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Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
 
I've noticed something recently (Actually, I've noticed it before, I just noticed it again recently.). Many readers have pet peaves when it comes to what they're reading -- pet peaves that completely shadow any merit a work might have. When writers are involved, these pet peaves often involve well-intended but poorly used and implemeented bits of writing advice such as, "Start in the middle of the action." or "Avoid the verb 'to be.'"

It is quite frustrating for me when I spend a great deal of time and effort pointing out how a story does not work for me when I get, in return, something that harps on a pet peave and offers no other useful advice. I've had it happen many times now. I remember about a year or so ago getting a short story back in which EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE of the verb "to be" was highlighted and rephrasing suggested. This included, by the way, instances that occured in dialogue. Yesterday I was equally frustrated when the sole comment on the first two chapters of my novel-in-progress was, "Start in the middle of the action." It's not even that I thought this advice was bad in my case (which I did) it was that this was the only thing they could think to say about something I had worked so hard on, especially when I worked so hard on their critique.

Pet peaves ruin reading and they ruin critiquing. I have them, too, I admit, but I've seen incredibly single-minded adherence to pet peaves here and on other sites.

I've also come to understand that editors and agents also have pet peaves that color the reading of our stories and novels. Since I've started to receive commentary on some of my short stories, I've now seen a few examples. One is that a proper story should have a protagonist who meets challenges and overcomes them on the way accomplishing a goal -- and that no other story structure is valid.

So....I've got two questions to throw out there for you guys to mull over.

1. There is obviously a fine line between a pet peave and a legitimate concern that will be shared by many. How do we know the difference and to what extent to we tailor our own writing to take these into account?

2. What are some of your pet peaves? (I figure identifying them may help us to get past them.)

I can start on number two: My biggest pet peave is first person present tense. I get around that one by not reading stories written that way. I also have a pet peave about witholding information.
 


Posted by abby (Member # 2681) on :
 
I undersatnd about pet peeves clouding things. I guess my two biggest (one is really reasonable I think) are:

Useing acronmys instead of words. I can't keep up with them, and so many could have a hundred different meanings. Even the word "vet" has four very common, completely unrelated, everyday meanings.

Telling me I didn't do something the way it should be done without giving me examples of how to do it correctly.


 


Posted by JmariC (Member # 2698) on :
 
I can't answer the first question due to lack of experience.

I can answer the second question.
My pet peave is redundancy.
Repeating the prophecy or riddle 3 times in 2 or 3 pages is overkill and makes it seem like the writer is treating the reader as an oblivious idiot. I have seen this done and it drives me crazy. It's on my list of things I won't ever do.
 


Posted by ChrisOwens (Member # 1955) on :
 
That 'to be' verb thingie was was probably me, and for that I'm sorry. I got shell shocked by a crit and from there on out that's the only thing I saw. Then I picked up some of my favorite novels and realized that there was nothing wrong with it. Of course, I'm still traumitized and attempt to excise them if I can.

As always, I don't have the answers so I'll defer them to people who know better.

I think that idea "start in the middle of the action" is not good advice. That's what Star Wars Episode III did and I thought it bad form. To me, action is something to build toward.

I think OSC's idea of good writing sounds like real speech is what it's all about. It's all about narritive voice. Good narritive voice trumps pet peaves, great narritive voice even trumps plot holes. The trick is to get into character when writing and capture the emotions, and that's downright hard sometimes. I find I might have it for a few pages, then I go away, come back, I've lost it.
 


Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
 
Chris -- it wasn't you. Actually, it was from a different site.

I agree about the starting in the middle of the action thing almost always being bad advice, though. It was in this case, too. Even if I do say so myself, my novel started in the *perfect* spot. And that's not just because I spent a month thinking about it in my spare time. It completely sets up the climax scene and actually, the "action" starts in paragraph 5 so I'm thinking she was nuts.
 


