# Your Writing Pet Peeves



## Kyle R (Jul 10, 2015)

We all have our pet peeves, especially about the fiction we read. But what about the fiction we _write_?

Be profound. Be harsh. Or be just plain silly. *What irks you about your own writing?* :encouragement:


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## Schrody (Jul 10, 2015)

I think I have too much dialogs and less descriptions. I hate descriptions. You don't need to know how that house looked like.


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## Deleted member 56686 (Jul 10, 2015)

I write the word suddenly too much just to annoy JAnfinson :tongue:


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## Riis Marshall (Jul 10, 2015)

Hello Kyle

Waking up in the middle of the night wondering whether I wrote 'conscience' instead of 'conscious' in a submission I sent off just before I put my head down. Or maybe 'prospective' when I meant 'perspective', or perhaps even 'discreet' instead of 'discrete'.

All the best with your writing.

Warmest regards
Riis


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## Pluralized (Jul 10, 2015)

What annoys me about my own writing is the constant misuse of commas and generally poor sentence construction. 

That, and weak plots with dull characters. I can describe the living crap out of a dark hallway but struggle with coherence. Annoying.


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## JustRob (Jul 10, 2015)

That I have done it and will do it at all. It was never my intention. The rest is trivial details.


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## Smith (Jul 10, 2015)

Losing steam. Mixing tenses.


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## InstituteMan (Jul 10, 2015)

1. Extraordinarily long sentences that may be grammatical but are still unparseable to most readers.

2. Redundancy.

3. Repetition (which isn't always the same thing as reundancy).

4 Excessive use of parentheticals, whether within parentheses or not.


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## aj47 (Jul 10, 2015)

I tend to do way too much first-person stuff.  It seems as if all my ideas start out with "what would *I*​ do if..."


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## bazz cargo (Jul 10, 2015)

Too many ideas at once, squirrel!


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## ShadowEyes (Jul 10, 2015)

The fact that I don't have enough confidence in my writing. What I mean by this is that I do not have a good enough feel for plotting to be able to do it prematurely. I find that getting to "the end," or at least writing the ending sequence allows me to feel like I didn't waste my time. But until then, I find my characters tend to go all over the place because they haven't established a concrete action or purpose. I can always re-use materials. I can always tinker with actions. I can always change the emotional intent. But I have trouble with making my writing feel useful unless I finish a scene, or, by proxy, a story.



JustRob said:


> That I have done it and will do it at all. It was never my intention. The rest is trivial details.



What did you do? Did you create a time travel paradox? Release a deadly disease? Ninja-edit your posts?!
I smell conspiracy.  :b


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## sunaynaprasad (Jul 10, 2015)

Cliffhangers in the middle of the story that get forgotten about by the characters.


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## cinderblock (Jul 10, 2015)

Schrody said:


> I think I have too much dialogs and less descriptions. I hate descriptions. You don't need to know how that house looked like.



Not a bad thing. You should subscribe to Chuck Palahniuk's school of minimalist writing. Only describe the scene, if it serves a purpose.


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## joshybo (Jul 10, 2015)

I hate that I love adverbs.  I seriously, genuinely, passionately, honestly, irreparably, defiantly, adamantly, truly, madly, deeply love adverbs.  And I know that I shouldn't but damn it I sincerely, earnestly, unabashedly, maddeningly, incoherently, wildly, irreproachably, nonsensically, unashamedly, and endlessly love adverbs.


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## AtleanWordsmith (Jul 10, 2015)

I absolutely hate trying to write romantic interactions.  I always feel like they come off clumsy or weird, or, at best, pervy in the extreme.

On a related note, I sometimes get irritated while trying to wrap up conversations between characters.  I verge on the socially awkward--okay, that's a lie, I'm wallowing in the socially awkward--so that might have something to do with it, as I'm probably projecting my own inadequacies onto the page.


