Writing pet peeves

Well, it's only "Burly Detective" Syndrome when the character has a name, but the author is deliberately not using it.

On the subject of grammar and spelling errors: I'm currently reading a novel by F Scott Fitzgerald, and it uses "yes's" as the plural of "yes". I suspect that if someone pluralised "yes" like that on an internet forum today, people would tell them off for their spelling. (Then I realised that I don't know a better way to pluralise "yes"... "yeses"? That also looks odd.)

Yeses may make you sound like Gollum, but it's not being flagged by the spellchecker, so I'm guessing it's actually right.

The Oxford English Dictionary recognises both yeses and yes's (I suppose the latter is a contraction of the former, though it doesn't specify this).

edited 22nd Feb '12 2:55:52 AM by BobbyG

Cool.

Burly Detective Sydrome definitely bugs me when it's used too gratuitously. I only really use it when writing in first person or limited third person when the central character doesn't know another character's name. If you really don't want to use their actual name, use a pronoun.

On that note, incorrect pronoun case in formal writing also annoys the daylights out of me. "I", "we", "he", "she", "they", and "who" are all in the subjective case, thus only used as the subject or predicate nominative. "Me", "us", "him", "her", "them", and "whom" are all in the objective case and should only be used as the direct object, indirect object, or object of the preposition.

"Janie went to the mall with Kate and I," is incorrect. It should be, "Janie went to the mall with Kate and me."

Likewise, it should not be, "Kate and me went to the mall with Janie," but rather, "Kate and I went to the mall with Janie."

However, I only expect this grammatical rule to be upheld in narrative. I don't get annoyed if I see it in dialogue, simply because most people don't pay pronoun case too much mind when speaking. This, admittedly, is the result of our culture and incorrect speaking habits we tend to pick up early on.

Oh, and don't get me started on how often I see "to" and "too" get mixed up. It's especially grating when I see it in published works such as novels or textbooks. Holy shit, people, we learned this in first or second grade. You do not go too the store, you go to the store. It's not to cold, but it is too cold. On that note, I'd like it if people learned the difference between "its" and "it's".

In terms of actual formatting, I loathe giant walls of text that consist of a single paragraph that seems to go on into oblivion. For crying out loud, make a new paragraph. I get lost and it hurts my eyes.

i hate burly detective syndrome passionately, you don't even know. when i see a writer avoiding using the character's name to 'spice things up', it's painful. same thing goes for body parts or items. they are not evergreen orbs, they're eyes you nitwit.

sorta related to burly detective syndrome is when a writer goes overboard on the adjective express. things like "she brushed a hair through her silky smooth ebony hair." and so on. there's imagery, and then there's going overboard.

funetik speak in general annoys me as well. not so much that it's difficult to read, but because it usually has shitty implications. you never see a hero speak phonetically, do you?

edited 24th Feb '12 3:55:19 PM by IBLiS

You have to capitalize the "I".

I can capitalize letters just fine, thank you.

i just prefer not to.

nice try.

Funetik Aksent usually just makes me laugh my ass off, just because it's usually so ridiculously overboard that it's hilarious and makes the author look like a total moron. If you really want to differentiate a character's pattern of speech from another, take a few grammatical liberties. The closest I get to writing out an accent is when I'm writing the dialogue of one of my characters, Skye, and it's really not that grating seeing as all he ever really does is clip words. Furthermore, I based his accent and speech patterns on those of my maternal grandmother, and she's lived with me for 16 years so I'm pretty familiar with how it sounds and can actually write it, unlike the guy in Eastern Nebraska that's never met a German trying to write a German accent in dialogue.

