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Message |
    
Nancy Mehl
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2754
Registered: 08-2001
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 09, 2008 - 08:56 am: |   |
What things drive you up the wall in fiction? Is it alliteration? An overuse of adverbs? Word repetition? POV changes?
And can you separate yourself from fiction as a reader vs a writer?
For example, before I started writing, I don't know that I would have noticed POV changes. However, I might have simply lost interest in a book because for some reason it made me weary. (Head hopping can do that.) However, now, POV changes are like big, red lights to me.
And another thing that bothers me now is an overuse of "big" words. I don't like to read writers who are trying to impress me with their knowledge of words. I have a rather extensive vocabulary, so I can understand what you're saying, I'm just not interested in your ego trip! Tell the story. Use the words that tell the story in the clearest way.
What stops you cold in fiction? And how has your own writing affected that?
Nancy
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
"The Ivy Towers Mystery Series" Barbour Books - 2008
www.nancymehl.com
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Harry Simenon
Unity Member
Post Number:
1991
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 09, 2008 - 11:19 am: | |
Reality that is not consistent for all characters. I make sure that the rules in my writing apply to all; like gravity is should be the same for all to start with...
I hate Superman-like fiction: some guy who can fly without an airplane or something just because he was born on another planet. |
sophie simonet
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
888
Registered: 03-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 09, 2008 - 02:08 pm: | |
Mistakes. The name of a restaurant that changes within the book. Logical impossibilities. The book immediately loses credibility for me when that happens. I am taken out of the whole experience. I do a lot of fact-checking. I'm not infallible, but I do my best. I would hate to misinform a reader. There's too much misinformation out there already!
Yes, and too many adverbs instead of action verbs. However, a few adverbs, while reviled by purists, do help soften the prose.
Head-hopping, too. You got that right, Nancy, though it's amazing how many big-name authors do that. |
Harry Simenon
Unity Member
Post Number:
1993
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 09, 2008 - 03:23 pm: | |
I once read about a rape scene.
The woman was struggling with her attacker in an office building. Ofcourse she is alone with her attacker: all the others left early. She finds a lead pipe. As everybody knows there are lots of lead pipes in the average office-building. She smashes her attacker's face with the pipe and shatters his arm. She loses the pipe. She could not find it among all the other lead pipes I'm sure.
He pulls up her dress above her head and starts to strangle her with one hand while he pulls her panties down with the other hand.
Now I picture an octopus or some kind of Shiva. The story takes on a surrealistic twist of the worst category. I can imagine that somebody does not feel pain during an overdose of rhohypnol or something, but if your bones are shattered into a thousand pieces your arm might be a bit hard to control. And a lead pipe in your face is demotivating too.
I never threw the book out though. Somehow I'm attached to it. Something like the Bearded Lady. |
Bill Nelson
Unity Member
Post Number:
3008
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 09, 2008 - 03:50 pm: | |
A flashback scene in the middle of a conversation, like:
"Do you remember when we went to Coney Island, Betty", and the next four or five pages has Betty remembering evey single detail. Finally, she says,
"Yes, I do!"
Drives me up the wall!!!!!!!!! (How do like that, Joyce?) |
Gloria Marlow
Unity Member
Post Number:
2100
Registered: 04-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 09, 2008 - 03:51 pm: | |
I bought a romance novel a year or so ago and my husband came home to find me marking all over it with an ink pen. It was FILLED with mistakes, so I decided to edit it. There were grammar and punctuation errors on every page, not to mention the mistakes within the story. For instance, on one page her the heroine's mother was dead, three pages later, she wasn't (not miraculously alive, just a mistake in the writing). This was a book published by a well-known publisher! I finally got so frustrated, I just threw the darn thing out.
Too much dialect. Once it is established that someone is Scottish or Southern or from the Old West, or whatever the case may be, I don't need every bit of dialogue her or she speaks to be mispelled and contracted in an attempt to make me understand. I get it already!