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## J Anfinson (Jul 10, 2015)

mrmustard615 said:


> I write the word suddenly too much just to annoy JAnfinson :tongue:



I try very hard to avoid that word. Sometimes it slips by unnoticed and I'll see it later in something I posted and want to edit it out. It feels like a cheap word that could be replaced with something more descriptive.

I think my biggest pet peeve about my own writing, though, is how so often I struggle to describe what's in my head, because what gets written doesn't do it justice most of the time.


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## musichal (Jul 10, 2015)

I suddenly find myself wondering how often I use 'suddenly.'


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## joshybo (Jul 10, 2015)

J Anfinson said:


> I try very hard to avoid that word. Sometimes it slips by unnoticed and I'll see it later in something I posted and want to edit it out. It feels like a cheap word that could be replaced with something more descriptive.



You adverbist bigot, you.  #freethefreely


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## scrub puller (Jul 11, 2015)

Yair . . .

*joshybo*



> I hate that I love adverbs.



Adverbs, that's what those miserable 'ly' ending words are called?

I hate the bastards and hunt them down relentless. (big grin)

Cheers.


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## joshybo (Jul 11, 2015)

scrub puller said:


> Yair . . .
> 
> *joshybo*
> 
> ...



But they're the best of both verbs _and_ adjectives!  How can you disagree with their greatness?  I mean, sure, okay, Stephen King hates them, too, but he's not been _that_ successful.  What?  Like 54 novels and 200 short stories published (thank you, Google)?  Pssh.  Call me when he gets to 75 and 500.  _Then_ we'll talk.


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## Smith (Jul 11, 2015)

scrub puller said:


> Yair . . .
> 
> *joshybo*
> 
> ...



Does it drive you mad when e-mails or letters are signed with "Sincerely"?

Do you hunt them down in real life?


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## musichal (Jul 11, 2015)

I am wordlessly wordless.


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## joshybo (Jul 11, 2015)

Smith said:


> Does it drive you mad when e-mails or letters are signed with "Sincerely"?
> 
> Do you hunt them down in real life?



For real, though.  I work with a girl who says "basically" and "essentially" before or after *literally* everything she says.  And very *rarely* is the content either basic or essential.  If I ever disappear *unexpectedly*, you'll know why.


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## Smith (Jul 11, 2015)

joshybo said:


> For real, though.  I work with a girl who says "basically" and "essentially" before or after *literally* everything she says.  And very *rarely* is the content either basic or essential.  If I ever disappear *unexpectedly*, you'll know why.



That's almost as bad as some girls I know who say "like" and "seriously" and "oh my God" all the time. It's so basic it hurts. I try to stay at like a 7, but oh my God I swear they are seriously past 14.

Really though, is using adverbs in moderation acceptable? If I went out of my way to replace "rarely" with "seldom" or "not often" all the time, I'd get really distracted.


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## musichal (Jul 11, 2015)

I once had a boss who asked 'you know?' after every single sentence and would not continue until someone said 'yes.'  I got so sick of it that I refused to answer, which enraged my colleague.  She accused me of not taking my half of the responsibility.  I told her she shouldn't either, but she was afraid of him...  I actually found a new job because I found his habit so annoying.


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## scrub puller (Jul 11, 2015)

Yair . . .

* Smith

*


> Really though, is using adverbs in moderation acceptable?



Yes, of course, no problem . . . sometimes they are the best option.

I do hunt them down in my writing. 

Often, a passage of work (to me) seems stronger if rewritten with out the 'ly' bit on the end . . . sometimes the word order or arrangement will need to change of course. 

Cheers.


