# Errors in Writing



## Lewdog (May 11, 2013)

When you read someone's stories, novellas, or novels, what are some of the most common errors you see?  What errors irritate you the most?  Do you ever catch errors in the plot and get mad about it?  Share some of your stories.


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## Dictarium (May 11, 2013)

Errors as in using the wrong tense here or there or some sort of writing faux pas? I'm not well-versed enough in the proper etiquette of writing to catch stuff like that. I find lots of that stuff only bugs other writers and not readers at all.

Do you mean actual glaring grammar or spelling errors? I find editors usually do a good job of that, and can't think of any I've found.


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## Kyle R (May 11, 2013)

I'm reading a novel at the moment, and while I admire the author's pacing and his intuitive grasp for making scenes exciting, his prose is clumsy and awkward and at times just plain bad.

Some things he does that I find myself "rewriting" in my head as I read along:

Nonsensical descriptors:

_"An angry hiss escaped her *pale red* lips."_ Well, which one is it? Are her lips pale, or red? It's hard for me to imagine both. Perhaps he meant "pink"?

_"She whirled around, *her anguished heart screaming*..."_ What does an anguished heart screaming sound like? I wasn't aware hearts had vocal chords. 


Over-explaining the obvious:

"_Does that hurt, you bastard? _*she thought vindictively*._"_

"_Run while you can_, *she taunted him silently*."

"_And none too soon, _*she thought appreciatively."*

"_Run all you can! _*she thought fiercely..."*

Okay, enough of that. You get the point. *slaps forehead* We know the character is thinking, since it was put into italics, so that part doesn't need to be told. And the context alone should be enough to understand why it's being thought.

I just cringe whenever I read over-explanations, as if the reader is too dumb to understand. Something like, 

"The bomb went off, thundering through the lobby. Abby shrieked and covered her ears, *frightened by the sudden explosion*." 

Yes, we know she was frightened by the explosion. Her actions are enough to explain that.

or 

"Adam fired the shotgun. The gun kicked back, butting hard into his shoulder, taking him by surprise. He stumbled backward and lost his grip on the gun. It tumbled noisily down the well. _Damn! _*he cursed, angry at himself for losing his weapon.*"

Same thing.


Adjective/Adverb overload:

Nowadays, I cringe whenever modifiers are abused, instead of the author finding a more powerful, concise way of saying things.

_He _*stepped furiously*_ on the board, trying to shake it loose._

Stomped?

The leopard *snarled menacingly* and *forcefully jumped* at the boar.

Roared? Lunged?


There are others but those are the main ones that irk me.  Plot issues are a little more complex to explain, and harder to nail down. Mostly it's technical problems in the prose that upset me.


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## JosephB (May 11, 2013)

Once I got what looked like a brand new book from the library and several of the pages were stuck together. Very irritating.


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## Lewdog (May 11, 2013)

I just mean any errors.  Grammatical, contradictions about characters, saying something and then saying something different later.  

For example in The Hangover 2 and at the end the one guy says that the electricity was off when they woke up.  Well the electricity didn't go off until they were about to get in the elevator.

So things like as well.


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## Angelicpersona (May 11, 2013)

I dislike when people use too many words to describe something. I recently edited a piece for a friend and I cut down on half of the words. For instance:
"Suddenly everything became silent. No more rustling of leaves. No more birds singing. No more noises. Nothing. Everything was enveloped by an unnatural silence."
I was banging my head on my keyboard by the end of the piece.
Misuse or just generally not using punctuation drives me absolutely batty as well.


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## Skodt (May 11, 2013)

KyleColorado said:


> I'm reading a novel at the moment, and while I admire the author's pacing and his intuitive grasp for making scenes exciting, his prose is clumsy and awkward and at times just plain bad.
> 
> Some things he does that I find myself "rewriting" in my head as I read along:
> 
> ...



There is such thing as pale red. Could even mean that her lipstick hard worn, and now her lips shone with less luster. Just my following of that sentence though. 