Although I never thought I'd say it, POV changes bother me, too. I don't mind changes in POV in the story, but I need to know exactly whose head I'm in at all times.
I can't stand people to not act like normal people if they are supposed to be normal people.
I agree with Nancy on the use of big words. As a writer, I want the average person to be able to pick my book up and read it.
Overuse of details really bothers me. Give me a basic overview of the room and the characteristics of the people and let my imagination do the rest.
Still, one of the main reason I just don't finish books is because I don't like and/or care about the characters.
Gloria
www.geocities.com/gloriadmarlow
http://youtube.com/user/gloriamarlow
Flowers for Megan**Shades of Silence**The Butterfly Game
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Nancy Mehl
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2756
Registered: 08-2001
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 09, 2008 - 07:12 pm: | |
Wow. Some great answers. Of course, while I was reading your comments, I was thinking about my own books. I see some of these things in them here and there. One thing I've started to notice is just what Bill said. Long pauses between the question or comment - before the next response - where the character is "remembering." I just recently started to look at that and think..."I don't know if I like this."
Our writing evolves constantly. I admit to using some adverbs, doing some telling, and the "long memories between dialogue."
Sophie - I have mixed feelings about the realism thing (except Harry's story certainly does stretch the imagination). Sometimes I feel like we have to spend too much time making our stories "realistic." I mean, it's fiction for crying out loud! Can't we take some literary license?
How does everyone else feel about that?
Nancy
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
"The Ivy Towers Mystery Series" Barbour Books - 2008
www.nancymehl.com
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Harry Simenon
Unity Member
Post Number:
1994
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 02:53 am: | |
I think you can use all kind off rare events and put that all together in a novel. It must be all possible though.
Nobody likes to read about a guy getting up, yawning, washing himself and shaving, getting dressed, having breakfast, getting into his car to work. Most of us live a life like that.
I have read blogs and diaries like that. I describe that kind of activities as short as possible when I can't avoid them.
No, accidents must happen, mistaken identities, his co-worker must get murdered, blood must seep out of his file drawer, he must receive a strange E-mail. His secretary suddenly has a bit of an accent he has never noticed before.
The guy must be like us, what happens to him can be unlikely in reality but it must still be possible.
But I don't like to overdo it: rather no aliens creeping out of his computer as the result of a strange virus or things like that. And no flying dudes in spandex.
That's how I feel about it. |
Laurel Johnson
Unity Member
Post Number:
4557
Registered: 01-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 06:29 am: | |
Overuse of THE word "THE" in one sentence is THE one thing that drives me up THE wall.
Short blunt sentences in Hemingwayesque style put my brain into a coma.
Details make my imagination soar, especially if a book depicts topics, areas, or people unfamiliar to me. I appreciate realism and want to smell coffee, breathe that fragrant steam from a warm mug, and feel comforted by a crackling fire as wintry winds blow snow outside the windows. So my appreciation of a book includes well written details that spark my imagination.
I'm guilty of just about every shortfall you've mentioned as a writer. 
Laurel Johnson
http://laureljohnsonblogs.blogspot.com
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Gloria Marlow
Unity Member
Post Number:
2102
Registered: 04-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 07:32 am: | |
I'm guilty of so many of the shortfalls we've mentioned, that I don't even want to think about it. I'm going at my newest book again and as I was writing my own response and reading everyone else's response to this thread, I was thinking, "Uh-oh"
I agree about the details making your imagination soar, Laurel. I love books to bring me into the story through my senses. I think it is important for details to use our senses, our memories, and our experiences in order to bring us into the story. Just reciting the color of the walls, the position of the furniture, etc. isn't enough for me, and it bores me to tears. I want to "feel" the room.
