Eyes, eyes everywhere

You probably know where this is headed. I re-read my story and it's full of characters looking at things, glancing at other things, following each others' gazes... oh, and especially staring into space. Apparently this is quite a widespread tic. It's particularly bad for me because I'm genuinely interested in eyes: they're so nice, for pity's sake!

My point is: do you do this? How do you deal with it?

My world of Galaday used to have an interesting way of averting this: Every object on the planet had eyes as well and didn't like it when people stared at them and always seemed perpetually annoyed because people were in fact staring at them. That is until I dropped the eyes in favor of having them appear when the heroine's demon comes out to play. Otherwise, I just have my characters just looking at things of interest. One tip: Make sure that the thing the character is looking at either a) something the character would look at or b) holds some relevancy to the plot.

Yes, but even if the "looking" is plot-relevant it shows that you couldn't come up with anything better: you went for the generic thingy, the filler whatsit. Then again, it bothers me that maybe I'm obsessing too much, like when you start seeing a certain word everywhere.

''...aaargh! You said it! Now I said it! Aaaaaargh! I said it again! Stop saying it!"

edited 2nd Feb '11 10:32:36 AM by LongLiveHumour

I have this exact same problem. Mainly in coversations. Characters constantly look at each other. I don't know what else to put there.

I... do this too. Can I help it if I observe what people do with their eyes IRL and it transfers over?

Suggestions: Conversation-wise, lots of expression is done with hand movements and body language. A shift in stance might indicate restlessness. Some peoples' eyebrows move a lot to convey emotion more (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I'm looking at you). Bringing these motions in helps me keep down eye references. (Mostly...)

In general though... I guess depending on the POV, this could be justified in making an interest in eyes be a quirk of the narrator. It wouldn't work for everything though... That's a tough question. Anyone else have ideas?