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Do you suffer from one of these writing maladies?

August 10, 2010 by Nathan Bransford 236 Comments

Writing maladies

(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? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

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Art: The Doctor’s Visit by Jan Steen

Filed Under: Writing Advice, Writing Novels Tagged With: Dialogue, Hemingway, How to Write a Novel, Old Spice Guy, writing advice

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Anna says

    August 11, 2010 at 2:56 am

    I'm dying. Wunderbar.

    Reply
  2. Bron says

    August 11, 2010 at 2:57 am

    Yep, guilty of a few of these, especially Ink's Uncertainty Effect. I'd like to add one more:

    Backstoryitis – Particularly common on the first page of a manuscript, the main symptom is an excessive inclusion of backstory. This malady leaves the reader confused about timelines and wondering why the author started at this point in the first place. Treatment? Slashing and burning.

    I suffered from this one in spades on my first WIP. I'd like to think I'm getting better.

    Reply
  3. Becca says

    August 11, 2010 at 3:10 am

    Well according to this, I might need to be committed.

    Reply
  4. Delia says

    August 11, 2010 at 3:24 am

    Has anyone told you yet that this was funny?

    I torture my readers with overstuffed sentences which alternate with the Hemingway effect in a quirky little way that would most accurately be described as annoying. I'm working on it. Truly.

    Do you think Isaiah Mustafa will ever really come to terms with having spent all those years playing pro football only to be remembered as The Old Spice Guy?

    Reply
  5. Terri Coop says

    August 11, 2010 at 3:37 am

    @Marisa: I agree with dialogue-tag-itis. Especially when aggravated by adverbiosis.

    The best one ever was in a crit workshop. An epic fantasy. One of the characters was a sentient horse alien (roll with it). The sentence went something like,"we are safe," nickered Caballo.

    I have to confess, I suffer from ellipse-i-osis in social media settings. Sometimes, it just seems so appropriate . . .

    I would also like to point out the scrouge of poetry-sclerosis:

    The sun set across the plain in a burst of color agonizing to the eye as if ten thousand shades of some unimaginable spectrum from a forgotten dimension has been rescued from oblivion by a mad artist.

    It was dawn again by the time the writer finished describing the sunset.

    Best. Post. Ever.

    Terri
    http://www.whyifearclowns.com

    Reply
  6. KeithTax says

    August 11, 2010 at 4:11 am

    Got it. All of it. I'll even use some of it. Someday.

    Reply
  7. mishellbaker says

    August 11, 2010 at 4:12 am

    I would probably laugh much harder at this post if "Repetition" didn't read so much like most of my first drafts. It's only funny when it's some other writer that sucks!

    Seriously though, woke the baby laughing.

    Reply
  8. Katrina L. Lantz says

    August 11, 2010 at 4:24 am

    ROFL! Seriously. Okay, not on the floor, but laughing nonetheless. I read this post backwards because I saw Old Spice Guy and just HAD to read. (Chatty Cathy much? Yeah, sorry.)

    But my point is that you, Nathan, need to put this post in a book, surround it with similar genius, and package it for me, the writing-how-to book collector. It would be my proudest tome. Seriously.

    Reply
  9. Beth says

    August 11, 2010 at 4:25 am

    This made me laugh. A lot.

    Reply
  10. scottwbaker.net says

    August 11, 2010 at 4:39 am

    Now I want to write an Old Spice Guy story. Not a story, a poem, a bad poem that is only poetic because I say it is. But the world will love it and beat a path to my window. That's right, window. You thought it would be a door but it was not, for they cannot see through the door to bask in my brilliance. And bask they will until their eyeballs boil and spill to the ground. From that eyeball puddle will grow a tree and carved into that tree shall be the poem. And it will smell glorious.

    Or maybe not.

    Reply
  11. Brad says

    August 11, 2010 at 4:49 am

    This is brilliant!

    Although I think it shows what a Star Wars geek I am, because your Yoda sayings, understand easily, did I.

    Reply
  12. Justajo says

    August 11, 2010 at 5:32 am

    My fave overstuffed-on-purpose sentence writer: The Mogambo Guru
    Never fails to crack me up.

    Reply
  13. Ishta Mercurio says

    August 11, 2010 at 6:24 am

    HA-HA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

    Nathan, you are KILLING me! my face is going to take twice as long to heal. Two fantastically hilarious posts this close together IS too much to get without a little karmic balance, I guess.

