Since I joined the Chris’ small group, I have started to hone my craft at a different level, much the same way my writing improved at FSFW. Between learning new rules, researching writing, spending more time critiquing, and thinking more while writing and editing my own work, I have seen drastic improvements in the work I am producing. This wouldn’t be possible without the help of Chris, Paula, and Julie, who have been helpful and patient.
I have started to notice trends in my work, and theirs as well, which are simple fixes. Sometimes, when I point out a troubling trend in their work, they will turn around and show that same problem in mine – which is both irritating and funny. These are simple problems with easy fixes. I hope you can learn from our mistakes and improve your writing.
- Telling is not the most basic of problems because there are various viewpoints on what telling is. Some people view telling as ‘what you tell’ while others view it as ‘how you tell it’ – there are disagreements within those camps. I have already posted on this topic, so I won’t address it again. In the end, both versions need to be addressed to make the piece well rounded.
- Teaching and summarizing – easy traps to fall into when writing science fiction and fantasy. Some things need to be explained, but in a way that doesn’t feel like a textbook. Some spans of time need to be consolidated into a few paragraphs without making the reader feel like they were shorted. These are hard things to balance, too much versus too little, bringing the reader along or leaving them behind.
- “That” is a horrible junk word. More and more, I find myself hating THAT word. It has its good points, places where it has to be. However, many times it is used where it just doesn’t belong.
- Good: “Look at that guy.” In context, this points out a specific person.
- Bad: “I can’t believe I let that scare me.” That guy, that action, that day? Even in context, this can be a little confusing.
- Worse: “Some people think that human cloning will become a reality in the next 20 years.” ‘That’ is a pointless word which can be removed and the sentence will flow with more ease. This usage of the word ‘that’ makes up the majority of instances in my group (including myself).
- ‘-ly’ adverbs are another form of junk words. I don’t think all ‘-ly’ adverbs should be removed, and I don’t have any problems with other forms of adverbs, but the overuse of ‘-ly’ adverbs leads to weak verbs, summarizing, telling, and alliteration issues. A few ‘-ly’ adverbs are evil in writing because they defeat the purpose they were written for: suddenly, quickly, immediately, instantly, and abruptly. There are more, but those are the ones I can think of right now. They are meant to speed up the action, but they slow the flow. “He immediately shot the villain” takes more time than “He shot the villain.”
- Repeated words and poor sentence structure seem to go hand-in-hand. Short choppy sentences tend to bring the repetition of “I,” “he,” “she,” or “they.” Long winded paragraphs often have the same verbs or nouns in various forms. Trying to address one issue will sometimes help with the other.
- Motivations are not explained well enough, so the characters are unbelievable or an action is out-of-character. I have a whole line of character posts, so I won’t elaborate here other than this: if you show your characters motivations and allow the reader to connect, anything is possible – short of that, anything is questionable.
These are common problems in my writing, my group’s writing, and possibly the writing community as a whole. They are my group’s current hot, push-button errors.
I would love to know what comes up in your groups, please share.