On topic of question- I find the first book in the series "A Sword of Truth," to be littered with errors. Wrong tenses, wrong wording, and some bad grammar as well.


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## Kevin (May 11, 2013)

Angelicpersona said:


> I dislike when people use too many words to describe something. I recently edited a piece for a friend and I cut down on half of the words. For instance:
> "Suddenly everything became silent. No more rustling of leaves. No more birds singing. No more noises. Nothing. Everything was enveloped by an unnatural silence."
> I was banging my head on my keyboard by the end of the piece.
> Misuse or just generally not using punctuation drives me absolutely batty as well.


  Along the same lines...where they use two or more descriptors to show an action, like looking at the sky to see the clouds up above.


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## Rustgold (May 11, 2013)

Angelicpersona said:


> I dislike when people use too many words to describe something. I recently edited a piece for a friend and I cut down on half of the words. For instance:
> "Suddenly everything became silent. No more rustling of leaves. No more birds singing. No more noises. Nothing. Everything was enveloped by an unnatural silence."


There is nothing wrong with using more words than strictly necessary to describe a setting; providing you aren't tangling haphazardly over your own feet (or words in this case).  The only problem with the above example is the way it's expressed.



> "Everything became silent. No rustling of leaves, no birds singing, no insects buzzing, nothing. Everything was enveloped by an unnatural silence."



Yes, absolutely too many words to describe the setting; but arguably superior to just writing "Everything became silent." (even if I wouldn't have written it that way).


Anyway, I'm amazed at how many published novels have significant basic grammar errors in the 1st page.  You don't tend to notice these on page 157, but page 1?  It's annoying when you want to get the eraser & pencil out on the 1st page.
So-called Swiftys don't bother me so much, for they're rarely as bad as people here insinuate.


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## luckyscars (May 12, 2013)

Awkward sentence structure. Its funny because on the one hand it happens so often, but its so easily preventable. All one need do is read their work out loud but it seems many writers, particularly newer ones, either do not bother or do not grasp the importance.


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## Grape Juice Vampire (May 12, 2013)

Interestingly for me, I don't always notice these kinds of errors on the first read through, my brain auto-corrects them. But, second time through, I see them and am not really bothered by them unless there are tons. Because of this, I strive harder to cull as many errors out of my work as best i can.


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## JosephB (May 12, 2013)

I don't read books with awkward sentence structure, lame description etc. Not more than a paragraph or two anyway, if I happen to even pick up a book that isn't well written. There's no way I could get past one of Kyle's examples -- regardless of the pacing or story etc. I've found the best way to avoid bad writing is don't read crap.


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## Sam (May 12, 2013)

Angelicpersona said:


> I dislike when people use too many words to describe something. I recently edited a piece for a friend and I cut down on half of the words. For instance:
> "Suddenly everything became silent. No more rustling of leaves. No more birds singing. No more noises. Nothing. Everything was enveloped by an unnatural silence."
> I was banging my head on my keyboard by the end of the piece.
> Misuse or just generally not using punctuation drives me absolutely batty as well.



That's not using too many words. It's called 'building suspense'.


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## Lewdog (May 12, 2013)

My biggest pet peeve is pretty simple, misspellings.  In this electronic age, if a writer misspells a word it's just plain laziness.  Almost every electronic device writing program has spell check which takes only a few minutes or hours to run through a piece depending on its length.


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## Sam (May 12, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> My biggest pet peeve is pretty simple, misspellings.  In this electronic age, if a writer misspells a word it's just plain laziness.  Almost every electronic device writing program has spell check which takes only a few minutes or hours to run through a piece depending on* it's *length.



That should be *its. *


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## Lewdog (May 12, 2013)

Sam said:


> That should be *its. *



I don't know what you are talking about, I have 'its'.  (Give me a break I just got up and spell check doesn't catch that!)  8-[


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## Sam (May 12, 2013)

Unfortunately, you can't edit my post. It has a time-stamp of 12:34, and you edited yours at 12:36. Nice try, though.