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## Deleted member 56686 (Jul 11, 2015)

I guess to be serious my biggest writing peeve is the repetition of certain words. Someone in the forum (not here at the moment) noted that I used the word 'just' too often in one of my drafts. I went back to count something like thirty-plus usages of that word. I spent the next day and a half editing that word out of my WIP at the time. :lol:


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## Kepharel (Jul 11, 2015)

What happens to me regularly with my writing is frustration when the reader "doesn't get it." This is cos I don't have the skill to interpret what is in my head onto the the page. I like to write light hearted pieces when given a dark theme but the humour all too often falls on deaf ears, it feels like trying to raise a smile from a room full of High Court Judges. I feel embarrassingly unfunny. When I try to write a serious piece it comes across as too ambitious and too easy to misunderstand.  Trouble is, I can't write any other way :dispirited::dispirited:


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## Schrody (Jul 11, 2015)

cinderblock said:


> Not a bad thing. You should subscribe to Chuck Palahniuk's school of minimalist writing. Only describe the scene, if it serves a purpose.



Oh no, I describe a scene, but I hate describing interiors and/or environment. Honestly, I think my stories could stand alone only with dialogs. 



joshybo said:


> I hate that I love adverbs.  I seriously, genuinely, passionately, honestly, irreparably, defiantly, adamantly, truly, madly, deeply love adverbs.  And I know that I shouldn't but damn it I sincerely, earnestly, unabashedly, maddeningly, incoherently, wildly, irreproachably, nonsensically, unashamedly, and endlessly love adverbs.



Guilty.


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## JustRob (Jul 11, 2015)

Smith said:


> Does it drive you mad when e-mails or letters are signed with "Sincerely"?
> 
> Do you hunt them down in real life?



Of course in all the best literature emoticons are substituted for adverbs as done above, obviously this being obvious. Sorry, I'm only (adjective) a novice writer and haven't got the hang of emoticons yet, so you'll just (sneaky adverb, stet) have to accept that that was written jokingly as a joke. However, I haven't seen them in many novels either actually in reality. My god word goodness, this is increasing my word count considerably in a significant way. No, this is getting silly ... Umm ... beyond a joke (No, adjective, stet "silly" then), but most of my writing does eventually in the end.

No, damn it, I like the way that I write. If I didn't I wouldn't do it so much, not change my style to pander to other's preferences. I see no virtue in writing in a style dictated by others. I have retired from pandering. It is merely (stet) a way of gaining acceptance and income, neither of which concern me much any more.

It's only just occurred to me that "only just" is a pair of adverbs that clearly(!) need to be eliminated. I'll be back on that then. Fat chance. Life's too short; really it is. Just write it like it is then.


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## TKent (Jul 11, 2015)

Mainly that my first stab at everything is sooooooo cliched. To be clear, my final product is also filled with cliches but that's after I've removed a million already. Finding new ways to say things doesn't come easy to me. But it is fun trying.

And that I do not have enough of a mastery of writing to say what I want to say in the way I want to say it. 

I do know that over the last year I have gotten better at both of these things so there is hope. 

I guess you could say that when I started writing fiction, it was really hard to write at all, and since it was so bad, that means it was 'hard for me to write poorly.' Now I'm finding it much easier to write poorly! It just flows. Now it is hard to write well, but I can actually do it sometimes if I push through and force the issue.


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## Riis Marshall (Jul 11, 2015)

Hello Folks

'I've just had the results of my ECG,' said Tom wholeheartedly.

'I'm very tired; I think I'll go to bed,' said Tom sleepily.

'I'm really pleased at the way this thread is progressing,' said Tom happily.

All the best with your writing.

'Warmest regards,'
said Riis politely


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## InstituteMan (Jul 11, 2015)

Riis Marshall said:


> Hello Folks
> 
> 'I've just had the results of my ECG,' said Tom wholeheartedly.
> 
> ...



Several years back when I was just returning to writing, I wrote a beginning of a story that I thought was quite good. I didn't know what to do with it. So this wonderful story (and I do still really like the idea behind it) languished on my drive, waiting to be finished and shared with the world to reveal my greatness. 

After writing some more and joining here and submitting some shorter pieces here and there, I went back to the old piece to polish it a bit and maybe finish it (FWIW, it's probably the first in a short series of novellas). I nearly wept at what I found. Every single bit of dialogue was attributed in some clever way, and ALWAYS with an adverb. Characters were chiding coyly and confiding confidently and stating jokingly on every other line, it seemed.