Posted by abby (Member # 2681) on :
 
Those who want a story to start in the middle of the action, must watch too much tv. If a stroy starts as all action, there is nothing to care about; it almost becomes action without meaning. You don't know what is going on, or anything about why the action is important. I think the build up to action is important too. Guess I tend to write modern "Victorian" style writing. I want to know something about the character and the world before I get thrust into action.

Better luck next time. Its good to now some others feel similiar.

 


Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
 
Start a story someplace interesting. If you start in the middle of action, the action better be SHORT or I am going to quickly lose interest because I don't know what's going on, and not knowing the characters, I have nothing at stake. (That is not the case in series like James Bond or Indiana Jones, where starting in the action is expected and we already know the characters. But those are films, not books, and the starting action scenes are, again, short.)

The verb "to be." Eliminating any form of the verb "to be" is called writing in e-prime. It's an anally-retentive method of eliminating passive voice. That said, it has its places. It makes a great tool when a sentence or paragraph is flat or just never seems to have the right wording. Secondly, it is a fantastic exercise in creativity. I know of one author who wrote two complete novels in e-prime for the exercise and challenge. For his effort, he claims a great increase in the use ofhis thesaurus and in his writing vocabulary. The readers, however, didn't notice, and when it was pointed out to them, they didn't really care. E-prime is a great tool, but keep it in perspective.

Pet peeves: I did learn that I have a severe allergy to high english. I don't like it and I think it sounds artificial and trite. In the same way you avoid first person stories (where you miss out on some very good stories, I think) I just don't review high fantasy anymore. I think I do more harm than good.
 


Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
 
No, Spaceman...first person PRESENT TENSE...either one alone is fine. Together, I won't do it and I don't think I've missed much.
 
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
 
I must have misread. That is an important distinction, so strike the comment about missing out on some good stories. Present tense longer than about 1000 words can be irritating in its own right.
 
Posted by benskia (Member # 2422) on :
 
Could somebody give me some examples of the "to be" thing.
With the "to be" in and then how it looks with it removed.

Thanks.
 


Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
 
Hmmm...let me do this two ways. I'll give you an example of a "to be" that probably should be removed and another one that, IMHO, can stay quite fine:

1. Laura was sitting in her favorite chair, reading a book.

1a. Laura sat in her favorite chair, reading a book.

2. Laura was fifty-two years old.

2a. Laura had lived for fifty-two years.

In the first example, I don't think the "to be" was entirely necessary. Some may disagree, but saying she sat instead of was sitting gives me more of a sense of immediacy and makes the sentence more active. As to the second example, both are fine and I don't agree that either one is better than the other for having or not having a being verb in there. It really depends upon your style and preicsely what you want to say with that information.

[This message has been edited by Christine (edited July 14, 2005).]
 


Posted by kkmmaacc (Member # 2643) on :
 
Christine -- I really agree with you about this pet peeve thing. I think, in fact, that you are referring to the same thing that OSC calls "prescribing". I don't have his book right here with me, but from what I remember, he said that it is much more helpful to the writer to have the reader's impressions ("this was boring", "I don't understand why X is so upset about Y", and so forth). That way it is completely up to the writer to exercise his or her creativity to overcome those problems.

I think this is a very valuable way to do things, because the reader may not (in fact, probably does not) know exactly what the writer's intention is -- especially if they had problems understanding the story.

As a case in point, I once wrote a mainstream fiction story with a very gentle yet emotion-laden plot designed to have a very specific emotional impact on the reader. I got back a "prescription" crit that basically said "put more action in". In order to be able to use such a crit, I have to backtrack and figure out that the impression that person must've had was "Where are you going with all this? The story seems to go nowhere." I decided that the plot was too subtley drawn, and did a rewrite that, I hope, more clearly reflected my intention for the story. Just acting on the prescription "put more action in" might have made the story something that the reader would've liked more -- but only by changing the story from an emotion-driven one to an action-driven one -- modifying the story to be more in line with the intention the reader would have had if they had been the author.

