Well, if there is one thing I've learned about writing quirks this week is that we tend to share similar ones! Like Em mentioned in her post, I too use the word "smile" waaaaaay too often. Seriously, you'd think my characters were borderline delirious at all times. So I need to remember to go back and cut out some of the smiling.
And like Deena, I also overuse the word "just". A LOT. I had no idea until we were doing line edits on my second book and my editor pointed it out. So I went through the book and took out as many as I could. And really, they weren't as needed as I thought they were. So it was a good thing. Funny thing though, right after doing this we were brainstorming titles for my third book and I threw out there, "Just Your Average Princess" thinking it would make my editor laugh that I wanted to put "Just" in the title too. But she loved it! So sometimes using "just" does make sense. But lots of times I just need to get rid of them.
One last thing I've noticed about myself and my writing only recently, my characters almost always don't have siblings. What's up with that? The MC in the book I'm writing right now has a sister. But the first 7 books I wrote? All only children. I have no idea why I do this! I have three brothers myself. So I'm familiar with the whole sibling thing. But I never want to write about it I guess! Very weird.
Do you have similar writing quirks to mine?
Kristina, Miss Author in Action
"Just" is a common one for overuse. It's now part of my late-revision routine to do a search for "just" and delete it everywhere I possibly can. (Also "really.")
ReplyDeleteThe sibling thing is tough because it means more characters to write--we can add siblings to a story, but then they have to *do* something, because every character needs a reason to exist!