Your writing vices http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190 Kimberly Dawn More asking on style, grammar, rather than story structure, plotting and characters. Mine is repetition and fixation on words. That's because I still think in Korean ways sometimes (though I'm not fluent). Though learning Japanese didn't help either. Other vices are "It's all in my head" but not on paper. Starting sentences with "It" and word jams. I also think my pacing and figuring out what belongs in the story needs a bit of work. Make me feel better, what are some of yours? Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:30:45 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1136801 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1136801 aliaswriter My style is just a storytelling, there's no poetics to it. Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:51:57 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1136868 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1136868 keolah I think I use the words "or something" too much. And I'm needlessly wordy sometimes. Also, I overuse adverbs and adjectives -- and don't really care that I do, anyway. Also, I completely forget to describe things sometimes. (One of my RP characters, for instance, is a dark-skinned heterochromatic half-elf. My boyfriend complained that I'd utterly failed to mention any of this... for over two years. Oops? Well, I suppose it beats people who have to spend 500 words mentioning how gorgeous their character is every time they enter a scene, but still. I had to mock this tendancy of myself once, and I said, "Anderos is wearing clothes. He has hair.") I've gotten used to writing in first person present tense. Now I just started a new project that wants to be in third person past tense. It feels awkward and I keep slipping back into present tense. Argh. I think my dialogue is pretty good. Unfortunately, this gets to the point where it winds up taking over the story, and a formerly active scene just turns into character banter instead. Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:58:19 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1136881 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1136881 lasalle202 suddenly Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:39:19 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1138928 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1138928 StarFoxMcCloud keolah, I suffer from just about ALL of that! I used to write in first person past tense all the time, then my mentor taught about POVs with purpose and I sort of got into third person and fell in love with present tense. I'm writing two stories right now, one in first person present, the other in third person past and I'm constantly fixing the third person fast even though I started that first. I'm just so comfortable in first person present. Dialogue is my FAVOURITE thing to write and it shows. A lot. No matter how detailed I plan a scene, once the characters start talking, everything is derailed and a new subplot is born. I also find myself fixating on a certain way characters speak. Like I have one character that avoids calling people by their names, like, "Hey, what're you up to, guy?" And it's seeped into the way the other characters talk and even how I talk in real life. [I'm noticing a pattern, a lot of my problems are character related] I fall in love with one character and sort of just use the others to make him/her more awesome. But I haven't done that in a while. My problem now is I make too many characters dynamic. Too many strong personalities, which can be awesome because it's never hard to figure out who's talking, but it overshadows the story. I mix screenwriting and short story form far too often. My prose shows up in my essays and because I just can't bring myself to proofreading essays, it shows up. And screws me over. Adverbs. I use far too many where they're only in the way. My absolute worst is reading/watching something amazing and stylish and finding myself mimicking the style/story when I write. I have a rule, I have to wait at least two weeks to write after reading something awesome. Especially effective dramas. I'm not that good at writing angst and such, but I'm getting better. It's really hard not to copy with that and since plagiarism [even accidental] makes me a sad panda, I just have to have self-control. I know there's more, but I'll think of then later. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:27:45 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1138955 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1138955 golfgal08 Sometimes I overuse semi-colons; I just like using them. I know how to use them properly, at least. That's probably another one, using things like "at least" or "suddenly", and "yeah" in dialogue a lot. Oh, "a bit" and "a little" and "half-smiled" or "half-frowned". A lot of those things that you use as word filler during NaNo, but it's incorporated into my style, which can make it tricky to stop using them to make tighter prose and dialogue. I also sometimes forget to describe what's going on in the scene around the characters; I'll get on a roll with dialogue and then look back and be like "Oh, wait, they're in this room and they're doing other stuff while talking, maybe I should mention that." Or describing my characters. I think my problem with that one is that I, personally, don't really take in a person's appearance all that much when I'm talking to them. Usually I only go as far as male versus female, taller or shorter than me, and maybe hair color. So if it's not something remarkable or out of the ordinary (like a gross mole/wart thing on a person's forehead that you just can't stop staring at), I won't notice it, and it's hard for me to remember that some of my characters might notice that sort of thing. I'm sure there are other things that I just can't think of off the top of my head. Sometimes I notice when I'm doing them, and sometimes I try to correct for them, but usually I just keep plowing ahead because I'm aiming for quantity so I can sift through later for quality. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:33:53 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1138960 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1138960 TheBnf I use a metric ton of commas, and simple speech with an occasional higher vocabulary word interrupting when it fits better. I also tend to write things as understatements when it amuses me. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:52:02 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1138976 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1138976 DeathOfScythes I solved my comma abuse by removing the comma key and forcing myself to use Alt-0044 every time I wanted to use that punctuation mark. Still need to work on the accedental tense shifting. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:36:53 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1139166 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1139166 Webgoji Overwriting. I put in too much detail. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:14:28 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1139208 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1139208 DozyCat I mimic other people's styles unconsciously. It can get really bad. If I've been reading a book in present tense, and writing a story in past tense, when I return to write that story I'll just keep drifting into present tense with it. Sometimes, I go over something I've written the day before, and I think, This is brilliant! It just isn't me. I'm also a sucker for em dashes. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:56:35 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1141188 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1141188 Amethystasheryn I'm really lax with character description, I think. I'm not horrible, but I'm totally blind and so I don't pick up little details to put in my stories. It always makes me a bit nervous because everything I get, I get from other people's descriptions of people over the years, or from books. Bleh. In real life, I have a hard time stating a definite opinion of my own; I tack on qualifiers to avoid talking myself into a corner or offending someone. It's bad enough that it slips into my writing, and I end up with narration peppered with things like "in any case", "almost ___", "and really, ___", "perhaps", etc. I have also realised that I put in information with those qualifiers that shouldn't even be noteworthy. I once had a character who ran a perfectly ordinary bookstore in a perfectly ordinary modern town look at a gadget from the future, and her narration describes it as "a cell phone, or something like it" when there was no reason for her to think anything odd about it at all. And I don't think my dialogue is that great. I don't think it would be that bad in reality, but as fictional dialogue goes it misses the mark a little. It tends to meander and have too many "yeahs" and irrelevant questions or statements in it, which you might get in real life but which doesn't really seem right for fiction. I'm sure there's more. ;) But these are all I can think of off the top of my head. :) Ashe Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:11:30 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1150204 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1150204 MalcolmCooms It's very hard for me to make my stories seem "real". Like, when I'm writing a book on Victorian England, no matter how much research I do it only seems to read false. Or even if I write a book on modern times but the book is not about a location/circumstances I know extremely well it seems false. Even fictional towns or worlds I create. It's very easy for readers to see that, no matter how much research I do or how much I try, that I don't <em>really</em> know what I'm talking about. On the plus side, I'm pretty good at dialogue. I have a good ear, I guess. Sun, 19 Feb 2012 06:32:11 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1152784 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1152784 MalcolmCooms That's not necessarily bad at all; it's just a style. Anthony Horowitz is a great writer, but his books aren't exactly poetry. Sun, 19 Feb 2012 06:34:39 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1152785 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1152785 ElliMelody You don't know how happy I was to read about the third person present tense thing. i thought I was the only one who did that. Sad part? I've only ever written 33 pages in first person present. My problems: dialogue. I tend to have way too much of it, or not enough. Its never a happy medium with me. Too little, or too much. Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:17:40 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1154291 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1154291 Kayla Rain Semicolons and dashes. They are my victims. I overuse them <em> all the time </em> . My teacher started taking off marks on my essays because of them ... that was when I had to admit, I have a problem. I also tend to mimick the writing style of whatever I'm reading. Halfway through my story I switched from past-tense to present, because that's the style I was reading at the time. Another instance, I'd started writing very. short. sentences. because a book I was reading was written like that. I saw some other people mention this too - I'm so glad Im not alone. It can be helpful, though. I have a stash of 'go-to books' which I read whenever I need a boost, and it always helps me out of a creativity block. Sun, 26 Feb 2012 22:06:26 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1173648 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1173648 MissAngelAdorer I overuse the em dash all the time. Also, my style is horribly repetitive. And my first person character doesn't sound particularly like a normal teenager, but I'm trying to shape her character around it, so hopefully I can pull it off. I can be rather adverb happy, but I'm learning to get over it. And even though "said" supposedly is better if you have to add dialogue tags, I tend to use synonyms just because I can't tolerate for too long. It drove me crazy in Harry Potter having to read "said Harry" a million times. My pacing and plotting I'm still working on as I've never finished any original fiction before. Mon, 27 Feb 2012 06:44:11 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1174078 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1174078 thecandiedmango I avoid dialogue. I don't like conversations in real life that much anyway so I'm not surprised, but it's certainly frustrating. I tend to pace things slowly, then suddenly speed into the next thing, then take things slowly again (with weird internal monologues or scene-setting or something equally lame) then dash away without giving a reason for the past few paragraphs of description... it's a vicious cycle. I also have a hard time matching the tone of my writing to the story at hand. I keep writing my current plot (futuristic-academic-fantasy-adventure) in a very Regency-era fiction sort of voice. It makes about as much sense as Georgette Heyer narrating Harry Potter. You just don't DO that. Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:14:15 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1174531 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1174531 Katsuro I'm more interested in characters than in plot, so I'm useless at creating plot. Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:18:06 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1175080 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1175080 lilly32261 Ellipses. I use them way too much. I'm better than I used to be, but I still have to stop myself sometimes to prevent a bit of dialogue from having no punctuation other than commas and ellipses. My word choice is a bit lacking, I think. I tend to repeat a word I like over and over, either throughout the story or even just one page. Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:26:36 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1180958 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1180958 Illusionary Nothing I use semi-colons incorrectly, like, all the time- and yet I just keep on trying to use them... I also have sentence structure issues. I'm finding that many of my sentences aren't grammatically correct so far as sub-clauses are concerned- I've fallen into the 'commas are pauses' trap. That's easily fixed, though, on the edits. :/ Thu, 01 Mar 2012 03:49:44 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1181756 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1181756 Katsuro Commas are pauses trap? Sounds like I've got a case of that, if it's what it sounds like. Please elaborate. Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:08:17 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1183341 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1183341 Skugga I have a tendecy to use to little description. Once I wrote a couple of short-stories where I failed to mention that the characters where two fishes, and that the story took place under water. Okay, that was intentional, but still, that I thought I could get away with it does say something about how I usually describes things. Sat, 03 Mar 2012 09:44:11 -0800 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1186740 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/50190?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1186740