The abyss I look at the drops of rain Like tears on my window pane Hypnotic stream On the edge of a dream Mirror in mirror Within - the quiet sound A brooding song Comforting sadness - friendship Suspended on a shallow breath I stand on the edge I dream, I fear, I hope I live, I die- I clutch On a moonless day On the edge of time On the edge Looking in
I think this is a SUPER unpopular opinion 😅, but what makes me skip over anything in a story the most is when the characters go into detail about their thoughts and it goes on for pages and pages 😂.
Not unpopular I hope !!! I feel like this is one of those mistakes that has to go back to that old adage; "show, don't tell." I don't want to HEAR about the character's emotions and inner journey, I want to FEEL it and see it in my mind's eye!!
About the sin of info dumping, I discovered, just yesterday, an interesting example in a very famous work: the first chapter of the "Promessi sposi" (The Betrothed) by Alessandro Manzoni, a book that is mandatory in school here in Italy (and not very loved by students, I must say). The first chapter contains two wonderful examples of info dumping. At the beginning there is the famous description of "Quel ramo del lago di Como..." that goes on for two pages, describing the mountains, the lake, the whole landscape. Not very action packed, but... It's OK, it is setting up the environment, I can understand; maybe for today standard is a bit slow, but I can see why Manzoni wrote it. After the description we see don Abbondio who meets the "bravi." Here there is the second info dumping: Manzoni goes on three pages introducing the history of said "bravi," citing old documents and laws about this phenomenon. It has the taste of an academic paper about the history of bravi. Honestly, this second info dumping is more difficult to justify.
My pet peeve is an unlikeable protagonist. I read this one book, where the protagonist was always angry and argued with everyone, even their supporting characters who constantly argued and fought back. I just felt that the author was cynical of young college-aged people, and this was his viewpoint, not the characters. That and having things happen for them instead of the protagonist figuring things out. One example is the young lady was being chased in an abandoned zoo after bieng abducted. The antagonist went to the trouble of abducting her from her home, dragging her in his van and taking her to this zoo, where an assortment of neglected animals are still kept..for some reason, he frees her for sport and has four starving feral dogs chase after her. In the next chapter, we see her, rookie cop/ boyfriend has on a whim decided to drive through the lot in that area and sees the dogs chasing her. He parks, gets out, and follows. As he rounds a corner, she's crouched down, petting the dogs who are complacent, and Docile. The author writes that she is a dog lover, and these animals sensed that she was friendly. 😅
What DNF's me out of a book is long boring prologues. I bought one book to find the entire first chapter was a laundry list of all the names of characters and which houses they belonged to. Another book started with a super exciting scene, that turned out to be a dream. Then the next few couple chapters were boring, slow, and totally unrelated to the dream. I tossed the book in the trash.
I nearly DNFd A fate inked in Blood. The FMC was just so whiny and scared to act that it was a bit of a slog, but the plot was fun so i finished it. good plot twist too.
Hi Kate, do you have any advice for staying connected to my story, even though I am in college and have a job? I want to write, but I struggle to get into a creative headspace from the business of everything else. Love your books, Awesome job!
If you don't mind my input, try doing something fun and creative before you write. I play video games, or play my guitar for an hour or so before I write. It helps me to escape the real world and put me in the right head space to jump into the world I'm writing. Hope that's helpful.
My sister and I just did a podcast episode about this - I think you'll find a lot of help from it: ua-cam.com/video/g_YxCEbCDbc/v-deo.html The main thing, I think, is to find what works for you - do something that inspires you to write, and then find those little windows of time to write whenever you can :) Cheering you on, my friend!
The problem I have with 99% of "literary" fiction is that it's so focussed on ornate prose that most of the time it feels like I'm either reading a dictionary, with someone showing off all the words they know, or else I literally do have to read the dictionary to figure out what the hell they're talking about. There's a particular author I have in mind who is chronic for this despite all their literary awards...