As far as realism goes, I think it is important only if you are writing a book where realism is important. The realism or lack thereof has to fit in with the story you are writing. If your book is about an alien invasion (to borrow Harry's example), then aliens coming out of the computer is part of the reality you're creating. If your book is set in the 1970's and they begin to talk on their cell phones, then that is not part of reality. There are some types of books that force you to create a new reality. Mystery and suspense are probably some types of writing that force you to create a bit of a new reality. I mean, after all, the reasons for murder are not always realistic nor understandable. They seem quite farfetched at times, but look at the news or true crime shows and you'll find that in reality the reasons people kill are often so farfetched, they seem as if someone must have made them up.
As far as the question/answer problem, I agree, but surely there has to be some internal thought shown. If we only write dialogue, with no internal thought to the answers to the questions, we only have dialogue. It's like listening to strangers on the street talk. There's mild interest, but no real connection. Still, there should be a short enough time between the question and answer that the reader still remembers what the question was.
So, as writers, how do we get around these problems?
www.geocities.com/gloriadmarlow
http://youtube.com/user/gloriamarlow
Flowers for Megan**Shades of Silence**The Butterfly Game
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Nancy Mehl
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2757
Registered: 08-2001
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 09:52 am: | |
This is what I've observed over the years: People have all kinds of opinions. From Elmore Leonard's mantra that writers should never use more than "said" when writing dialogue, to some of the things listed here - like hating adverbs, short sentences, sentences that are too long, etc., etc., etc. But more experienced writers say this: There are no rules. In other words, find what works and what doesn't. That is supposed to be the "purpose" of the so-called rules. Some crime novels, especially in first person, use the short sentences that Laurel hates quite successfully. It makes it punchier. However, it can be overused and become distracting and irritating. The other end would be long run-on sentences. I think these (and adverbs) can be overused in literary novels. I love the prose of literary style, but if can be mind-numbing if carried too far. Laurel is an example of how to do it right. Her writing is poetic in "Alley of Wishes," but at the same time, I couldn't put the novel down. It kept pulling me in.
I agree, Gloria, that you can't do away with the "memory scenes." In cozy mystery, which is what I find myself writing now, the writing must be "cozy" too. In other words, writing my cozy the way I wrote "Malevolence" won't work. They both must be approached from different "voices."
The key,IMHO, is this: As I said, there are no rules. There are only suggestions. Use adverbs, but don't overuse them. Use short sentences when you need punch (Todd's novels need them sometimes), but don't overuse them. As I said, I hear multi-published authors telling others that they quit being tied down to rules - after they learned them, that is. Now they know how to skillfully apply the "do's and don'ts" of writing in a way that suits "their voice." And we all have one. Gloria, I've alway said that your voice is similar to Mary Higgins Clark. And she seems to do okay. <g> So, you shouldn't try to be Hemingway or Grisham, because it isn't your voice, and Laurel shouldn't try to emulate Mickey Spillane because that isn't her voice, and Dennis shouldn't try to be Nicholas Sparks because that isn't his voice.
Use what works sparingly - and remember that no matter what you do - there will always be readers who don't connect with you. Just concentrate on those who do.
And one last thing that I think will help us is to never quit learning. There's nothing wrong with improving. For example, I'm looking a little more "closely" (LOL!) to my use of advervbs and long looks backward. My next book will be better in those areas. But I won't be afraid to use them some if I need them to keep my voice.
Nancy
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
"The Ivy Towers Mystery Series" Barbour Books - 2008
www.nancymehl.com
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Bill Nelson
Unity Member
Post Number:
3009
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 11:13 am: | |
My wife and I go to the public library about every third week and load up with books. I read around three novels a month and run across tons of different
"styles" of writing.
The one thing a novel must do is send me on a journey. I want to go places and do things not naturally available to me. When many of the above boo-boos crop up, my journey is interrupted and I sometimes stop reading the story because of them. Some are just so damned good, I can't put them down, the journey is almost real to me.
I just read one where the author's syle was so easy and flowing that every word was like floating on a cloud. However, it was a murder mystery with lots of dead people in it. Read it in two days.