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## Gamer_2k4 (May 13, 2013)

Some would argue that it's not an "error," but I can't stand fragments in stories.  It just feels amateurish to me.



KyleColorado said:


> Nonsensical descriptors:
> 
> _"An angry hiss escaped her *pale red* lips."_ Well, which one is it? Are her lips pale, or red? It's hard for me to imagine both. Perhaps he meant "pink"?
> 
> _"She whirled around, *her anguished heart screaming*..."_ What does an anguished heart screaming sound like? I wasn't aware hearts had vocal chords.



But it's okay for a hiss to escape?

These descriptors aren't nonsensical any more than a metaphor is nonsensical.  The words are used to convey a certain feel, and they succeed.


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## JosephB (May 13, 2013)

He didn't bold the "hiss" part.

And there is such thing as a lousy metaphor.


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## Gamer_2k4 (May 13, 2013)

JosephB said:


> He didn't bold the "hiss" part.



I know.  That's why I brought it up.


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## JosephB (May 13, 2013)

I guess I'm not following you. He didn't have a problem with the hiss part -- but you did for some reason? OK. That's not really metaphor.


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## lebrbria (May 13, 2013)

Misspellings and inconsistency in details bother me.


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## luckyscars (May 13, 2013)

KyleColorado said:


> _"She whirled around, *her anguished heart screaming*..."_ What does an anguished heart screaming sound like? I wasn't aware hearts had vocal chords.



It's called personification. It's a fairly widely accepted literary tool. Certainly not an error by any stretch.


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## JosephB (May 13, 2013)

I thought he just meant it was crappy writing.


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## Elowan (May 13, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> Some would argue that it's not an "error," but I can't stand fragments in stories.  It just feels amateurish to me.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Agree 110%.  The expression conveys a certain feeling/impression/scene that works well.


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## Gamer_2k4 (May 13, 2013)

JosephB said:


> I guess I'm not following you. He didn't have a problem with the hiss part -- but you did for some reason? OK. That's not really metaphor.



He had a problem with "screaming" but not "escaped," even though they're both verbs used in a non-literal context.  I was just asking for consistency.


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## JosephB (May 13, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> He had a problem with "screaming" but not "escaped," even though they're both verbs used in a non-literal context.  I was just asking for consistency.



Whereas hearts tend not to scream, a sound can certainly escape some barrier meant to suppress it. Maybe I’m giving the author too much credit – I imagine that the person attached to the pale red lips is somehow trying to suppress this “hiss,” but can’t do it because her emotions get the better of her. 

Only Kyle can alleviate this suspense -- but I think the deal is he didn't really have a problem with the hiss part because it's not as godawful as the _"her anguished heart screaming"_ bit -- and that it doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not they are metaphorical.


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## Kyle R (May 13, 2013)

I suppose it could be argued the examples I gave weren't "errors" per say, as compared to mispelled words or logical inconsistencies (where a man loses his sword in one scene, and then has the sword again, inexplicably, a few scenes later, for example), but I do consider them examples of poor writing, at least from my perspective. Opinions can differ! :encouragement:

A *heart anguishly screaming *is indeed personification, but is it strong or weak writing?

I can say *his bladder moaned in despair*, and that would be personification, too. It gets the point across (the character has to urinate badly, I assume), but would it be good writing?

I guess that's where personal preference comes in. They may not be actual errors, but they do fit the definition of things that irk me.


I think this blog post is interesting--a writer and his professor's adament hatred for anything that approaches personification:

Personification: When Eyes Have Hands | The New Authors Fellowship


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## Gamer_2k4 (May 13, 2013)

KyleColorado said:


> I can say *his bladder moaned in despair*, and that would be personification, too. It gets the point across (the character has to urinate badly, I assume), but would it be good writing?



Why wouldn't it be? We're not writing IKEA manuals here.


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## JosephB (May 13, 2013)

No we're not -- but if you think that's good writing, you probably should be.


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## Lewdog (May 13, 2013)

His bladder moaned like the creaking boards of an old wooden ship during a heavy winter squall.