I'm going to send that story around someday, but it's going to require more effort to get ready than I had first supposed.


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## J Anfinson (Jul 11, 2015)

I'm not bothered by most other ly-adverbs, strangely (there you go). But suddenly is the devil. Most others I see as necessary in moderation.


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## Phil Istine (Jul 11, 2015)

My pet peeve about my work is fairly general.
I try to be a smartarse by walking before I can crawl.  I've spent most of my life not writing so I'm not going to begin turning out masterpieces - well, not yet anyway  .  So, maybe I need to keep it a bit simpler.  On the other side of that coin is the thought _How will I learn if I don't stretch myself?_


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## PiP (Jul 11, 2015)

Pluralized said:


> What annoys me about my own writing is the constant misuse of commas and generally poor sentence construction.



Same here, Plu. I use commas like confetti and my sentence structure lacks rhythm ... or should that be flow? Ho hum...

SCrhody, I also prefer writing dialogue  I can't stand reading books where the author spends half a page describing the sky so my descriptive skills are poor.


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## Schrody (Jul 11, 2015)

PiP said:


> Same here, Plu. I use commas like confetti and my sentence structure lacks rhythm ... or should that be flow? Ho hum...
> 
> SCrhody, I also prefer writing dialogue  I can't stand reading books where the author spends half a page describing the sky so my descriptive skills are poor.



Sister! :hug:


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## Cato (Jul 11, 2015)

The lack of it. I am far too lazy, and spend far more time thinking about writing than writing the stuff itself


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## EmmaSohan (Jul 11, 2015)

joshybo said:


> But they're the best of both verbs _and_ adjectives!  How can you disagree with their greatness?  I mean, sure, okay, Stephen King hates them, too, but he's not been _that_ successful.  What?  Like 54 novels and 200 short stories published (thank you, Google)?  Pssh.  Call me when he gets to 75 and 500.  _Then_ we'll talk.



Someone said that, while King wrote against adverbs, he uses them. For example:

She was perfectly calm again.


"I'll tell you something else," she said calmly.

In this book, he says "... but I've spilled out my share of adverbs in my time, including some (it shames me to say it) in dialogue attribution."

I use the word "suddenly" to show that something is happening suddenly. I am not sure what else I am supposed to do. "Suddenly he stands up, . . ." Abruptly? Unexpectedly?


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## J Anfinson (Jul 11, 2015)

EmmaSohan said:


> I am not sure what else I am supposed to do. "Suddenly he stands up, . . ." Abruptly? Unexpectedly?



Good question. To keep from derailing, I'll start a thread to discuss a tactic I use.


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## AtleanWordsmith (Jul 11, 2015)

Another pet peeve of mine is physically describing characters, especially in fantasy settings where I can't cop out of an actual description by comparing them to a contemporary celebrity.  Well, I suppose I _could_... no... no.  I lied.  I couldn't.

It's not really _describing_ the character as it is fitting the description into the story so that it feels organic instead of forced.


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## Lumaria (Jul 12, 2015)

my biggest pet peeve is normally when someone introduces a story in a very rushed, brashed way. before establishing anything, you are thrown into by a character's name, and very few things. unaware of where they are or what is going on in that moment. Sure it gets explained a little more, but i enjoy more descriptive beginning before throwing the story in. Especially if its in third person


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## Schrody (Jul 12, 2015)

EmmaSohan said:


> Someone said that, while King wrote against adverbs, he uses them. For example:
> 
> She was perfectly calm again.
> 
> ...



All of a sudden? That's pretty much the same :-k


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## Arrakis (Jul 14, 2015)

[Shrugs] I am mine own worst critic, so I can't pick just one. Though, like some others in this thread, I do have a tendency to use repeated words and phrases.