Here's some good advice, I think. I once had an art teacher who said, "A good painting is not about what you put into it, but rather what you leave out. Don't overwork it!" I'm sure that's true in writing (another form of creation). |
Todd Hunter
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
3931
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 11:35 am: | |
Use short sentences when you need punch (Todd's novels need them sometimes)
When writing a short book, you have to use short sentences... 
Mindsight Moderator
Aston's Website
Aston's Blog |
Nancy Mehl
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2758
Registered: 08-2001
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 02:38 pm: | |
"When writing a short book, you have to use short sentences... "
LOL! Never thought about it that way. <g>
Nancy
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
"The Ivy Towers Mystery Series" Barbour Books - 2008
www.nancymehl.com
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Perry
Awareness Member
Post Number:
3
Registered: 08-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 03:00 pm: | |
So after all this you wonder "Why am I not in the top ten of the NY Times list?"
An editor once unloaded on me about the use of "that" and some other minor word. The same day I picked up one of the top ten people and read the opening page and threw the book across the room! You know why? Yep, that's why. Every thing the editor told me not to do was done on that one page. |
Todd Hunter
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
3932
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 04:03 pm: | |
I'm personally of the opinion that all of the "rules" writers are told (like don't use "that") are meant to get us to re-think different ways of writing the same thing, and to use the best one. Sometimes the best way to write a sentence is going to be the way we "shouldn't" do it.
An engaging story is always going to make a person read more regardless of the rules.
Mindsight Moderator
Aston's Website
Aston's Blog |
Joyce Scarbrough
Unity Member
Post Number:
1310
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 12:01 pm: | |
I hate improbabilities like the ones in the rape scene Harry described. A lead pipe? How hard would it have been to have the victim grab a stapler or a nearby umbrella left by someone's desk to hit the rapist with?
I also hate writers who go on and on with descriptions because they're in love with the flowery language they get to use to describe the river or the meadow or the forest. I skip over that kind of passages when I'm reading to get to something actually happening.
And I hate cardboard characters. Actually, if I hated them it would be an improvement, because I don't feel ANYTHING for them.
But most of all I hate writers who have exclamation point diarrhea! 
~Joyce Sterling Scarbrough
True Blue Forever
ISBN 0-9722385-9-X
Different Roads
ISBN 0-9722385-3-0
Authors Ink Books
http://www.authorsinkbooks.com
Read the first chapters: http://www.authorsden.com/joycelscarbrough1
Waste time on Joyce's Blog: http://joycescarbrough.blogspot.com
Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kztz5e3XZeo |
Todd Hunter
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
3943
Registered: 02-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 06:01 pm: | |
Oh, come on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mindsight Moderator
Aston's Website
Aston's Blog |
Nancy Mehl
Mindsight Moderator
Post Number:
2767
Registered: 08-2001
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 08:33 pm: | |
Joyce, your words remind me of a gentle river, flowing through rolling green meadows, nestled near a massive forest...
It's just so exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nancy
MINDSIGHT MODERATOR
"The Ivy Towers Mystery Series" Barbour Books - 2008
www.nancymehl.com
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Bill Nelson
Unity Member
Post Number:
3015
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 11:13 pm: | |
What?????????????????????????????????????????
I would respond to your missle but not being informed to the hightest degree of accuracy I fear that I might deviate from the true and proper course of rectitude. |
Perry
Awareness Member
Post Number:
6
Registered: 08-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2008 - 08:43 am: | |
But if I had to read all that, then I had, well had to say but, then that had not be right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is there a question here as to my meaning????????????????? |
Perry
Awareness Member
Post Number:
7
Registered: 08-2008
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 15, 2008 - 08:45 am: | |
BTW
One editor took a red pen to my word due to his dislike of "had". If you really want to get annoyed while reading notice how many times the author "had" had in the work. |
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