Having said that, I have to say that I don't think all prescribing is wrong or bad. What I like is a describe-analyze-prescribe trio, where each step of the procedure can only be implemented if all the previous ones have been implemented too (no prescribing unless you've described your impressions, and tried to analyze what might've been their source). For example, I think it is very valuable if a person says not only "I thought this part was boring," but also "I don't really care exactly how a canape is made, so I was bored reading 4 pages about it." It can also be useful if the reader adds something like, "I think you are over-showing -- just tell us that she was really anxious about her son's wedding, or find some other way of showing that it more interesting," but I don't think it is AS useful as the other two things, and is probably going to be actually useful to the author only some of the time.

At least, that is my impression!!

I probably have a million pet peeves, but the only one of which I am consciously aware is poor technical execution. If I'm going to crit something, I want to be able to sink my mind into it, and not have misspellings, poor punctuation, or grammatical errors jar me into an awareness that I am reading words on a page. I think that a writer should take the time to polish their piece to a high shine before they ask someone else to devote their time to it. (Of coures, this doesn't apply to flash fiction!!)

And, having written that, I'm sure I'll be laughed off the board by having made a zillion typos and grammar errors in there somewhere!! :-)

Best,

K.
 


Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
 
Poor technical implementation drives me nuts too. In fact, I have nearly eradicated such work from my critique schedule. Frankly, I find that writers whose grammar and spelling is that bad aren't serious enough to take my advice anyway. They just want to hear how good the story is and be told, "Don't worry about the grammar, some idiot editor will fix it because they don't have anything better to do."

To a certain extent, prescription is what I am talking about, but only a small part. When someone has a pet peave they are more likely to prescribe than to diagnose, but it is because they think they know what is wrong and how to fix it. After all, this is their pet peave. They know all about it.
 


Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :
 
I had an embarrassing incidence with one of OSC's pet peeves.

In a story I sent him I used the word 'alright.' He wrote back a long email about how 'alright' was incorrect and not the same as 'already.' Two weeks later he has a long diatribe about it in his weekly column. Talk about humiliating.

The thing is, Word did not flag it as misspelled. I even looked through my personal dictionary entries to make sure I hadn't accidentally added it as a word; I had not. I am sure I would have corrected the usage on my own if I had even realized I had used it. Sigh.

Oh, and Christine, one of my pet peeves is spelling pet peeves incorrectly .
 


Posted by kkmmaacc (Member # 2643) on :
 
This second post from me is about that "to be" sub-thread going on here.

The upshot is:
1. Don't use passives.
2. Don't use continuous tenses.

What both have in common is that they use some form of "to be" as a helping verb. For passives, a "to be" helping verb is followed by a perfect participle. Perfect participles often look like regular past-tense verbs, but frequently end in -en or are irregular. Examples of passives would be: is angered, are governed, was bitten, were shot. In a continuous tense, a "to be" helping verb is followed by an -ing participle: is reading, are talking, was dancing, were laughing.

Use of a "to be" helping verb can usually be avoided, and doing so usually makes the passage clearer. There are exceptions. Using a passive can foreground the object of a sentence -- if that's precisely what you need to do, feel free to use a passive. For example, it might be better to go ahead and use the passive version below:

passive: The perpetrators were never captured.
active: Noone ever captured the perpetrators.

You could probably come up with a better active version -- this is where the thesaurus can come in handy -- such as "The perpetrators eluded all attempts at capture." But the point of avoiding passives is to make the sentences less clumsy -- it is up to you to decide whether a given circumlocution is more or less clumsy than just using the passive.

There are also cases where a continuous tense is called for, such as where one activity crucially interrupts another. Here are some examples:

John was mowing the lawn when his aneurysm ruptured.
The guards will be eating lunch when the tear gas goes off.

Finally, "to be" can also be used as a main verb, in which case it is also referred to as a copula. Typically, a copula will be followed by a noun or adjective (but not a verb): John is a firefighter; The shoes are dirty; The stars were beacons, The coffee was cold.

It may be possible to get rid of a lot of copular "to be" verbs as well. This isn't supposed to make things clearer, but more vivid. For example, instead of saying "His shoes were dirty" you could say "Flecks of mud fell from his shoes." Doing that highlights the detail you're describing, so you probably only want to do it with things that are important to the story. If you have a little detail that the reader needs to know, but that you want to slip in without really drawing attention to it (like Christine's example of giving someone's age), a copula is probably fine.

At least, that's my perspective on things.

Best,

K.
 


Posted by kkmmaacc (Member # 2643) on :
 
quote:

After all, this is their pet peave. They know all about it.

I think in that case there is a good chance that the author discovered that error in their own writing at some point, were amazed at the power identifying and correcting it in themselves, and are now out to spread the good news.

-K.
 


Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
 
I think that I'd have to say that poor technical execution isn't a "pet" peeve. No one likes wading through bad spelling and punctuation. Nor is the need for a story to have a protagonist who overcomes challenges in accomplishing some goal. It's true that there are stories that violate these expectations and succeed, but it is even more true that the vast majority of stories that fail these tests are simply no good.

That said, I don't let any of the peeves listed thus far blind me to a really good story. Some of them may obscure the goodness a bit, I might like the story only half as much as I otherwise would have, but the truth is that I've read many stories where the careful use of various departures from the "rules" of writing a story have been used to good effect and actually enhanced the story.

That said, there is something that I'll consider a pet peeve for me. I don't like careless writing. It bugs me when any element, even something that I usually like, seems to be the result of carelessness or lack of thought on the part of the author. I don't care how hard you say you tried, if I feel like you didn't, I'll have a hard time finding any virtue in your text.

Funny, huh? I'm such a textualist, but I say something like that. Still, I'm making that judgement from the text, not from any independent knowledge of whether an author really did just hack something out. It's a textual judgment, even though I can only phrase it as though it weren't. And it's probably a pet peeve all the same. I don't know that most readers would ever notice that quality. And I'm pretty sure that it doesn't correspond to whether a writer really did make an effort or not.
 


Posted by Jeraliey (Member # 2147) on :
 
I think if a part of a critique (or the whole critique) is useless for reasons like that, it should just be ignored after thanking the person for their time. It's free advice; whether or not I take it into consideration is up to me, and it's easy to ignore bad advice.

My pet peeves:
-Poor execution (grammar, punctuation), especially if the person obviously sent out an early draft without bothering to revisit it. I don't like spending more time on people's work than they do.

-Doing literary gymnastics to replace "said" with words that mean "said" (i.e. retorted, ejaculated, interrupted, opined, replied, etc.). If you mean "said", SAY "SAID"!!

-Bragging. (i.e. My strength is X. I'm really good at Y.) Self-assessment is a fool's game.
 


Posted by Jeraliey (Member # 2147) on :
 
(Hey, kkmmaacc...I have an email out to you. Did you get it?)
 
Posted by Ransom (Member # 2712) on :
 
WARNING: SOME SPOILERS MAY BE INCLUDED IN THIS POST - As I Lay Dying, Ender's Shadow, Pastwatch

Looking at things I've read, I have to say that technical issues don't really bother me that much. I have to say the biggest problems I have with books are content-driven, and fall into these categories:

Depressing for the Hell of It: William Faulkner falls into this category, and I hate him forever because of it. I am a fan of tragedies. I am one to be deeply moved when a character dies nobly, or tragically, because death is probably the single greatest driving force of life, and I feel it too. One of the most memorable experiences I have in reading is the scene in Ender's Shadow where the starships are going for the "enemy gate"; i.e. the planet. Bean comes on the speaker and cries, "Absalom, Absalom, would God I could die for you! My son, my sons!" I don't really know why, but I got this image in my mind of a frying starship with sparks and smoke everywhere, and this little child's voice saying this, and I read it a number of times before continuing with the novel. This is the perfect use of death to add meaning to your writing. Another good example of depressing scenes was Frankenstein. I spent the entire novel telling Victor in my mind, "This is going to happen, this is going to happen, ARE YOU BLIND?! THE MONSTER'S RIGHT THERE! RIGHT OVER THERE! MOVE!" But the countless deaths proved a point, and while I was depressed for days after reading this, I was also somewhat fulfilled.

But As I Lay Dying, by He That Was Mentioned Above, drove me -insane-. The beginning is depressing, the end is depressing, and lots of people went crazy and broke bones and set fires in between, and I put the book down saying, "What in the world was the point?" I am sorry I read it. Give me Ernest Hemingway, where characters go down in blazing glory, and I'll take it gladly, but do not try to disgust me for the sake of disgusting me! Make it mean something.

Deus Ex Machina: The instant solution to a problem is one of the most glaring displays of fallen humanity that exists in literature, and we are all, at some point, guilty of it. Even OSC, in Pastwatch - I was rather disappointed when, in solution to the ethical dilemma of time travel, Card had the scientists come along and say, "Well, nobody in the world knows this, but you really don't have a choice." The ending was still quite fine, but not as sweet as it could have been if they had made the choice to really better humanity, and not just salvage it. But the pet peeve listed above, about characters overcoming problems, is a direct result of Deus Ex Machina. Characters should overcome problems, because they are people, and people overcome problems on a daily basis. Don't solve things for them.

[This message has been edited by Ransom (edited July 14, 2005).]
 


Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
 
Thing is, being critiqued is just plain unpleasant. Anything other than "this is so cool" or some criticism that I agree with and that's easy to fix . . . whether it's pet peeve based or not, it isn't fun, although it is helpful.

My pet peeves: stories that keep me mystified about what's happening until the last paragraph; even worse, stories that NEVER tell me what's happening, so I can be stuck with a question that I can never answer; both these things make me want to throw the book across the room. Thing is, these are legitimate reader peeves, not pedantry.

Comma splices make it hard for me to keep my attention on the story. If there's enough, I want the writer to fix them and show me the story afterwards.

Stories that discard plausibility for humor. I like plausibility AND humor.
 


Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
 
Actually, on the flipside, one of my biggest pet peaves is critiques that say, "Nice job, good story!"
 
Posted by Miriel (Member # 2719) on :
 
...going back to a few things said early in this thread...I always thought "start in the middle of things" was great advice -- but I've always interpreted that statement different that what I see on this board. The Lord of the Rings certainly doesn't start with a lot of flash-bang-action, but with a birthday party that gives us a glimpse at the nature of the ring: the first important plot point to the story that sets the stage for the Ring Wraiths. If The Lord of the Rings had started say, with the day Frodo's parents died, and then explained how he came to be at Bag End, and so forth, I would have been ticked. It starts in the middle of things -- with the first event that's crucial to the plot as a whole.
That said, my biggest pet-peeve ever is fantasy novels that start with long prologues about Gods in Ancient Times, followed by four chapters about the protagonist's childhood. And it's only by the time you reach page 70 that the you figure out the darned story's going to be about a quest for such-and-such thing. It seems like laziness to me: I think authors do it because if they start way back, before anything important has happened, they won't have to explain anything later. Why info-dump in the middle of the story if you can do it all at the begining? Imagine if the Lord of the Rings started with a lengthy prologue about Isildur and the making of the one ring...or worse, an essay on the Second Age and why Sauron was making rings in the first place...or the time before the first Age when Melkor first turned Sauron to the side of evil. And after that, long rambling chapters on Frodo's childhood. That would kill any novel. It seems to me that there are a number of perfectly good stories that are spoiled by not starting in the middle of things.
 
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
 
kkmmaacc said:

quote:
As a case in point, I once wrote a mainstream fiction story with a very gentle yet emotion-laden plot designed to have a very specific emotional impact on the reader. I got back a "prescription" crit that basically said "put more action in". In order to be able to use such a crit, I have to backtrack and figure out that the impression that person must've had was "Where are you going with all this? The story seems to go nowhere." I decided that the plot was too subtley drawn, and did a rewrite that, I hope, more clearly reflected my intention for the story. Just acting on the prescription "put more action in" might have made the story something that the reader would've liked more -- but only by changing the story from an emotion-driven one to an action-driven one -- modifying the story to be more in line with the intention the reader would have had if they had been the author.

