(Commercial voice):
There are pernicious writerly germs out there infecting pages all around the world. Left uncured they can be fatal. Talk to your book doctor or literary health provider if you notice any of these symptoms:
Yoda Effect
Difficult to read, sentences are, when reversing sentences an author is. Cart before horse, I’m putting, and confused, readers will be.
Overstuffed Sentences
An overstuffed sentence happens when a writer tries to pack too many things into one sentence in convoluted fashion, making it difficult for the intent of the sentence to come through and to follow it becomes an exercise in re-reading the sentence while making the sentence clearer in our brains so we can understand the overstuffed sentence, which is the point of reading.
Imprecision
When writers just miss the target ground with their word using they on occasion elicit a type of sentence experiential feeling that creates a backtracking necessity.
Chatty Cathy
So, like, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but OMG teenagers use so much freaking slang!!! And multiple exclamation points!!! In a novel not a blog post!!! And so I’m all putting tons of freaking repetitious verbal tics into totes every sentence and it’s majorly exhausting the reader because WAIT I NEED TO USE ALL CAPS.
Repetition
Sometimes when authors get lyrical, lyrical in a mystical, wondrous sense, they use repetition, repetition that used sparingly can be effective, effective in a way that makes us pause and focus, focus on the thing they’re repeating, but when used too many times, so many times again and again, it can drive us insane, insane in a way that will land the reader in the loony bin, the loony bin for aggrieved readers.
Shorter Hemingway
Clipped sentences. Muscular. Am dropping articles. The death. It spreads. No sentence more than six words. Dear god the monotony. The monotony like death.
Non Sequiturs
Sometimes when authors are in a paragraph one thing won’t flow to the next. They’ll describe one thing, wow can you believe that thing that happened three days ago?, and keep describing the first thing.
Description Overload
Upon this page there is a period. It is not just any period, it is a period following a sentence. It follows this sentence in a way befitting a period of its kind, possessing a roundness that is pleasing to the eye and hearty to the soul. This period has the bearing of a regal tennis ball combined with the utility of a used spoon. It is an unpretentious period, just like any other, the result of hundreds of years of typesetting innovations that allows it to be used, almost forgotten, like oxygen to the sentence only darker, more visible. And it is after this period, which will neither reappear nor matter in any sense whatsoever to the rest of the novel, that our story begins.
Stilted dialogue
Character #1: “I am saying precisely what I mean!”
Character #2: “Wait. What is that you are trying to tell me?”
Character #1: “Are you frickin’ listening to me? I am telling you precisely what I am feeling in this given moment. And I’m showing you I’m really angry by using pointed rhetorical questions and petulant exhortations. God.”
Character #2: “Sheesh! Well, I’m responding with leading questions that allow you to tell me exactly what you mean while adding little of value to the conversation on my own. Am I not?”
Character #1:”You are totally doing that. You totally frickin’ are. Ugh! I’m so mad right now!”
The Old Spice Guy Effect (excessive rug-pulling)
The character was standing on a rug. He falls through his floor to his death! The rug was actually a trap door. But wait, the character was already dead. He merely faked falling through the trap door. But wait, the trap door was actually a portal into another world. The character was actually alive, he just thought he was dead. Now he’s really dead. Or is he? I’m in a chair.
Have you spotted any other writerly viruses out there in the wild?
See also: Do You Suffer From One of These Writing Maladies? (Part II)
Need help with your book? Iām available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!
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Art: The Doctor’s Visit by Jan Steen
Stephanie McGee says
LOL. I've just finished a round of revisions and have been noticing some of my verbal tics. This was a hilarious post. Thanks for sharing!
my lonely journal says
Lol! So brilliant, I adore this. "Imprecision" might be my favorite.
Lisa of In Pencil says
This is brilliant.
Jess Tudor says
<3
Beth Mann says
Freaking hilarious, Nathan – and informative! AND you managed to incorporate the Old Spice Guy? Bravo.
Brett Lay says
Absolutely hilarious.
Jen J. Danna says
Absolute brilliance. This post is a definite keeper for those times when writing gets us down and we need a good laugh. Thank you!
Bethany says
LOL! Excellent lessons and good examples.
Bethany Elizabeth says
I think I just died laughing. Thanks for that.
š
Marisa Birns says
Then there's dialog tag overload.
"What do you mean?" he asked sneeringly.
"Shut up!" she shouted excitedly.
"Do you love me?" he questioned imploringly.
etc.
Kristan says
"because WAIT I NEED TO USE ALL CAPS."
LOL! SO. TRUE.
(How many rules did I break right there?)
Katherine C says
Hilarious, especially the period bit!
Another malady–when the writer uses every possible synonym for "said" he can find in the thesaurus. Divulged, chimed, chorused, yelled, snapped, interjected, snarled, screamed, joked, quizzed, questioned, and the dreaded ejaculated š
Some of these work fine, in sparing quantities, maybe. But please, for the love of all that is good, don't use the last one to mean "said."
Anonymous says
second good laugh of the day.
Katherine C says
Oops, I see Marisa pointed out the said overload too! Sorry to repeat…
Steven Till says
What about the "Longer O'Brian?" I coin this based on writers who use overly long, complex sentences. Read the first paragraph of the "The Far Side of the World" by Patrick O'Brian. The entire paragraph is one sentence long.
https://amzn.to/a7rZHV
T. Anne says
Ha so funny! A good edit covers a multitude of sins. š
Michele Shaw says
LOL. Funny examples, yet important reminders. Thanks!
Locusts and Wild Honey says
What about the
Simile Obsessed:
Her eyes burned like two vivid suns and her teeth were as white as freshly shorn sheep. Her hair flowed like a babbling brook down her back, which was as straight as an arrow and as milky as a glass of cold milk.
ACK!!! STOP IT!!!
Debs Riccio says
I am a parentheses addict (apparently) (so I'm told) and I don't know what to do about it (or if I even want to…) ellipses run a pretty close second… (I think)…
Livia says
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Hemmingway: To die. In the rain.
Ramsey Hootman says
LOL!
My personal failing is repetition. Sometimes it's necessary, but I catch myself doing it way too much.
Steven Till – Pretty sure O'Brian is intentionally mimicking an older style. Crack some 19th century fiction and you'll see.
Etta says
Damn funny. You should have a blog about writing. Or something.
Rebecca says
Old Spice Guy effect, HEE. You make me happy, Nathan.
I'm on a computer.
Summer Ross says
LOL this was really great. I love this "I'm in a chair" lol
A.L. says
Very entertaining post. I've found I hit the yoda effect at times, as well as over stuffed sentences. Both seemed to have started around the time that I started studying Japanese.
The sentence structure differences are just so weird and different. Lets not even get started on the fact that in Japanese you actually can, and do, place commas with a shotgun.
Tchann says
"WAIT I NEED TO USE ALL CAPS."
If I had been drinking something, it would have been all over my monitor about two seconds after I read that line.
When I've been editing, I've found that I tend to fall into a sort of formulaic writing trap: 'Sighing heavily, the writer rubbed her brow and rewrote the sentence. Verbing adjective, subject verbed direct object.'
It's tedious to fix, but it means that writing those last two sentences were a lot more difficult than it used to be!
I'm on a chair.
Ed Marrow says
My first draft had all of them except for the Old Spice Guy. I do, however, find him hilarious.
Lee says
Love this!
I'm with Locusts and Wild Honey, simile, simile, simile – especially when describing how handsome the hero is.. Ugh.
Maya says
OMG, this is, like, totally getting BOOKMARKED!
She scrolled her mouse to the menu on the top of the browser, the cursor blinking rapidly between an arrow and MC Hammer's "Too Legit 2 Quit" symbol, eying the the long list of folders that alighted and wondering why so many of them include viral YouTube videos she had no time to watch because she worked many, many hours at her office and then spent every spare minute writing the Great American Novel so she could quit her job and leave behind her masochistic boss forever.
"I hope this will teach me to write good," she sighed.
"As if you aren't already the best writer in the whole world!" her mother cried.
"Oh, Mom!" She rolled her eyes. "Of course YOU think so." She emphasized the YOU because her mother had to love her since she had given birth to her.
"But I know I can write just as badly as the next dude," she sighed.
Kristin says
Brilliant, Nathan!
Hope Cancer Resources says
You need to copywrite the
Old Spice Guy Effect. Seriously.
Not kidding I am.
Backfence says
LOL. Nathan, you do have fun with your blog, don't you!