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## Gamer_2k4 (May 13, 2013)

JosephB said:


> No we're not -- but if you think that's good writing, you probably should be.



It's like saying, "The leaves danced in the swirling breeze."  How can leaves dance? They can't - but they can move in a way that suggests dancing.  Some personification is bad (to use an example from Kyle's link, dreams can't imagine), but like everything else, it's not a hard and fast rule.

Besides, which is better?

_The leaves moved in the swirling breeze._
_The leaves moved in the swirling breeze like little dancers._
_The leaves danced in the swirling breeze._

The first sentence is dull, and the second sentence is wordy.  The third sentence, however, has all the vividness of the second with none of the wordiness.  I would argue it's the best choice, despite the personification.


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## PiP (May 13, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> His bladder moaned like the creaking boards of an old wooden ship during a heavy winter squall.



Can bladders moan? Surely it's a sensation rather than a noise or am I just having a blond moment?...actually don't answer that one! :-D

PiP


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## JosephB (May 13, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> It's like saying, "The leaves danced in the swirling breeze."  How can leaves dance? They can't - but they can move in a way that recalls dancing.  Some personification is bad (to use an example from Kyle's link, dreams can't imagine), but like everything else, it's not a hard and fast rule.



Believe it or not, I understand the concept of personification.  

I'm saying that particular example is lousy writing. I can visualize leaves dancing. However, a moaning bladder doesn't make a lick of sense. There's no sensory connection as there would be with "growling" stomach for example -- because while not literally growling -- the stomach makes a noise that suggests or "recalls" growling. Do you see the difference? If not -- maybe think more seriously about writing those Ikea manuals.


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## Kyle R (May 13, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> It's like saying, "The leaves danced in the swirling breeze."  How can leaves dance? They can't - but they can move in a way that suggests dancing.  Some personification is bad (to use an example from Kyle's link, dreams can't imagine), but like everything else, it's not a hard and fast rule.
> 
> Besides, which is better?
> 
> ...



I agree. _Leaves dancing in the wind _is good description, even if it is a bit common and overused. I'm not saying _all _personification bothers me--but if it's poorly done, I find it hard to ignore.

I consider a _heart anguishly screaming _to be an example of personification done poorly (or at least, lazily). It's easy to grasp what the author meant, but the prose could be better in my opinion. 

But again, that's really personal preference. 

The description could be flipped on its head in a happy moment, such as, _her heart whistled cheerfully_, or in a ponderous moment: _her heart hummed thoughtfully_, just to illustrate my point. It's _understandable_, but I find it bothersome as a reader. 

I catch myself thinking, _How about attributing the emotions to the character herself, instead of attaching them to one of her internal organs?
_
I think the main reason I brought this up in the first place is because the author in question (Greg Cox) is a best-selling novelist, so I expected high-level writing, but these types of descriptions appear on nearly every page of his story. After a while it became hard not to notice them.


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## JosephB (May 13, 2013)

I was shocked those were from something published, never mind a bestseller. At first glance, I thought you'd made them up as examples of bad writing -- and I was going to say you went way overboard. Heh.


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## luckyscars (May 13, 2013)

KyleColorado said:


> I suppose it could be argued the examples I gave weren't "errors" per say, as compared to mispelled words or logical inconsistencies (where a man loses his sword in one scene, and then has the sword again, inexplicably, a few scenes later, for example), but I do consider them examples of poor writing, at least from my perspective. Opinions can differ! :encouragement:
> 
> A *heart anguishly screaming *is indeed personification, but is it strong or weak writing?
> 
> ...



Problem with your 'examples' is that you constructed them to be intentionally absurd. No, 'his bladder moaned in despair' is not good writing. So what? Has anybody actually written that or did you make it up?

Problem with your point is that its entirely useless because personification can be either good or bad. Personally I use it all the time and I love it. I find nature to be at its best in moments when it seems 'alive' and somehow conscious. Personification, therefore, seems entirely natural to me.