    My eyes are tearing. Thanks for the post!

    Reply
  14. Anonymous says

    August 11, 2010 at 6:46 am

    You're an absolutely terrible man. Because of that last "malady," I just spent an hour of my life watching Old Spice videos on YouTube. <3 Isaiah Mustafa

    Reply
  15. Claire Dawn says

    August 11, 2010 at 7:10 am

    I am saving this forever! Using it every time I edit from now on.

    Reply
  16. SWK says

    August 11, 2010 at 8:07 am

    Hilarious, this post. Save it, I will šŸ™‚

    Reply
  17. Emily Cross says

    August 11, 2010 at 9:15 am

    It's a bad sign when I can see all of them. . .

    my verification word is mating. . .

    Argh, even the blog gods know i'm single. bastards.

    Reply
  18. Wiley C. says

    August 11, 2010 at 9:17 am

    I'm definitely an overstuffer. I need an injection of the Hemingways from someone.

    Great post! (I lolled.)

    Reply
  19. Frances says

    August 11, 2010 at 9:46 am

    I recently wrote a short story, an historical set in Ireland in 1866. It's enough to say it was a 'hide the razor blades' type of tale. My problem was with the use of the homonym, or near homonym, to hilarious effect. I trapped three people in the kitchen and made them read. Two were happy with the story in a sad kind of way. The third burst out laughing…"Mary kept laying hens, and sold the eggs at the crossroads." He just couldn't get past Mary laying the hens and how does a woman do that? Another example I've read is a man in a supermarket being chased through the isle of crisps. I suppose he hit a double whammy, spelling and homonym.

    Reply
  20. Elie says

    August 11, 2010 at 9:48 am

    Funniest post ever. Hemingway in particular. In particular, I say.
    Ever read Raymond Queneau, Exercises In Style?

    Reply
  21. Melanie Avila says

    August 11, 2010 at 10:30 am

    Love.This.

    I'm in a chair will be my new phrase.

    Reply
  22. Emma says

    August 11, 2010 at 10:46 am

    I suppose I suffer the most from one malady – which isn't listed here (though it's probably a complication of overstuffed sentences) – which I like to call hypertangential subclauseitis – I've always enjoyed making up pseudo-words – sometimes to the point at which I can no longer remember which parts of my vocabulary (which has had the power to scare teachers since I was eight years old) are real and which are made up (although of course all words are made up in the end) – a habit which I inherited from my mother – this malady involves being so incapable of deciding which details to omit – after all, every detail is sacred (speaking of ejaculation as we were) – that I end up with a sentence which, were it written in a coding language – such as javascrapit or html (javascript, incidentally, is a bitch – yes, I appreciate that that's a little bit like a workman blaming her tools – for this) or any other tag-based language – it would have to end with several rows of indented hyphens and parenthesis just to ensure that all subclauses were correctly closed out – although it has to be said that I'm getting very good (well alright, quite good) at doing this automatically.

    Reply
  23. TimR-J says

    August 11, 2010 at 11:07 am

    Great list!

    Didn't JJ Abrams make an entire career of the Old Spice Effect?

    Reply
  24. Josin L. McQuein says

    August 11, 2010 at 11:25 am

    You can't call it the Old Spice Guy effect unless he was on a horse, backward. ;-P

    Reply
  25. Dayana Stockdale says

    August 11, 2010 at 11:58 am

    that made my day

    Reply
  26. Robert says

    August 11, 2010 at 12:18 pm

    Delicious AND nutritious.

    Thanks.

    Reply
  27. K. M. Walton says

    August 11, 2010 at 12:20 pm

    LOVE the Old Spice Guy one and of course Yoda. I love laughing out loud in the morning, thanks Nathan.

    Reply
  28. GhostFolk.com says

    August 11, 2010 at 12:42 pm

    Dashes.

    Reply
  29. Clara Rose says

    August 11, 2010 at 12:43 pm

    Make me laugh, you do!

    Reply
  30. Elizabeth O. Dulemba says

    August 11, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    ROFL!!!! OMG – thank you for that awesome start to my day!!!! šŸ™‚ e

    Reply
  31. Ann M says

    August 11, 2010 at 1:33 pm

    I wasn't able to read this until Wed. morning, but in a way I'm glad – what a wonderful way to start the day! Thanks, Nathan, for being so informative while also being so hilarious.

