watervole | good and bad writing techniques

good and bad writing techniques

The replies and comments to my poll about scientific accuracy in science fiction http://www.livejournal.com/users/watervole/139771.html#cutid1 were extrememly interesting. (If you haven't already filled in that one, I'm still reading replies to it - I'm tempted to do another poll focusing more on sociological and biological factors.).

Please could you try this one on writing techniques and expand on your replies in the comments. What writing habits annoy you the most in stories you read? What will make you put down a book before finishing the first page? What makes you hit the back button when reading fiction on the web?

[Poll #652911]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My answer to all questions except the one on spelling/grammar is 'it depends'. An accomplished writer can persuade me of anything, and I'm more and more coming to think that rule books for beginning writers do more harm than good.

I agree with you, pretty much.

The first question in the poll about POV shifts...the answer to that depends on how well the writer handled it. If the POV shifts within the same paragraph, that will annoy me and I may stop reading. But if frequent POV shifts have been separated in some way (section breaks or something like that) and have been done intentionally or for a reason, then it can work well to keep a story moving along.

Likewise grammatical errors, I reviewed a couple of stories [here] where a technically better writer (from a purely grammatical standpoint) produced a less interesting story than someone who wasn't as careful with her writing simply because the less grammatically correct writer's story had more 'heart'.

The first question in the poll about POV shifts...the answer to that depends on how well the writer handled it.

Word.

...the less grammatically correct writer's story had more 'heart'.

I fear brandishing the Big Book of Rules at beginner writers tends to scare the heart out of their writing.

Re POV: what she said. Completely.

General agreement!!!

Alastair

My use of English has enough weak spots that a half way decent writer can get away with murder. So if I notice anything wrong it must be bad.

I'm a great fan of very limited Point of View. Occasionally a very good writer can pull off multiple points of view, but usually only if the change occurs at a natural feeling point (the end of the chapter, or at least the end of a scene). Ideally different narrative voices should convey something individual about the narrator.

I'm slightly more lenient on the alternatives to 'said'. There's a place for them in writing, to convey mood and intent. 'Said' is a perfectly good word though, and can be used multiple times in a piece of dialogue without becoming stale.

I used to be terrible for trying to write accents. Now I'm hopefully over it, although a lot can be conveyed about a character's speech patterns by their choice of words and the order in which they use those words.

A big NO to info-dumps too. I don't have quite as huge a pile of character back-stories as some people, but there's still a lot more in my head, on my hard drive and floating around on scraps of paper than ever makes it into my stories.

Finally, if I'm reading a final draft of a story, then I expect it to be virtually free of spelling and grammar errors. I think I'm down to an average of 2-3 errors per chapter of 'A Fine Moon To Die Under' and those should all be dealt with after my current pass-through.

I should really give you some detailed answers to your previous poll as well.

Gina

How do you feel about point of view shifts? How many POV shifts does it take to make you abandon a story?

I couldn't answer this one as there wasn't an option for "I'll keep reading if the writer knows what they're doing". Frequent POV shifts are demonized because so many writers don't know what they're doing with them. But a good writer could shift POV ten times on the first page and I'd keep reading - because a good writer would have a good reason for POV shifting.

Spelling and grammar

But I checked every box on this one.

I agree that it really depends with most of the questions.

About how accents should be done - I probably would have answered that differently, except I'm right now rather partial because I started writing a long screenplay and am writing some parts out phonetically (although I'm checking with three professional writers that it's done correctly and easily understandably). All of these really depend on what KIND of writing it is (online vs. published, who the audience is, etc.)

All of these really depend on what KIND of writing it is

Totally. A really good fan story will suck me in more-or-less regardless of grammar; also, I read a lot of (professionally published) memoirs and autobiographies, which tend to be less crafted than pro fiction, and I don't mind occasional lapses in spelling or grammar there. One thing that annoys me (which probably comes from marking undergraduate essays) is people trying to write 'correctly' and ending up with over-complex sentences and stupid word choices.

I think the idea of POV as a distinct element of story-telling has been overplayed, to be honest. Diana Wynne Jones, the world's greatest living author, constantly does the kind of thing new fan writers are being told is simply and objectively wrong, and it doesn't matter in the slightest. But then I guess the whole trouble with trying to teach/learn/talk about writing is that the answer to all these questions is always 'Does it stop the story from working?' and there aren't any hard-and-fast rules for all stories, all writers, and all readers...

Though I suppose good grammar and spelling are always better than bad. (Except when people get really obsessive about not splitting infinitives/ ending sentences with prepositions/ use of 'whom' or 'shall'/ other slightly archaic rules, and end up writing unclear sentences. So even that's not completely hard-and-fast...)

*extremely happy to see Diana Wynne Jones mention in that*

I think the idea of POV as a distinct element of story-telling has been overplayed, to be honest.

Pardon me while I *deeply* disagree with you, here. I do see your point, and being myself a DWJ fan, I will freely admit that one does not always have to be limited in POV. There is such a thing as omniscient POV, or the use of more than one POV in a story.

However...POV is a very, very useful structural and storytelling tool. A story told from an omniscient POV is going to be very different than the same story told in very limited 3rd-person, or limited multiple 3rd-person, or again, in a single 1st-person POV. Same plot, maybe same dialogue, but the story will be about something different each time, either in huge ways or very small ones.

The first thing I have to know when I start writing a story is whose POV it's from, and why. It shapes almost everything else, even though POV is also dictated by where I want the story to go.

But then I guess the whole trouble with trying to teach/learn/talk about writing is that the answer to all these questions is always 'Does it stop the story from working?' and there aren't any hard-and-fast rules for all stories, all writers, and all readers...