Nick says
Oh my gosh. This sums up any frustration I've ever had or not had, in any medium (including forum posts). You didn't specifically list due vs. do but I think one of these categories generically includes it.
Kelly R. Morgan says
LOL, I am Shorter Hemingway. Words get in my way. Until revision. Then they get put in stretching machine.
Anonymous says
Not only was this funny, but extrememly useful. Thank you Nathan.
A Paperback Writer says
Nathan, this reminds me of that "birth" chapter in James Joyce's Ullysses where Joyce attempts to go through the history of the English language while writing the chapter (beginning in Old English and ending in the worst possible attempt at American slang ever written by someone who knew nothing about American slang). Of course, you were trying to be funny — and I'm not sure Joyce was.
May I suggest some names? After all, if you're going to have the Shorter Hemingway style, then your overstuffed sentences should really be the William Faulkner effect. (There's that one bloody sentence in Intruder in the Dust which is 4 1/2 pages long….)
And the description overload style could be renamed after Sir Walter Scott (the plot of Waverley begins on page 160) or after Victor Hugo (isn't there a whole chapter on describing the floor of the cathedral in Hunchback?).
As for your Old Spice Guy one — THAT is the best ever! This will be very helpful indeed as I try to get our new school librarian to understand why some YA books just aren't all that great. (He thinks action=great. I disagree. The Old Spice Guy and you will help me make this clear to him. I owe you one for this, Nathan.)
jjdebenedictis says
I almost inhaled my lunch over "I'm in a chair." Why is that still funny?
lodjohnson says
You are fricken' brilliant!!!!
(May I add some more exclamation marks?)
Claire King says
OK I'm crying with laughter at this one. Pure brilliance.
Daisy Harris says
Love it!! I will refer all crit partners here when they try to argue with me about not breaking up run-on (or as they say "lyrical") sentences.
My pet-peeve tic is the circular sentence, in which the end says essentially the same thing as the beginning, which I find irksome.
ARJules says
Note to self: Do not drink any kind of liquid while reading Nathan's blog posts. Check.
Now that I have cleaned the coffee off of my keyboard. (Which is rather sticky now, thank you very much. heh)
The only other two things that really annoy me are:
Deux ex machina and Scooby Doo endings, both of which were in a semi-recent popular YA. If you have to have a second scene to explain what just happened, you didn't write the previous scene well in the first place.
Just my opinion, of course.
Terry Stonecrop says
Funny!Entertaining way of making the point.
Yoda effect, here. I usually catch them and I see them a lot in crit group.
I'm not sure if this is quite overstuffing because the sentences are not convoluted, just long. But I sometimes take maybe three sentences and add, "ands" instead of periods. So I work on that now.
Thanks for the advice.
Charlee Vale says
This thing. It made my day. Brilliant. You make Hemingway proud. Thank you.
CV
Bane of Anubis says
Guilty of all (except maybe the chatty chat one) at one point or another… *%^T!
Side note: for your commercial, you need to be selling something… and must list potential side effects… so I'm gonna have to give this post an A-; otherwise, nicely done.
Laura B says
Oh, I love you. You make me smile, and teach me something at the same time.
Bryan Russell (Ink) says
The Uncertainty Effect
— Sometimes, just possibly, writers might use some sort of words, maybe, that might almost undercut what they might kind of perhaps be trying to possibly say.
Matthew Rush says
How is it possible that you can be so hilarious and helpful at the same time? You are clearly an android from the planet Dagobah sent here to take over the publishing industry – and we love you for it!
Kristin Laughtin says
I've been guilty of the overstuffed sentences and imprecision, although I think I'm getting better at the latter. It takes a lot of meticulous thinking sometimes to make sure you've chosen just the right word, and that you're not substituting words that sound pretty for words that mean something. I can be a Chatty Cathy in blog posts, although without all the slang and multiple explanation points. I just tend to ramble. I'm trying to avoid doing so here. I may be failing.
Loved your description overload example. And I just love the Old Spice Guy in general!
Nathan Bransford says
kristin-
Yeah, I just meant Chatty Cathy in novels. In blog posts of course it's totes fine!!
Carole says
Personally I would like to hear more about the period. It sounds like such a lovely creature. I wish you could be a bit more descriptive.