One of the things I really don't like in a story is when a character rolls his/her eyes. Or when a character "catches" someone's eye. I always get the picture of someone taking their eyes out and rolling 'em across the table/floor and then someone catching eyeballs. I'm not sure why, but for some reason it just bothers me. I know it's a common way of saying things but still. It's something I try to avoid in my writing.
Another one, and I saw this in a story somewhere... Character spun his head around. Reminded me of the scene in The Exorsist.
Again, I try to avoid my characters body's doing things that are physically impossible but sometimes...
For example, I found this in my WIP the other day. My character "turned" into a flower lined driveway. My inner editor was NOT happy with that.
And, as I'm editing my mystery...I swear, I've found 900 "thats" to take out. It's like they were on sale or something. I have no idea why I put so many of them in there but gee...
So, the point of all this... Give your WIP some time to cool off before you edit/revise. Once you've been away from it for a bit, you can see it with fresh eyes and catch those slips of the fingers.
6 comments:
I call them author's tics, and we all have them. It helps to have a good editor to help catch your tics and remind you that you've said this before, not to overuse certain words and phrases, and that nothing deserves to have three or more adjectives/adverbs.
Good reminder.
Eye-rolling has become the biggest cliche ever.
Eye-rolling really has become a cliche.
Funny story... a friend told me about a spot in her story where the main character was sitting in a couch with a throw across her lap. Soon after that, she had the character pull the throw up over her chest. Then she realized it sounded really gross. :-)
Ah yes...the rogue body parts. Always fun. LOL
Hmmm... I really don't see the problem. Eyes do roll, heads do spin. None of these are impossible. They are just a description of what certain motions look like. As for "turned into", the problem isn't "turned". People do turn. The problem is "into" which implies that someone became a flower lined driveway. Substituting "onto" would solve that problem.
Hmmm, taking eyeballs out and rolling them across a table. I can visualize that, LOL.
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