but my crit partners reign me back in =) and i hope i have the right mix!
    what bugs me? predictability... one of the reasons i chose to write, to surprise and throw twists to catch people off guard, i hope!
    happy hump day!

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  27. Ha! This is awesome. Except, I love fragments. Use them all the time. So, yes, except that one. ;-)

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