Writer Be Aware

The title for this post that first came to mind when I decided on a topic was "Writer Beware." Then after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that awareness of simple mistakes we all make at one time or another was more apt. 

Ever since a writer friend posted a comment on Twitter that maybe characters in our stories don’t need to nod all the time I’ve become super-sensitive to that movement. In a book I’m currently reading there’s a lot of nodding going on, and I have to wonder if I would’ve noticed that before the Twitter posting.

In reply to his tweet I commented that when we have a character nod, we don't have to say “nodded his or her head,” pointing out that there really isn’t another part of the body that one would nod. Of course, if we write sci-fi and have an alien species without a head, that character might nod an elbow or a knee, but for those of us who people our books with humans, we do know what part of the body is used for nodding.

Many of the other comments on his original Tweet made it clear that a lot of people were now becoming more aware of how often they were having a character nod. A few of the responders even left a smiley-face emoji, admitting that they always write “nodded his head.” 

Within a few minutes of reading that Tweet, and a few of the comments, I closed down Twitter to try to be a bit more productive that day. I opened the file for my current WIP, and what to my wondering eye should appear but a whole lot of nodding. 

Thankfully, I didn't often make the mistake that I call the “double assent.” It goes something like this: You have a character nod “in assent” or acknowledgment of something, and then follow that with wordage such as: Sarah nodded, “I agree,” she said. However, I cringed when I did find a few of those.

Writers shared many comments on that Tweet about their chagrin upon discovering gestures that they tend to use a way too much in their stories. Some examples of those pesky repetitive movements: Rubbing a hand through his thick hair, wiping a hand across the bristles of his cheek, sucking in a breath, and one that drove me absolutely nuts when I first started reading Faye Kellerman’s wonderful mysteries was “blowing out a breath.” It seemed like every time her detective reacted to something he would blow out a breath. Thankfully she dropped that after a few books and gave Decker a whole lot of other movements and gestures to use as he reacted to things.

I’ll admit that I have a few gestures that I overuse in my first drafts. That is to be expected in that first step of the writing when we're just trying to get the story down because we all write what is most familiar in terms of language and phraseology, awkward gestures and wordage repeats included. In the rewrite, we can change all those worn-out movements into something fresh.

The same goes for words that are overused and could do with a bit of a refresh. Just one example is the word “amazing.” If everything is amazing, then nothing is. Save the word for great vistas, or works of art, or surprising revelations from a character. The word loses its potency when ascribed to a yummy desert in one chapter, then used in response to seeing Mt. Everest for the first time.  Likewise, “beautiful” and “great” are words that lose their power when used too often in too many instances.

While doing a Google search for more information on overused words, I came across this fun post at Buzzfeed where authors share some of their realizations about some of their bloopers. Here are just a couple of the comments, and I hope you check out the article to read them all. It's a quick read and worth a chuckle or two.

"Mine are shrugging, raising their eyebrows, running a hand through their hair or shifting their weight. It’s like bloody am-dram." Jodie Chapman  author of  Another Life

"My characters have scrunched their eyes in confusion so often they look like Zelda from Terrahawks.

I also keep deleting "indeed" as a condescending response, which leaves just a hundred or so in my portfolio 😂"  John Drake  author of Zoomers

Now I must be off to do some more editing to find the rest of my bloopers. If you care to share some of yours, please do in the comments.

Maryann Miller is a novelist, editor, and sometimes an actress. She's written a number of mysteries, including the critically-acclaimed Seasons Mystery Series that debuted with Open Season. Information about her books and her editing rates is available on her website.