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The abyss
I look at the drops of rain
Like tears on my window pane
Hypnotic stream
On the edge of a dream
Mirror in mirror
Within - the quiet sound
A brooding song
Comforting sadness - friendship
Suspended on a shallow breath
I stand on the edge
I dream, I fear, I hope
I live, I die-
I clutch
On a moonless day
On the edge of time
On the edge
Looking in
I think this is a SUPER unpopular opinion 😅, but what makes me skip over anything in a story the most is when the characters go into detail about their thoughts and it goes on for pages and pages 😂.
Not unpopular I hope !!! I feel like this is one of those mistakes that has to go back to that old adage; "show, don't tell."
I don't want to HEAR about the character's emotions and inner journey, I want to FEEL it and see it in my mind's eye!!
Very true
I make my character inner thoughts at most 2 paragrpahs lol
About the sin of info dumping, I discovered, just yesterday, an interesting example in a very famous work: the first chapter of the "Promessi sposi" (The Betrothed) by Alessandro Manzoni, a book that is mandatory in school here in Italy (and not very loved by students, I must say).
The first chapter contains two wonderful examples of info dumping. At the beginning there is the famous description of "Quel ramo del lago di Como..." that goes on for two pages, describing the mountains, the lake, the whole landscape. Not very action packed, but... It's OK, it is setting up the environment, I can understand; maybe for today standard is a bit slow, but I can see why Manzoni wrote it.
After the description we see don Abbondio who meets the "bravi." Here there is the second info dumping: Manzoni goes on three pages introducing the history of said "bravi," citing old documents and laws about this phenomenon. It has the taste of an academic paper about the history of bravi. Honestly, this second info dumping is more difficult to justify.
Wow, that definitely sounds like an intense amount of info to get through! 🤯
My pet peeve is an unlikeable protagonist. I read this one book, where the protagonist was always angry and argued with everyone, even their supporting characters who constantly argued and fought back. I just felt that the author was cynical of young college-aged people, and this was his viewpoint, not the characters. That and having things happen for them instead of the protagonist figuring things out. One example is the young lady was being chased in an abandoned zoo after bieng abducted. The antagonist went to the trouble of abducting her from her home, dragging her in his van and taking her to this zoo, where an assortment of neglected animals are still kept..for some reason, he frees her for sport and has four starving feral dogs chase after her. In the next chapter, we see her, rookie cop/ boyfriend has on a whim decided to drive through the lot in that area and sees the dogs chasing her. He parks, gets out, and follows. As he rounds a corner, she's crouched down, petting the dogs who are complacent, and Docile. The author writes that she is a dog lover, and these animals sensed that she was friendly. 😅
What DNF's me out of a book is long boring prologues. I bought one book to find the entire first chapter was a laundry list of all the names of characters and which houses they belonged to. Another book started with a super exciting scene, that turned out to be a dream. Then the next few couple chapters were boring, slow, and totally unrelated to the dream. I tossed the book in the trash.
Lengthy prologues can DEFINITELY be hard to get through at times
I nearly DNFd A fate inked in Blood. The FMC was just so whiny and scared to act that it was a bit of a slog, but the plot was fun so i finished it. good plot twist too.
something that'll make me want to DNF a book is if the author makes promises with no payoffs or if the story lacks any structure
Hi Kate, do you have any advice for staying connected to my story, even though I am in college and have a job? I want to write, but I struggle to get into a creative headspace from the business of everything else. Love your books, Awesome job!
If you don't mind my input, try doing something fun and creative before you write. I play video games, or play my guitar for an hour or so before I write. It helps me to escape the real world and put me in the right head space to jump into the world I'm writing. Hope that's helpful.
My sister and I just did a podcast episode about this - I think you'll find a lot of help from it: ua-cam.com/video/g_YxCEbCDbc/v-deo.html
The main thing, I think, is to find what works for you - do something that inspires you to write, and then find those little windows of time to write whenever you can :) Cheering you on, my friend!
The problem I have with 99% of "literary" fiction is that it's so focussed on ornate prose that most of the time it feels like I'm either reading a dictionary, with someone showing off all the words they know, or else I literally do have to read the dictionary to figure out what the hell they're talking about.
There's a particular author I have in mind who is chronic for this despite all their literary awards...