    Reply
  32. DRC says

    August 11, 2010 at 1:57 pm

    Love it…xx šŸ˜€

    Reply
  33. Catherine A. Winn says

    August 11, 2010 at 2:44 pm

    I'd laugh harder, but, well…I saw me in there.

    Reply
  34. SJBell says

    August 11, 2010 at 2:57 pm

    Reminds me of a yoda image macro that, unfortunately, is obscene and can't be posted here.

    Seriously, though, this kind of stuff comes up a lot in my work, but I'm usually able to spot it and root it out on revision. Which suggests that maybe the root cause is that people don't revise their work.

    Reply
  35. Taymalin says

    August 11, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    Is there a cure for Shorter Hemmingway? I'm definitely a sufferer. Though, it's cleared up a bit in recent months.

    Reply
  36. Linda Leszczuk says

    August 11, 2010 at 3:21 pm

    Wonderful. Simply wonderful.

    Reply
  37. Chuck H. says

    August 11, 2010 at 3:26 pm

    No! Just! No!

    (Well, maybe just a little.)

    Reply
  38. Courtney says

    August 11, 2010 at 3:28 pm

    Awesome post, Nathan. I, too, am in a chair.

    šŸ™‚

    Reply
  39. Blacksheep Bliss says

    August 11, 2010 at 3:46 pm

    I love the Old Spice commericals analogy! OMG, ROTFL, LOL, THANKS FOR THE LAUGH!!!!!!

    Reply
  40. Ilana DeBare says

    August 11, 2010 at 3:46 pm

    Wonderful! Reads like you had fun doing this.

    Reply
  41. Wanda B. Ontheshelves says

    August 11, 2010 at 4:27 pm

    How about an utter lack of interiority?

    Meaning, it's the end of the novel, one of the penultimate scenes! You've been building toward this scene the entire novel!

    And then when the character gets there, they have absolutely no thoughts, perspectives, opinions, musings, realizations, nothing. It's like when someone's angry, like after a party, and they're driving home, and A asks: "What's wrong?" and B says "Nothing," instead of "you were flirting with C all night," or something like that. The silent treatment.

    I think a novel really suffers when you unintentional structure it as:
    Chapters 1-19 What's Wrong?
    Chapter 20 Nothing.

    I mean, if that's how you MEANT to end your novel – but if it's because you just haven't gotten inside your character's head enough, to know what they would be thinking…aargh…

    I guess this is more of a plot malady than a writing malady…

    Reply
  42. Robert Michael says

    August 11, 2010 at 4:39 pm

    Everything I ever wanted to know about writing I learned from Yoda, the Old Spice Guy and Hemingway. Oh, and JJ Abrams.

    Nice. Like, gag me with a period (spoon)!!! ACHH!

    Best post evah! Brilliant!!

    Reply
  43. BonSue Brandvik says

    August 11, 2010 at 4:53 pm

    A lesson taught with humor is more likely to be remembered than one preached. Great post. Here's one more malady to consider:

    The Unfinished Thought…
    This happens when a character is distracted… or constantly interrupted… and never quite finishes a sentence… or thought… necessitating an endless… or almost endless… stream of dots… or other punctuation… or characters… that help us understand… or read… without ever spelling out the actual point… or thought.

    Reply
  44. Anonymous says

    August 11, 2010 at 5:00 pm

    Funny.

    We should also exercise vigilance against viral imprecision's over-educated cousin, Vague Plague, a complex and insidious mutation with a particular predilection for academic writing, the effect of which is to hopelessly obscure a simple point with meaningless modifiers….

    Reply
  45. Dara says

    August 11, 2010 at 5:08 pm

    Love this! I am going to print off a copy to share with my crit group!

    Reply
  46. Scott says

    August 11, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    Gosh I bet that was a fun post to write. Still chuckling to myself about the Old Spice effect.

    Reply
  47. Lacy Boggs says

    August 11, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    This is FANTASTIC. But the really interesting part is that a clever writer can use most of these techniques to good effect. It's only when they're overdone that they become plague-tastic.

    Reply
  48. Kay Richardson says

    August 11, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    Forsooth, I use the word 'verily' too often. But I am a man of 314 years.

    Reply
  49. MBW aka Olleymae says

    August 11, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    Sooooo funny.

    Reply
  50. Kathy says

    August 11, 2010 at 6:48 pm

    Loved it…or is that too shorter Hemingway

    Reply
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