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## Terry D (Jul 14, 2015)

The word 'thing'. I'm nearly obsessive about not using it. I had a writing instructor my senior year of high school who would never give a paper above a 'D' if the author used the word 'thing'. His point was (much like the point Kings makes about adverbs) that every 'thing' has a name, or a description. In his opinion, and by osmosis mine, was that 'thing' is a lazy writer's word. Of course we all know there are no absolutes in writing (except that if you don't do it it won't get done), but I don't think I've ever used the 'T' word in a book, or story -- except in dialogue.


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## Schrody (Jul 14, 2015)

Well, you can always use it in a derogatory way


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## JustRob (Jul 14, 2015)

Terry D said:


> The word 'thing'.



When I worked as a data modeller in the IT department of our company I once wrote a paper on some of the most abstract concepts in data analysis. When we were sent on a training course on writing plain English we were asked to provide examples of our writing and I submitted my paper. The chap giving the course read it out in part as the most incomprehensible piece of English he'd ever read. Well it was a difficult subject and I doubt that he could have done any better. I can't recollect all of it now but I do remember that it contained my definition of a thing, which read as follows. After that there was considerable explanation of the implications of the basic definition, but I'll leave that to your imagination if it stretches that far.

"A thing is that which depends neither wholly nor solely on any other for its existence." 

Things are fascinating. Once you get to grips with them then the rest all makes sense, or at least the self-deception is unbreakable. I could write about things for pages. It's also interesting to contemplate what in the world are things and what aren't. On the other hand maybe I should get out more.


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## Terry D (Jul 15, 2015)

JustRob said:


> When I worked as a data modeller in the IT department of our company I once wrote a paper on some of the most abstract concepts in data analysis. When we were sent on a training course on writing plain English we were asked to provide examples of our writing and I submitted my paper. The chap giving the course read it out in part as the most incomprehensible piece of English he'd ever read. Well it was a difficult subject and I doubt that he could have done any better. I can't recollect all of it now but I do remember that it contained my definition of a thing, which read as follows. After that there was considerable explanation of the implications of the basic definition, but I'll leave that to your imagination if it stretches that far.
> 
> "A thing is that which depends neither wholly nor solely on any other for its existence."
> 
> Things are fascinating. Once you get to grips with them then the rest all makes sense, or at least the self-deception is unbreakable. I could write about things for pages. It's also interesting to contemplate what in the world are things and what aren't. On the other hand maybe I should get out more.



This anecdote reminds me of a paper I wrote my junior year of college, as I think our end results would have been quite similar. My assignment was to write 500 words explaining a concept. I spent those 500 words as lavishly, as pointlessly, as obfusacatorially, as possible, but that paper sounded _good_. It got me an 'A+'. The concept I chose for my paper... Bullshit.

BTW: Imagination has never been an issue for me.


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## bunnybun (Jul 15, 2015)

I'm not very good at writing description. Also I always feel like my writing is lacking that little je-ne-sais-quoi to make it interesting to readers.


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## JustRob (Jul 15, 2015)

Maybe my obfuscated writing style is both my treasure and my peeve. 

I struggle to draw the readers into my way of thinking but ultimately I just have to hope that a few see it for themselves and latch onto the threads that I lay out. I know that it's tough for them because at first even I didn't understand what was really going on, not until I read and reread what I'd written in order to improve it. That was when I saw the delicate web of interrelationships across the chapters and realised that any editing would have to be done very carefully to avoid making holes in it. I also realised that no cursory read-through of a portion of it by even an experienced critic would reveal to them the reasons why the text was as it was. They simply wouldn't have the time and it is unlikely that any ordinary reader would have the patience. The only two people to have read my novel to its end are a lecturer in English literature who can revel in the most challenging books ever written and a member of a literary and philosophical society who lapped up the story and recommended it to colleagues. Both these people enjoyed it and await the sequel, but I have little reason to continue writing for such a small readership and the very different reactions of other readers leave me mystified. The saddest thing is that the full complexity of the story will not be seen by anyone until I write more, even maybe to the end of the trilogy. 