Indeed, though I would add: "Does it stop the story from working? Would changing it make the story *work better*?"

OK...

I don't mind frequent POV shifts so much, as long as each POV is clearly delineated within a new section- i.e. not switched within a paragraph, sentence, etc... (And ideally not within a scene)

I don't mind alternatives to "said" as long as they're simple and within reason.

Accents should pretty much always be conveyed in speech patterns, unless you're either really good or really familiar with the accent.

Background should come as we accompany the characters- I fucking hate the mini-bio when a character is introduced. Maybe it can be OK as an explanation for something later on, but anyone who does the whole life story when a character first appears on the page... Argh. (Having just read the enormous Day After Tomorrow, which does this, and switches POV within scenes, I'm not willing to go easy!)

Typos and those kind of errors... Anyone can fall victim to them, so I don't necessarily blame the writer. Some publishers are notorious for them. I do hate the use of the wrong words- e.g. someone poured over a map to a horde of treasure that's guarded by barbarian hoards...

POV: well, of course it depends. Sometimes it can work with an omniscience author who dips into the heads of the characters, but I do prefer a tight POV, because it gets you closer to the characters. I'm not one of these people who hates I-stories, though it does get annoying if you have more than two POV characters.

Said-phobia: it doesn't drive me up the wall, but it is better to use non-said words when they're needed... so I guess I'm happier with things like "mumbled", because it tells you how they spoke, rather than things like "expostulated, explained" or even "said sadly" because it's better if their words and expression shows you what they're feeling, rather than being told.

Accents: speech patterns can be interesting -- just consider Yoda! But I don't want to have to sit there and puzzle out what the person is saying, so I don't like the funny spellings.

Backgrounds: well, I guess I'm between #1 and #2 even though I answered #1... I certainly hate info-dumps, they're really annoying. They don't happen in real life, they don't happen in movies, so why do I have to put up with them in prose? There's one exception, though, and that's if you have a good narrator-voice, someone who is "telling the story", if you can have someone's life-story summarized in a very witty way, then the author has brought me along with them. But 99% of the time, that doesn't happen.

Spelling and grammar: I probably get most irritated by spellchecker errors, because often enough, I'm thrown out of the story as I try to puzzle out what the author actually meant, and it sends me the message that the author doesn't care, because they couldn't be bothered to give the story a once-over to see whether it makes sense (or get an editor/beta-reader to do so). Things like "your" vs "you're" are irritating in the same way.

POV: I prefer third person limited, with no more than one POV per scene or chapter. I have a strong aversion to omniscient, and don't want to read first person unless the voice is spot on.

Tags: A majority of dialogue should be tagless, 'said', or 'asked'. Any other tags should be carefully chosen with characterization or plot (rather than just delivery) in mind, and kept to a minimum.

Accents: The accent shouldn't baffle the reader. Most of it should be word choice and sentence structure, but I don't mind an occasional dropped 'g' (goin') or elided word (gonna). When I write Jarriere, I skate right on the edge of what I think is acceptable, but that's primarily for what I hope is humorous effect.

Backgrounds: No info-dumps. Background of any kind should be trickled in, apart from brief scene-setting, though I'd make an exception in the case of an author whose voice is so interesting that the background becomes interesting as a result. But that's up to individual taste, of course, so in general, I prefer to read background a sentence here, a sentence there.

Spelling and grammar: Honestly? If a writer can't be bothered to either learn the tools of the trade, or find a good beta/editor, then they don't care about the reader's enjoyment and I'm not interested in their fic. Forget three or more errors in the first few pages: I don't want to see more than three errors in a whole novel, and I've been known to throw books and fanzines across the room for consistently bad punctuation.

As far as I'm concerned, the bottom line is that the medium should be transparent, so as not to throw the reader out of the story--which means that any deviations from standard English should be done with a specific purpose, and not just out of ignorance or laziness.

How about Deus Ex Machima? I once read most of a novel co-written by two rather famous authors. The hero and his band of merry followers make mistake after mistake and eventually end up trapped by the Evil One with no hope of escape. Then out of nowhere the army appears and saves the day. That's the only time I've ever literally thrown a book across the room in disgust.

I hate that as well. RTD obviously likes them though...

I don't tend to notice said and the alternatives. I read a deliberate badfic recently and someone had commented on how they liked that the author had replaced every possible use of said with something else. I hadn't noticed at all.

I actually don't mind character infodumps - I can get quite caught up in their story. Arthur C Clarke has a habit of essentially stopping his plot and spending a chapter discussing a character and their background, or a piece of science or philosophy, and I love it. I'd almost much rather have that than the plot - although whether that says more about me or Clarke I don't know.

POV shifts are fine if you can see they're deliberate and done for a reason - and you nearly always can, with a good writer. The writer who is a problem is the one who isn't even aware such a thing as POV exists.

No way do I want to know much about a character's back-story the first time I meet them. I want to get to know them gradually, as I would in life.

Re spelling: "do you mind bad spelling in a story" strikes me as akin to "do you mind the violins being out of tune in the symphony". Of course I do! I can't ignore those things and "go with the story"; every error brings me to a full stop, so it doesn't flow. I don't really see any excuse for it either. If you're a writer, your material is words: damn well find out how they work.

Indeed- there's a section in the book I'm currently reading where the writer uses POV shifts several times on one page, but he does it for a reason and it works. Most of the rest of the book has very tight pov.

Bad spelling and grammar break my 'suspension of disbelief' and I fall out of the story.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

good and bad writing techniques

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject