Bad writer. No biscuit.

[mrissa]

Most lines of dialog should not contain the word "well." "Well" is "um" wearing a funny hat and Groucho Marx nose/glasses/moustache.

NO MORE WELL. The next character who says "well" in this scene is going to get shot through the head and buried in the garden, and the book and its sequel will have to go on without [reads ahead] the most major non-POV character. Crap. All right, so I'll give the shot-and-garden-burial a miss. Still, grumph and grarrrr.

This is my sixth novel, if you don't count the two I destroyed. I also write short stories. You would think that after five other books and N short stories, where N is a largeish number, I would not have to write "Well" every five words! Well, wouldn't you??? WELL???

Also, the next character who sighs in this or any other of my books is going to be beaten with an axe handle.

That is all.

Comments

[roane.livejournal.com]

Argh, now we're not supposed to use "well"? I can't use "well" or "um", I can't use adverbs, I can't have characters shrug or snort or raise eyebrows... HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO COMMUNICATE?!??! TOO MANY WRITING RULES! ;)

(Hee.)

I am very much guilty of all of the above, on a regular basis. The only thing that really stumps me is how DO you communicate a character sighing or raising an eyebrow or shrugging--if that's what they're actually DOING in your head? I have some completely unrepentant shruggers and eyebrow-raisers in my stories. Maybe I need new characters.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think it's perfectly fine to have your characters sigh, shrug, snort, raise their eyebrows, say um-well-er-uh and anything else.

BUT. If you read the draft and find that they're doing it enough that it looks like a tic -- if the shrugs make them look like they have neck problems, if their sighs are making them sound like they have respiratory ailments -- time to cross a few of them out. Moderation, moderation, moderation.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Does it matter, for writing purposes, that real-life people often do sigh to the point of sounding like they have respiratory ailments, or say "well" every sentence? Or does it come out looking like bad writing despite possibly being reflective of meat people?

There was one person I used to occasionally work with that was so painful to listen too that when he was speaking (to a large group, not to me in a conversation) I used to occupy myself by timing him to see how many times he said "y'know" per minute. I think the record was 8 or so. It was much less painful doing that than trying to actually listen to him. Also, I worked with a rowing coach this past weekend who would say "Yeah?" after communicating a concept, almost every time. In her case it wasn't so much a tic as a shorthand for, "Am I making sense? Are you getting this?"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is an extremely fine line to walk between conveying that the character really is that annoying and conveying that you're an annoying writer. I think if you want to convey that the person really is like that, you need to remove the tic from other people's dialog and dialog tags as much as possible and be as overt as possible about it. "Sandra drove me nuts with her constant sighs and her inability to finish a sentence without using the word 'like,'" or something like that.

Most direct representations of meat people are very bad writing. It may not be a despite. It may be a because-of.