That is my peeve, that the story remains my unwritten intellectual property and has to do so. I know it so intimately now that I have no need to write it down, but enjoy excerpts from it in my mind from time to time. It would be all the more enjoyable to share the experience and even to know the reactions of others, whatever they may be, but the protocols of the writing world seem to preclude interaction between writer and critic, so if I can't tell a critic what I was intending to convey but evidently failed to I don't know how their generous efforts benefit me. It seems to me totally reasonable to say to a critic "You didn't understand. Why not?" but such a comment is so easily taken as defensive behaviour. Nevertheless that is where my writing stands, misunderstood because I can't ask "Did you not see this and this and this? Did I not make it plain enough? Was I making too many demands on your patience by failing to show you at the outset the final picture of the jigsaw puzzle that I am assembling?"

The fault must be mine. I do not leave a trail of rewards to tempt readers further into the story. I don't fill it with irrelevant action along the way. There is no gratuitous violence, escalating cruelty or damage to property to satisfy the escapist, that is the escapist from fiction back into the relative security of reality. In fact I write about the most unendurable aspect of life, the regular round, the apparently unchanging cycle, the carousel ride over which so many of us seem to have little control. And yet in the blandest life things may slowly change, pushing their unsuspecting victim closer to a precipice of new experiences. It is only an altered state of mind that separates thrilling suspense from tedious boredom when nothing seems to be happening.

It is hardly a surprise that I have a reputation for making jokes within these forums, for my peeve about my writing is that I have no reason to do it and that is the sadness of a clown.


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## McJibbles (Jul 15, 2015)

Mixing up multiple tenses and struggling to remember great ideas while at the same time refusing to write them down.
mixing the tenses is a cinematic disease I can't shake, and that probably came about from watching too many movies.


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## AoA (Jul 17, 2015)

My writing's biggest challenge is my confusing brain. With the way my mind works, I have to work REALLY to not have things sound disjointed or like the story is jumping around. It is my biggest problem with writing so far. Having ADD doesn't help it for certain though. Although, it is why I love and understand Kurt Vonnegut's reading much better than most, so not all of it is bad.

My big other trouble and pet peeve is how much anyone who knows my tendencies can pick out parts of my personality in a story. For example, a character in a nowhere-near finished story has a couple of over exaggerated examples of my personality. He is somewhat of a mental projection with some modifications, like a lot of my protagonists. Just like me, he's gay, has no care for "gender roles" ("masculine" enough to be left alone, but has many "feminine" traits), and is a submissive person . He just takes those traits much further than I do. He is a typical protagonist for me. I especially have problem with writing from the perspective of a "straight" person. This is a more personal peeve, as most people would have no clue about any of this. 

Less huge things to me personally:

-Tendency to describe characters a lot when people find it unnecessary. I hate not making certain the person reading knows exactly what a character is like, physically and mentally, and I have to fight the info-dumping and hack away at stuff on a frequent basis.

-Older language used a lot when people may not be expecting it. Words such as "rend", "twain" and many more odd words not used by a lot of people. Having learned middle English at almost the same time as modern English means middle English comes up in my wording, sometimes even when I'm speaking people will say that I sound like I've spent too much time reading Shakespeare.

-Oh and some people are really thrown off by my ability to be very, very gruesome or descriptive suddenly in a story. I was known for my descriptiveness in random things, but mostly violent scenes. Considering I'm a very non-violent person (still won't kill bugs, unless they are stinging me), I find the assumptions that I am some degenerate who loves violence very insulting because it is an assumption that people make at times. I still have to rework things a lot because my writing style naturally can get very, very graphic when unchecked (and I realized that yes, almost always, detail is much higher during violent points in my writing)

Oh, and the grammar comments ("Avoid present tense!" is an example) INFURIATE me beyond belief. I write in what tense I need for my work, there is no reason to avoid tenses. Anyone who says that to me is immediately someone I have NO interest in even thinking about working with. Call me stubborn, but I refuse to stoop to writing in one tense. It is infantile in my humble opinion, and if someone thinks grammar is irrelevant, I think they are irrelevant. Sorry, but totally needed to state that. Felt good to get that off my chest.