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## ppsage (May 13, 2013)

I'm betting there's plenty of contexts where *his bladder moaned in despair, *would be the hilariously perfect wording.


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## PiP (May 14, 2013)

ppsage said:


> I'm betting there's plenty of contexts where *his bladder moaned in despair, *would be the hilariously perfect wording.



Especially when travelling alone and you've been waiting in the airport "Check In" queue for two hours! Come to think of it, my bladder did _moan in despair_ as I danced the Irish Jig. Then, when eventually relieved, it _sighed_ _with relief_! 

Are we wandering a little off topic, Lewdog?

PiP


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## Kyle R (May 14, 2013)

JosephB said:


> I was shocked those were from something published, never mind a bestseller. At first glance, I thought you'd made them up as examples of bad writing -- and I was going to say you went way overboard. Heh.



They're from Greg Cox's _Underworld: Book 1_. My first experience reading a movie-novelization.  *slaps forehead* Although I don't think this book was a best-seller, he's listed as a NYT Best-Selling author.

He's also acheived the _Grandmaster Award_ for writing film-related novels(!)



luckyscars said:


> Problem with your 'examples' is that you constructed them to be intentionally absurd. No, 'his bladder moaned in despair' is not good writing. So what? Has anybody actually written that or did you make it up?
> 
> Problem with your point is that its entirely useless because personification can be either good or bad. Personally I use it all the time and I love it. I find nature to be at its best in moments when it seems 'alive' and somehow conscious. Personification, therefore, seems entirely natural to me.



I didn't mean to make it absurd. I only was following the same general pattern of construction (internal organ + verb + emotion), like *her kindeys frolicked in exuberation.

*Well, okay, maybe I _did_ play the absurdity up just a little. 


There are some others, from the same author, that drew my attention. They aren't as glaring on first glance, but on closer examination, they toe the line between poeticism and illogicality:

*His wounded pride took some comfort in the crushed and chastened expression on the silly tart's face.*

(Did _he_ take comfort in it, or did his _pride_? Can pride take comfort in things? Can I say, "her pride worried that it had forgotten something important", or "his pride loved scary movies and Chinese take-out food"?)

Another:

*Crimson tears leaked from her eyes as her anguished soul rebelled at the cruel injustice of it all.*

This one is a bit trickier, as the "soul" lends well to personification. The author seems to be saying that she, the character, is extremly upset. Tears, anguish. The situation feels incredibly unfair to the character. It comes off, though, as if her soul, inside of her, is disgusted by the injustice, while she cries. Okay, so I get that her soul is feeling upset. How about her, though? Does *she *share *her soul's* feelings, or are they two seperate entities who feel different things, as the structure of the sentence suggests?

While it may seem silly to question such things, it's the writing itself that causes me to ask them.


I think I might just follow Joseph's lead with these excerpts and say that I think the writing is awkward overall, although it might be hard to argue that it's actually erroneous.


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## Gamer_2k4 (May 14, 2013)

KyleColorado said:


> *His wounded pride took some comfort in the crushed and chastened expression on the silly tart's face.*
> 
> (Did _he_ take comfort in it, or did his _pride_? Can pride take comfort in things? Can I say, "her pride worried that it had forgotten something important", or "his pride loved scary movies and Chinese take-out food"?)



I know I'm being still contrary here, but I think this one has some merit.  Saying, "his wounded pride took comfort" is shorthand for "Though his pride was wounded, some relief came from".  It's certainly awkward, but at least there's an argument for efficiency.


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## JosephB (May 14, 2013)

Call me picky -- there’s no merit if it’s awkward – not if it can be expressed in a way that isn’t.


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## wancow (May 14, 2013)

Angelicpersona said:


> I dislike when people use too many words to describe something. I recently edited a piece for a friend and I cut down on half of the words. For instance:
> "Suddenly everything became silent. No more rustling of leaves. No more birds singing. No more noises. Nothing. Everything was enveloped by an unnatural silence."
> I was banging my head on my keyboard by the end of the piece.
> Misuse or just generally not using punctuation drives me absolutely batty as well.


