I was told that I have a writing tic ("for the moment") so I examined my manuscript and sure enough, there they all were. It took FORTY MINUTES to clear them all out! They were EVERYWHERE and I NEVER NOTICED them before. The value of critique groups! I joined a good one, I think.
I did lots of work on FORGING A LEGEND today, printing the first 25 pages and tweaking and perfecting. (These are the 25 pages I'm going to enter in that contest.) I decided that I no longer need my prologue, so my 25 pages now gets to go two pages deeper into the story. I want to send it off by Wednesday or Thursday, about 10 days before the deadline. Just in case the post office returns it for whatever reason. I also went through my other POV scenes -- I only have a two POVs besides Abriel -- and checked for continuity. I only got halfway through before I learned about my tic.
What are your writing tics, that you know of?
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Hey Tia! It's nice to meet a fellow fantasy writer! I'm a friend of Katie and saw your comment on her blog, so I thought I'd stop in and read yours.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on finding a great crit group. I had one once, about 6 months ago. I'd been with them for 2 years but I guess we had extinguished our usefulness because we dissolved to the point that we don't even keep in touch now. It's kind of sad. But oh well. Life goes on.
I'm curious as to what your writing tick was?
I'm the one that left the earlier comment. I meant to sign in so you could visit my blog, too. Sorry. I'm Tina Gray and I write historical / gothic fantasy.
ReplyDeleteNice to see you in the blogasphere!
I use the word "just" way too much, and I'm not talking about just/unjust here. My solution: I try to vary it with "only," "simply," etc. :D
ReplyDeleteI'm also pretty sure I have way too many stares, glares, etc. I've been trying to cut some of them out as I'm revising, but what can I do? One of my characters is grumpy a lot, and he glares at people.
Tina, I was writing "for the moment" EVERYWHERE. It was really ridiculously obvious once it was pointed out to me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by and I'll be certain to check you out!
Ooh, Raven; I do the SAME THING with the stares. I also went through the novel looking for staring scenes, but they didn't pop up as much as "for the moment".
I'm like Raven. "Just" is my very own personal weasel word.
ReplyDeleteMy crit partners say I use "scowl" too often too.
'Find and Replace' is my friend.
Oh, and I use "that" entirely too often. And "However." Kristin can vouch for both of these; she's read my book.
ReplyDeleteI'm also guilty of using "just" way too much. It's a habit I'm trying to break. My editor is trying to get me to use longer sentences. I'm trying to wean myself off of using so many em dashes; as a result, I've discovered the joys of the semi-colon. ; )
ReplyDeleteI think it comes from the little voice in our head that dictates our stories. Our Muse, so to speak. Our voice. We try to make the words on paper sound like that voice.
ReplyDeleteThis made me think of another blog post!
Hi -
ReplyDeleteGot to you via Kristen's blog.
Funny, I just spend all day deleting an excess of "so"s and "eye roll"s from my manuscript before it goes back for final copyediting. So, I truly did roll my eyes when I saw your post! What would we do without the "find/replace" function on Word?
Thanks for visiting! Without Word's search/replace, half of us probably wouldn't have the patience to write!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if book are more perfect now than they were a hundred years ago because of all the writing tools that just make it so much easier?