And yeah, glamorizing the body parts of a character is really ridiculous. Now, if you want to be flowery in description, that's fine. But doing it every fucking time is just really, really annoying and pretentious.

oh motherfucker, how i hate it when people do that. flowery language is okay when you're trying to paint a picturesque scene, but when you do it all the time it's irritating as hell. beige prose isn't much better, but usually it's so mundane i can barely remember it.

speaking of, i hate it when an entire scene stops to introduce a character. and by introduce a character, i mean describe every intricacies of their person. it screeches the pacing to a halt, and it's just lazy writing.

i'm picky about pacing in general, really. when a book slows down to a crawl to describe everything, i'm usually bored out of my mind. on the other hand, a scene that goes too quickly doesn't leave much of an impact or impression.

edited 24th Feb '12 4:17:25 PM by IBLiS

Amen. I die a little inside every time I see adjectives applied to a character's eye color.

Admittedly, it can be rather difficult to find a happy medium between the two. Generally, I try to integrate the description of the character into whatever actions are going on at the moment, gradually adding details where appropriate. I also usually avoid describing what they're wearing, except in cases where their style of clothing or a specific article is unusual for the setting, iconic, or important later on either to the plot or the character. In the case where it's a specific article of clothing, I'll usually only give it a passing mention.

Now, I wouldn't say it's bad to apply adjectives to a character's eye color. The eyes are the windows to the soul, after all, and the color is usually symbolic or indicative of some aspect of the character. It's when it happens constantly or they go overboard with the descriptions that it gets a little ridiculous.

edited 24th Feb '12 4:31:59 PM by Motree

To be honest, I find the whole Windows of the Soul thing really annoying as well. I can't think of the last time I've ever had a character's eye color be at all relevant, and so I dislike authors dwelling on them even more then most things.

But it's just an example. The flowery, adjective-color thing is annoying no matter what aspect of the character is being described.

Conversation has moved on, but @Motree re people using "I" instead of "me": ah, hypercorrection. I hate this too.

I suspect it's caused by people (probably very young) having it drummed into them that "you're supposed to say 'Katie and I', not 'Katie and me'", and not actually being told the rules for when to use the two forms. So the only thing they come away with is: "'me' is never correct".

Similarly, I swear I've seen an entry on this very Wiki using "few" to describe a singular noun. I'm certain that was written by someone who'd been told off for using "less" instead of "fewer", and wasn't actually told that both are correct in different circumstances.

To sum up, I'm more upset at these people's educational system than at themselves.

Education falls under the category of "culture". But then again, most small children can't really grasp all of the rules of grammar and syntax due to the stage of cognitive development they'd be at around that age.

I personally don't use the eyes as indicative of the character, either. I'm just making a bit of a point. I generally draw all of my characters and sketch out general designs beforehand, so usually their eye color is just whatever looks or feels right. The only time I ever put extra focus on a character's eyes is if the eyes themselves are significant or are the character's most striking physical feature, or otherwise notable for any other reason. I'm still at least a bit descriptive, though, as to me it's moreso the look in their eyes or the emotions conveyed through them that deserves focus.

Of course, this can all change depending on who the central character is. I'll use a few of mine as examples. If I were writing with Teddy as the central character, everything would be very minimalist, and the negative qualities of everything highlighted rather than the more positive ones. If it were Maureen, descriptions would be given in a very blunt, detached, and aloof manner, whereas if it were Ambre everything would be described in a very flowery and artistic manner.

This kind of brings up another peeve of mine relating to description that really only applies when the work in question is written in first person or possibly limited third. Because first person is from the perspective of the character, description should be written as they would describe whatever it is being described. Suddenly straying from that can not only be jarring, but to me it is also out-of-character. You would not expect a jaded and emotionally-drained middle-aged character to suddenly start describing something in Purple Prose, for example.

edited 24th Feb '12 5:03:13 PM by Motree

Oh! Oh! I'm not sure if this was mentioned before, or if it'll belong here, but I have another pet peeve in writing.

It seems to be if you want to either make a fucking cool character, or have people take your fucking story seriously, you need to fucking curse at every fucking possible fucking second. In every fucking sentence.

