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Default   #2   Suzerain of Sheol Suzerain of Sheol is offline
Desolation Denizen
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quiet Man Cometh View Post
Okay, the title is being a little more polite than what goes through my head when I read some of this stuff but thought I'd put it here.

1. Woe is me!

This one makes my eye twitch. When the character utters something about their personal state and how much it sucks, usually in some hopeless, dramatic fashion, especially at the beginning of a story when we pretty much know that things are going to get fixed. Oh will this sorry state of affairs ever end? Will I ever find true happiness? Will my dog ever come back home? The character may as well hold their wrist to their forehead or throw their arm over their eyes and shout "Woe is me!"

*holds hand to chest and faints*
My genial spirits fail!


Quote:
2. Eyeballs are orbs.

This one is just overuse. I've probably used it at some point myself. No more orbs. Really, eyes. Please no more orbs.
It's really an egregious example of amateur writers trying to sound profound when it's really just purple. Because, the choice is either just using "orbs" as in "his orbs narrowed" (WHAT?!) or adding an obnoxious descriptor like "jacinth" "cerulean" or "opalescent". *vomits*

Anyway.

3. Referring to personal combat as a "dance". Stop doing that, people. Call it a frenzy. A slaughterfall. A weighing of lives and deaths, of hopes and fatal deeds, of mercy and murder... just not a dance, I beg. :P

4. Stock phrases. Shorthand for actual imagination in prose. Please invest more energy in defining your own style instead of miming things like "quick as the wind", "razor-sharp", or especially anything as awful as "blind as a bat".

5. Descriptors appended to dialogue tags. "Said harshly", "replied sarcastically", or "quipped cheerfully", and the like. That needs to go away and never come back. Alternatives to said are fine, in moderation, "roared", "whispered", whatever, but only use them when they're really needed and try to convey the effective in a less blatant way. It's shorthand, again, for inventive writing.

6. Just... adverbs. Ever.
Cold silence has a tendency
to atrophy any sense of compassion
between supposed lovers.
Between supposed brothers.
Old Posted 11-14-2013, 11:46 PM Reply With Quote