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## GVictoria (Jul 26, 2015)

I mix up different tenses. And I put too less descriptions. I've been told about that LOTS of times


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## Andrew Styles (Jul 28, 2015)

I often times grow to hate my own characters. I feel like sometimes they are realistic, and I can't make them do what I want them too, and sometimes I feel they are too realistic, so they have no purpose other than their one "quirk". I struggle to find a happy balance.


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## Bishop (Jul 28, 2015)

Andrew Styles said:


> I often times grow to hate my own characters.



Oh, with me it's quite the opposite. My characters grow to hate me. Loves lost, bullets taken, copious embarrassing moments... I'm tellin' ya... they're getting sick of it.


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## Smith (Jul 28, 2015)

Glad somebody else has trouble mixing tenses..


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## RileyGardner17 (Jul 28, 2015)

Tenses are always a big annoyance for me. My sentences come off too long when I read them back, and I can describe the _hell_ out of my supporting characters but hate describing my main ones unless it's hugely important (other than occasional moments where they make one or two observations about themselves) and then it bugs me the entire way through, because I know exactly what I want them to be like but will anyone else? Oh the struggle.

Probably the most annoying thing about my writing is the evolving of my ideas. So I start the story off in one way, and the idea changes a bit so I continue writing and tell myself "I'll go back and fix the earlier parts later to match" and that just keeps going on and on. It frustrates me because I know it's there, but at the same time it allows me to know what I'm trying to say with my story by the time I finish the messy first draft.

Also I openly admit I suck at repeating words about human movement. "Twirled" "Grinned" "Smiled" I feel such a put of shame when I write them but I do anyways. Alas, the tragedy of the craft.


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## Nelson (Jul 29, 2015)

I think the one thing that annoys me to a degree about my writing is my slightly obsessive nature haha. I crave to make things as plausible and realistic as possible. As an example I am currently writing a chapter with two of my characters meeting up in London. I've spent several hours going through satellite images and studying streets in street view to try and give myself some perspective on what the area is like. I spend copious amounts of time planning when sometimes I think I should just write. 

Doubt also plays a factor where I ask myself "is this plausible? realistic?" Just need to crack on!


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## Jared77 (Aug 1, 2015)

This is real easy for me right now:  

POV

I'm revising my novel right now and I've had to spend so much time focusing the POV.  It was written originally in a "screenplay" style,  basically omniscient 3rd person, lots of scene switching and head hopping.  Going back and fixing all that has been tough, but the book is much better.

Close second: character description.  Two arms, two legs, male. Isn't that enough?


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## ArrowInTheBowOfTheLord (Aug 3, 2015)

I have too little focus to balance my imagination. Looking back on some old stuff I wrote, I was wondering what exactly all these peculiar things that were happening had to do with the plot. And sometimes, for absolutely no reason, everything will get really philosophical all of a sudden.


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## David Gordon Burke (Aug 3, 2015)

Escaping the Peril of First person perspective.
You are either writing in first person or ...
You are in third person but ...... all the dialogue is still first person.  
So the flaws and pitfalls of first person are so hard to avoid.
I now only write third.  Will be a cold day in hell before I write in first again.  
But it still wants to invade.
Hate that.

David Gordon Burke


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## Miranda de la Costa (Aug 16, 2015)

Hi kyle! If that photo is current congrats on the little one! what irks me about my own writing

1) I lose steam after about twenty chapters.
2) I lose track of my story just to please the readers in giving them what they want.
3) My paragraphs tend to be very long!
4) I used to do this when I first started but not any more thank god! I would write like I would have a conversation. Very unprofessional and when I look back at them I kiss my crucifix necklace and pet my bottle of holy water (not really but close...)


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