I am doing a lot of critiquing lately; it keeps my creative mind in the game while giving my muse time to stew over my own revisions. The one downfall to this is pet peeves, little things that I purposely keep out of my own manuscripts because they drive me insane. I find myself pointing them out in other people's manuscripts, often swearing at my computer when I come across them. My biggest one:
"Furrowing of the brow"
Seriously, there are a thousand and one other ways to convey a boy's mood besides describing the movement of his eyebrows. I assure you, brow arching is not the universal symbol for conveying sarcasm, annoyance, worry, sexual arousal, and so forth. In fact, I have seen it so much lately, that I have ceased to point it out in the manuscripts, simply inserting a sarcastic "Edward Cullen much?" at the end of the chapter.
So my fellow writing cohorts, what is your biggest pet peeve? I will make a list and post them at the end of the week!
I laughed so hard at this, Trisha! Mostly because it's so true, and mostly because I'm sure I do it.
ReplyDeleteRepetitive mood gestures definitely wear me out, but probably most annoying to me are stereotypical physical features. Like the horribly misfigured villain, or the plain-but-adored-by-all-boys heroine, or the super-steamy mysterious hunk that treats everyone like crap but somehow loves plain-but-adored and she loves him back.
I realize all of these can work (that's why stereotypes exist, after all) I just long for something a little less expected. :-)
EJ
I hate it when something 'suddenly' happens, especially if it happens every other page :P
ReplyDelete"His eyes widened"...taken straight from my own pages.
ReplyDeleteHa, I can relate. One mannerism I detest (and I just saw this repeatedly repeatedly in a published novel I recently read) is digging one's fingernails into the palms until the skin breaks. Creating blood. Yeah...right. Maybe I'm just scornful because my fingernails aren't long enough to do this?
ReplyDeleteToo funny! I hate the "as" statement, mainly because I catch too many when I'm editing my own work. I want to kick myself.
ReplyDelete