The first time I can remember meeting OSC or hearing him speak was when he was interviewed by a local writer. The thing I remember best about what he said was that even an editor may not give you the best advice about how to fix a problem in a story, and therefore, you don't have to do what the editor asks you to do when the story comes back with rewrite requests from an editor.

What he recommended doing is exactly what kkmmaacc described above.

1--figure out why the editor (or critiquer) had that particular problem or recommended that particular change

2--figure out what in the story really needs to be changed to fix that particular problem and make those changes

3--if you succeeded, the editor will be satisfied, even if you didn't do anything anywhere near what the editor asked you do to

 


Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
 
By the way, one of my pet peeves is when I point out a problem in a manuscript and the writer tells me, "I did it that way on purpose."

Another pet peeve is when I put a lot of work into giving feedback on a manuscript and the writer sends something else to be critiqued that makes it clear nothing I said was applied to this new manuscript.
 


Posted by 'Graff (Member # 2648) on :
 
quote:
It seems to me that there are a number of perfectly good stories that are spoiled by not starting in the middle of things.

Which is a point that OSC brings up in his book Characters & Viewpoint. Essentially, you have to start the story where you feel it's best to start the story--no two people will ever start the same story at the same place (I've noticed this with stories ranging from anecdotes to book summaries to jokes). People will always tell the same story two different ways because no two people will place the same amount of importance in any part of a story. For example, as readers, people will be more entertained by certain parts of the story versus others. Frankly, I was more entertained by Bean's childhood in Ender's Shadow than by the battle school parts for more than one reason: first, it resonated with me on a deeply personal level, but also because it was fresh--I had already heard the Battle school story in Ender's Game.

This actually has quite a bit to do with pet peeves, because one of my peeves is when authors (especially new writers) force us to face a character's raw emotion without us getting to know the character. Which is, frankly, why I prefer the awful Fantasy/Sci-Fi books that start way back in a character's past and then build forward--at least I get to know the character before the bad stuff starts to go down.

----------
Wellington

Edited: Because it wasn't clear what I was talking about.

[This message has been edited by 'Graff (edited July 14, 2005).]
 


Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :
 
Pet peeves eh?
I have a thing about adverbs... sorry. But it is more of a disappointment that creeps over me, not anxiety or annoyance.

To borrow a thought from my childhood friend Samuel Clemens, I prefer lightning words to lightning-bug words.

Settling in to read a novel is like sitting down on the verandah to watch a storm come in off the sea. I am excited when the thunderheads mount-up and the sky darkens. I'm thrilled by the cool change in the winds with the smell of rain in it. I am saddened however, when the storm arrives at last but it does nothing more than dump water.

No flash, no crack, just a steady grumbling on the tin.

At least it fills the tanks, I guess.

I also hate analogies.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited July 14, 2005).]
 


Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
 
Survivor: Your pet peeve is probably what makes your critiques more valuable than many others, at least to me.

quote:
2. Laura was fifty-two years old.


After fifty-two years, Laura....new phrase
 


Posted by dpatridge (Member # 2208) on :
 
I honestly don't think I have any pet peeves. but then I probably do and just can't think of them after staying up since 7am the day before and it being 8am now...

I'll come back to this thread when I'm more awake and we'll see if I can think of any.

Oh, wait, I just thought of one. I hate it when people compliment me excessively. If something isn't right, tell me, and I'll try to figure it out, but if something IS right, I don't really want to hear a whole lot about it being so.

Another would be when you tell me I should use a certain device more often. I put that single Japanese word in there for a reason. I chose not to use any others for another reason. Don't tell me to start writing ALL my poems with Japanese words, and don't tell me to expand upon my usage within an existing poem. Too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing.

Now, for any others you'll have to wait until I am awake again.
 


