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Post by Enchant on Apr 9, 2008 16:42:38 GMT -5
What are come of the common mistakes that writers do when trying to write a story?
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Post by Mistress Rell on Apr 10, 2008 18:49:50 GMT -5
A very common mistake, or unwanted writing are 'bookisms'. Example; she screamed, he shouted, she replied, get the picture? More than once I've been told to tone it down. There's nothing wrong with just saying he said, she said. I do it all the time, and have had to consciouly stop myself from writing them. One or two aren't bad per page, but sometimes you get an entire dialoge filled with these 'bookisms'.
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Post by Enchant on Apr 10, 2008 23:41:34 GMT -5
A very common mistake, or unwanted writing are 'bookisms'. Example; she screamed, he shouted, she replied, get the picture? More than once I've been told to tone it down. There's nothing wrong with just saying he said, she said. I do it all the time, and have had to consciouly stop myself from writing them. One or two aren't bad per page, but sometimes you get an entire dialoge filled with these 'bookisms'. I find that I do that as well. Dialogue is a difficult area for me, because when I go back and read it, I get alot of hesaid, she saids. I to shift the wordings even with bookisms as the ones you listed, but it always has a choppy feel to it. Instead having the story flow, its always broken into individual comments.
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Nemaisare
Warrior Hunter
The farther you are from the edge of reality, the closer you are to my world.
Posts: 157
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Post by Nemaisare on Apr 12, 2008 14:22:08 GMT -5
Hmmm, I do that too, but sometimes, rather than even bothering to say that someone said or screamed or whispered or choked out, I just describe the voice or tone of the words, have the character think about it and then make their intent to speak obvious through other means. For example, since my explanation just confused me.
Nor did he open his mouth to answer until he was quite sure she had finished, and he believed himself adequately equipped with a response of sorts that might, and only might, clear away some of her curiousity. "I feel it mostly, lady, as you ...."
It doesn't always work, but it helps me keep away from having to figure out which of those other words I ought to use, because I don't have to use any.
Another mistake would probably be in the explaining department. Either explaining too much in one go, or never explaining fully enough that your readers understand. I know I do that, and the balance between the two is very hard to find, particularly when the concept under question is more complex than you thought, or just hard to explain.
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Post by Mistress Rell on Apr 13, 2008 8:19:00 GMT -5
Very good example. I wish I could write like that. It's ver elloquant(sp) and flows nicely into the dialoge.
Another problem I see alot (and am guilty of) is bad perspective. I read one very good story where the main character was a little girl. The writer would changed from first person to third person in mid sentence (usually within the dialogue) and that pulled me right out of the story.
I am guilty of that too. In my story Interlude I would changed the perspective of the story between the two MC within the same chapter. I would start off from the female MC p.o.v then switch half way through to the male. I wasn't even aware I was doing it until someone pointed it out. Major re-write there.
ut as with the bookism I have to work at keeping it
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Post by Mistress Rell on Jun 17, 2008 11:15:26 GMT -5
I posted this question to my critiquing group, and to let you know, these are sci-fi/fantasy/horror writers and editors who have published works. So anyone who is considering to become a serious about their writing (like myself) listen up.
Cathy F. wrote;
I agree with all of these. In all the slush that I have read, I have seen these more times than I can count. Here are a few others I have notice on top of those.
1. Weak hook. I think the majority of stories I pass on, I don't make it past the first page because of a weak hook (other than horrible writing).
2. Trying to do too much. I can't count how many times I have run across short stories that tried to be miniature novels. The formats are not the same. Too many subplots, like too many characters, in a short story makes a story confusing.
3. Jumping on the band wagon. Or in other words, trying to use what seems popular. For example, stories happening in Iraq or protesting the war. I can see a use for them, but everybody and their brother or sister seems to be doing them now, so it is starting to get old. Vampire stories are often in this category for me as well, but I like a good vampire story if it deviates from the old stories.
4. Preaching. I hate stories that have an obvious agenda and want to preach to me about something. Most people hate these types of stories. The best way to get a message across is to make it subtle enough that the reader thinks it is his or her conclusion. Namely, the story should guide them to the answer, not cram it down their throat. Better yet, leave the preaching and messages to the pulpit and halls.
5. Weak setting. I have seen the empty box syndrome on one side of the spectrum to the completely unbelievable worlds on the other side, but I think what I notice the most is underutilized setting. Setting is a powerful tool that can build tension, move the plot forward, set mood, and keep the story grounded. In a lot of stories I run across, the setting is used only to describe the backdrop and is forgotten.
Bonestructure wrote;
The mistake I see most often, and it's usually beginners, is writing pretty much a pastich and thinking it's a story. I've seen, as an editor, so many submitted stories that just weren't stories, that told nothing and went nowhere. I've seen a few, not many but a few, where the writing was absolutely wonderful, but there just wasn't anything worth writing about.
Cat wrote:
oh, let me count the ways.
just the first 5 in the Big Things dept.:
1)cliche plots/characters --reinventing the wheel (often happens when a writer is not well read in his/her genre)
2)boring (nothing happening) plot arcs (i've seen whole stories where the characters talk in one scene after another about interesting things happening *off* screen)
3)too much happening/too many characters (resulting in chaos)
4)not knowing your Basic Grammar/Syntax Rules (that's huge if it's rampant.)
5) inconsistent characters/plots/setting (writers not noticing that it was day in one scene and night in the other, or that the protag is whining and useless until all of a sudden, he slays a dragon.)
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Post by Enchant on Jun 17, 2008 15:17:02 GMT -5
I am not sure what the weak setting in the first grouping means....are they talking about the physical setting or the mental setting?
Thanks for showing us this, I am sure it will help those who are aspiring to be authors.
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Post by Mistress Rell on Jun 18, 2008 6:25:40 GMT -5
I think what she means is the description of the backdrop for a scene. There was a small debate on whether physics of the real world should apply to the fiction world. Another big conversation peice has been on bookisms. Clearly peolpe are divided by this, thinking that tags like 'shouted', 'yelled', 'whispered' and the like should be allowed. You can't discern the volume of dialoge by 'said'. But in case anyone is interested in what the professional side of the writing world thinks of said bookisms....... read this.I just critiqued a story that was so full of bookisms that I couldn't enjoy it. And the funny thing was, the word 'said' was not in any of the 8 pages I read.
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