I have to disagree with you on this one.  The grammar might be off, but the effect, IMHO, is sound.  The author notes what's stopped.  I've seen it used many times, and I think it to be a good way of painting a picture of the scene and setting the mood.


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## Robert_S (May 14, 2013)

Gamer_2k4 said:


> I know I'm being still contrary here, but I think this one has some merit.  Saying, "his wounded pride took comfort" is shorthand for "Though his pride was wounded, some relief came from".  It's certainly awkward, but at least there's an argument for efficiency.



Efficiency at the expense of clarity? I can see Kyle side, and yours. My personal opinion, I don't like it because it's too melodramatic.


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## Robert_S (May 14, 2013)

KyleColorado said:


> Over-explaining the obvious:
> 
> "_Does that hurt, you bastard? _*she thought vindictively*._"_
> 
> ...



I used to put adjectives to quote lines, but frankly, it looks awful in my opinion, regardless.


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## allhailchief (May 15, 2013)

I dislike very much when an author always has to say who is speaking. I think it shows great prowess if you can describe a scene and dialogue without listing the characters name or intention. Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero is great at that. He never explicitly tells you who's speaking but it is very easily inferred by the reader.


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## Zac Brown (May 17, 2013)

Like many others here, I too have very little patience for awkward and underdeveloped prose. Worse yet are the simple spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors that seem to permeate various essays, text messages, and, for example, 90% of my Facebook news feed. What makes those errors truly intolerable is when they're coming from native English speakers.


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## TheWritingWriter (May 17, 2013)

I hate ridiculously long sentences. I'm not talking about run-on sentences, but sentences that just never seem to end. I remember my 7th grade teacher writing the "WORDY" on the white board, and just looking at us and saying, "Stop that."


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## CheckeredFoxglove (May 20, 2013)

Sam said:


> Angelicpersona said:
> 
> 
> > I dislike when people use too many words  to describe something. I recently edited a piece for a friend and I cut  down on half of the words. For instance:
> ...



Alternatively, Angelicpersona would really like Ernest Hemingway. Perhaps a different friend would be better able to edit this piece, as the writer and Angelicpersona clearly have different ideas about how words work.


I had to get rid of this one novel a month ago (it was one of those "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force" situations). It took me a while to realize just how bad it was, because I thought she was building intrigue, but then... It was a sci-fi novel, see? And it introduced a lot of new concepts that I'd never seen in that form before. Like, this "toynet" thing that I think might have been a Virtual Reality implant? With an interface like Google Glasses plus a virtual touchscreen? Or possibly blinkscreen? I do not know. Seven chapters into it, I still didn't understand what this, a core piece of imagery, actually looked like. And every chapter she introduced at least three new, partially explained things. When I hit 21+ completely incomprehensible objects, concepts, relationships, and people, I couldn't figure out what the story was anymore. I had no idea what was _literally happening _on any given page. 

The last straw was when the entire freshman class of a space college all had either magenta or yellow shoelaces, simply because magenta and yellow were "in". That... isn't how fashion works. It's too specific and too wide-spread. She was trying to make her story quirky, and it just came out stupid and nonsensical. 

I suppose the errors here were _trying too hard _and _half-baked worldbuilding_. Oh, and _very elaborate description that is complete nonsense, _and not in the _Alice-in-Wonderland _way_, _more like the _I'm-13-on-Fanfiction.net _way_._


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## CheckeredFoxglove (May 20, 2013)

allhailchief said:


> I dislike very much when an author always has to say who is speaking. I think it shows great prowess if you can describe a scene and dialogue without listing the characters name or intention. Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero is great at that. He never explicitly tells you who's speaking but it is very easily inferred by the reader.


I read a great story that was nothing but dialogue and sound effects,  and yet it was always clear who was talking. Even when it was more than  two people, or a whole new character popping in for a line or two. I go back and re-read it whenever I find myself putting speaker tags on freakin' everything. Really, if I have to do that, I'm doing something wrong.


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