Posted by benskia (Member # 2422) on :
 
Is there any 'to be' stuff in this little bit of text I just wrote in my story?

Note that the MC is recalling this and letting us know why she doesn't like somebody who is on the phone to her right now.

If I replace 'He had taken her bowling' with 'He took her bowling' I dont think it sits quite right. But maybe I have a bad 'to be' habit to sort out.

If so, how to I get rid of it?

He had taken her bowling on Wednesday night. Bowling! What kind of a date was that? She was made to wear ugly shoes that had been used by dozens of other people before her.
 


Posted by benskia (Member # 2422) on :
 
PS Autumn, my spellcheck in word doesn't highlight "alright" as a spelling error either.

I'm running the English UK dictionary.
 


Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
 
benskia, I'm going to make the executive decision not to discuss this on this particular thread as it was never its intent. However, the fact that you don't understand what a being verb is concerns me greatly as a fellow writer who would like to see you succeed. Therefore, I am going to start a topic under "Writing Class" to try to help you out. Feel free to join me down there and ask any questions after I post my grammar lesson.

Meanwhile, let's move this discussion back to the topic of pet peaves.
 


Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :
 
peeve. Peeve. I am blinded by "peave."
 
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
 
LOL, Beth. That's my own fault. I wasn't sure aobut the spelling when I started the discussion but rather than look it up, I just ran straight ahead and nobody corrected me so...oops.
 
Posted by benskia (Member # 2422) on :
 
Thanks Christine.

I'm heading there right now.
 


Posted by djvdakota (Member # 2002) on :
 
My pet peeve generally rotates, depending on what great thing about writing I've read most recently.

For a while it was sentence length and structure, then it was static verbs, then it was adverbs, then it was... Since Boot Camp it's been characterization.

However, the more 'pet peeves' I get under my belt, the deeper and more effective (I think) my critiques become.

So forgive me the ocassional (occasional? I HATE that word) pet peeve. It means I'm learning. Hopefully they'll all mix together to make me a better writer and give you a better critique.
 


Posted by Ahavah (Member # 2599) on :
 
I don't generally have pet peeves when reading other people's work, unless you count extremely poor spelling and run on sentences. I see quite a surprising number of run-ons/fragments, which just irks me.

I am guilty of several other people's pet peeves, though. I've only just learned that "Alright" is not actually all right. And, no matter how often I research it, I can never seem to grasp the appropriate usages of "effect" and "affect".
 


Posted by kkmmaacc (Member # 2643) on :
 
quote:
And, no matter how often I research it, I can never seem to grasp the appropriate usages of "effect" and "affect".

Oooh! I have a good way to remember that.

When I was living in L.A., I rode the bus back and forth to school. There was a company who had a billboard right on that bus route. The name of the company was "Sound FX". It was, not surprisingly, a company that does sound effects. So, just remember that billboard and you'll always be able to figure out that "effects" is a noun.

-K.
 


Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :
 
But "affect" can be a noun, too - usually in psychology.


 


Posted by Jeraliey (Member # 2147) on :
 
Yeah, but the stress is on the first syllable. Harder to mess up. There's no EF-fect, to my knowledge.
 
Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :
 
Christine, I mentioned a correction in my last post and thought you must be just ignoring me. Boo hoo! Shows me how much people pay attention to me .

Kathleen, recently my father asked me to critique a short story he wrote (spurred to competition with his daughter by my recent pro sale, sigh) and I spent about half an hour writing some suggestions and writing tips back to him.

He sent it back to me to critique again, and as far as I could tell changed only one word in the whole story. He wanted to know what I thought about it now. What do you say to that? I didn't reply. When I saw him in person I mentioned that I wasn't sure he'd even read my suggestions, and he smiled smugly at me and said he did all those things on purpose, in a way that implied his infinite knowledge on the subject. AAAAAAEEERRRRRGGGGHHHH.

So, I'm with you on that pet peeve.
 


Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
 
autumn...I completely missed your last sentence in that post. I don't know how. I wasn't ignoring you, because I remember the 'alright' story. so much to read...so little time.
 
Posted by kkmmaacc (Member # 2643) on :
 
Affect vs. effect -- another off-topic subject that seems to have crept in. I'll post my reply in the writing class forum.

:-)


 


Posted by Ahavah (Member # 2599) on :
 
Thanks for the tips, but those don't penetrate, either. Maybe my brain is just wired wrong.

Sorry for going off topic...I didn't realize the effect I would have.
 


Posted by abby (Member # 2681) on :
 
Okay Christine,
I looked at your lessons. If I hadn't lost half my brain a few years ago, I might could have connected what you said with what was once upon a time stored in my brain. I give up trying to remake the connections that way. I'll pull my grammer book back out and try diagramming sentences again for a bit until I remember them all. If no luck, then the library is only a mile away!
Have a better day,
Abby
 
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
 
Autumnmuse: Perhaps you should implement a policy that you don't critique family memebers' work because you "don't want to give them a biased critique."

[This message has been edited by Spaceman (edited July 15, 2005).]
 


Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
 
If you can't remember the difference between an effect, an affect, and the actions of effecting and affecting things, then just look them up in a dictionary. It isn't that hard to effect such an effective solution if you really want to correct the effect incorrect usage of "effect" and "affect" will have on the affect of your writing and affect your readers affections correctly.

I'm just saying
 


Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :
 
It's also usually pretty easy to rephrase in order to avoid using either "affect" or "effect" at all.
 
Posted by djvdakota (Member # 2002) on :
 

Avoidance! I like it!

 


Posted by dpatridge (Member # 2208) on :
 
Shoot, avoidance IS a pet peeve of mine.

When an author could have said something in a simpler way, and instead chooses a more complicated way just to "avoid" something they don't feel comfortable with, it drives me nuts.

The point in stories, for me, and especially in speculative fiction, is to study the human condition, confront it, and offer solutions. If you are not even willing to confront your own issues, how are you supposed to confront someone elses?

On the flipside is when people avoid telling me everything just to avoid lengthy prose in preference for an erroneous attempt at keeping it simple. That buggers me to all get-out too.
 


Posted by abby (Member # 2681) on :
 
I have to say, this thread has been both helpful, and harmful to me. It has spured me on to find ways to avoid "being" when not necessary to the plot. It has also given me many items to watch and avoid thier over use. Thanks for starting this thread. Don't worry, I wrote each item down, and looked up the ones that confused me.

Have a great day.
 


Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
 
You know, Of the manuscripts I've had reviewed, I've really haven't seen too much that has bothered me about the reviews. Maybe I'm just a bit more open-minded than others, or maybe I just blow off what I don't agree with easier.

I did learn that inexperienced writing bothers the crap out of me, but I balance that with the fact that I used to write that way, and those writers deserve fair and balanced reviews, as well as pointers. the more experienced writers are the ones I have trouble reviewing because I tend to be much harsher in my mind, trying to mold them into my own style. I have to constantly remind myself that it is somebody else's writing.

That being said, I'm not going to change how I critique a manuscript unless somebody specifically asks me for something different. For each change you make in the way you critique, somebody else likes it the old way. I can't help being me.
 


Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
 
I confess that I'm developing pet peeves at a rapid rate, in a way that I never did before. Why? I've become more aware.

I am peeved by all the new writers who fall, like lemmings, into the chasm of the same old tired opening phrases and scenes, like waking up after a dream or with no memory. They have no idea it's been done to death a zillion times. I am peeved because my current novel originally started out that way. Fortunately I've figured a much more interesting approach

I am peeved by writers who are sloppy and don't care about grammar, punctuation and spelling.

I am peeved when I read a published book and there are gross spelling errors in it or discombubulated action and dialogue that indicate to me the editor was either on vacation or asleep.

I am peeved at myself when I get so engrossed in spotting errors as I critique that I forget to tell the author 'good job' for all the places that work. There's always something to commend in every work.


 




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