Then again, maybe it's just me. ._.

Edit: And ninja'd. |D

edited 24th Feb '12 5:03:41 PM by Masterofchaos

Oh no, it bothers me as well. While I myself am rather foul-mouthed when I start going on tangents, and some people do curse or swear at what seems like every possible moment, that doesn't mean that doing so automatically makes a work more "mature" or "cool". If anything, it makes it very juvenile and stupid. However, there are times where excessive cursing is excusable, such as when characters are getting shot at on a battlefield or are drunk and rambling.

But fucking hell, when you're fucking swearing when talking to your fucking son-of-a-bitch friend in the fucking line at fucking Starbucks waiting to get a fucking frap, then you've got one hell of a fucking problem and should watch your fucking language.

Joking aside, there are times where characters are simply foul-mouthed, and that in and of itself isn't a problem. It's a problem when every character's doing it constantly, or when the author's actually stupid enough to use it in the narrative.

edited 24th Feb '12 5:16:00 PM by Motree

I've actually heard ten-year-olds talk like that. Quite grating.

Oh, I know. I've heard of second-graders humping bus seats where I live. It's very sad how sexualized our mass media is today, and that parents are still so squeamish to explain it and why it's socially unacceptable to perform such acts in public to their children. While sexuality is a normal part of human nature, it is something that needs to be properly explained to curb deviancy in our youth.

And really, children learn by example. Imagine what this poor behavior says about the parents.

edited 24th Feb '12 5:46:23 PM by Motree

admittedly, i have the mouth of a sailor. i will just drop f-bombs fucking everywhere.

that said, i can't stand it being used excessively in a narrative. if i'm writing a character that's known to be vulgar, then there's no issue. but it'd be weird for a polite or socially withdrawn character to be so brassily tossing cusses all over the place.

as for the narrative...it works if you want the reader to think something is gritty or vulgar. or if it's first-person and/or especially limited third person and the character has a filthy mouth. but aside from that, it just looks jarring.

and if you use too many fuckity fucks, then the whole thing just becomes a muddled mess. your poor reader will be valiantly trying to pick through the charred battleground, looking for the plot amidst the shits and cocksuckers.

sometimes i wish parents would man up and tell their kids up front about these kinds of things. a lot of pain could be avoided if people stopped dancing around the subject. the only thing it does is make it more tempting.

edited 24th Feb '12 5:45:51 PM by IBLiS

I saw one dialog once where for one character's lines, the author just about literally inserted 'fucking' as every other word. It was actually kind of hilarious, for the short duration of that scene.

Personally, as far as swearing in fiction goes, I have no problem with it as long as it makes sense for the character. I'm going to inherently have less respect for the Cluster F-Bomb types, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be written - it's not as if they don't exist in real life.

There was a thread on this a while back.

edited 24th Feb '12 5:49:12 PM by nrjxll

That's kind of the whole reason it gets grating. Creators think using the excessive swearing makes it mature and gritty, because Viewers Are Morons and we're all still stuck at the gradeschool mentality that that guy who swears is a cooly-cool rebel. It then turns out either hilariously bad or, as previously stated, completely muddled.

Yes, but even then there's a point where it can go too far.

huh, really? i'm sort of interested in reading it. do you still have it?

and it's alright to write vulgar dialogue for vulgar characters. but if my humble and god-fearing pianist is tossing f-bombs all over the place, then we might have a problem. motree also has a good point - even when a character should be swearing excessively, there's a point when it goes past "realisic" and into "wtf is going on"

admittedly, my tolerance for swearing is much lower than most. i was heavily influenced by mamet and tarantino's dialogue, and their characters are absolutely filthy at times.

edited 24th Feb '12 5:54:35 PM by IBLiS

I disagree - it really can go to insane lengths in real life. You should be aware of how your readers will react, but it's still possible to write characters like that. I wouldn't consider them likable, but that's not always the goal.