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writethisfanficOpen to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6
How close are you to meeting your goal for this week (1 being not at all close)?
View Answers
Mean: 4.33 Median: 4 Std. Dev 2.69
Mean: 4.33 Median: 4 Std. Dev 2.69
| 1 | 1 (16.7%) | |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 (16.7%) | |
| 3 | 1 (16.7%) | |
| 4 | 0 (0.0%) | |
| 5 | 1 (16.7%) | |
| 6 | 1 (16.7%) | |
| 7 | 0 (0.0%) | |
| 8 | 0 (0.0%) | |
| 9 | 1 (16.7%) | |
| 10 | 0 (0.0%) |
& how are you feeling about your fic?
I'm so muddle-headed & tired today & should've gone to bed ages ago -- I don't have anything clever to say, but for discussion, do people want to talk about what phrases they find themselves overusing in fic? The ones your betas always say, "Why have you used this five times on this page?" or if you plug your fic into Wordle, they come up as the largest things except for character names? Do you notice when other people use the same phrases or words repeatedly? Do you try to stop yourself from doing it? What kinds of words/phrases are they?
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no subject
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 21:12 (UTC)I do notice when other people use the same phrases (particularly distinctive ones) over & over -- it jumps out at me. Probably people notice the same thing for me!
OK off to bed maybe? After I make my lunch & blah blah blah...
no subject
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 21:50 (UTC)Boy, do my characters love to nod and smile. They're very happy characters. I give them cookies and caffeine.
no subject
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 21:39 (UTC)no subject
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 22:09 (UTC)My characters swear a lot more in fic than they do in canon. It is a bit harder writing American characters because I'm from England and I live in Scotland so I have a lot of swear words to use but I don't actually use them unless I'm writing in a English or Scottish show fandom.
Also remembering not to have a non-Scottish character say "away and come in" because it reads back oddly.
Making no sense now. My bed beckons, long day and early start tomorrow.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 23:09 (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 21:40 (UTC)Heh, I wouldn't say that the UK has more swear words than the US, at least not as far as I can tell (I'm from the US but have been living in England for several years). They're often different though, yeah!
no subject
Date: Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 23:07 (UTC)I am fond of adverbs, but I've been pretty good about nipping that in the bud lately. And rather and slightly. I've gotten to the point where if I use an adverb or those two words, I ask myself if they're really necessary before continuing on. Generally, they're not and they get deleted.
I definitely notice when people overuse words. I've been crash reading the Vorkosigan novels by Lois McMasters Bujold lately (and they are totally awesome!). There are a couple words and phrases she uses all the time, but I unfortunately can't remember them right now. I've got one book left, so we'll see if they pop up in the course of reading that one.
no subject
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 21:41 (UTC)I really find slicing out adverbs v. satisfying as well. Sometimes I think they work, in certain places, but yes, definitely overused in general.
no subject
Date: Thursday, October 20th, 2011 03:46 (UTC)I too find my characters keep nodding and smiling, LOL. There are also times where I seemed to keep using "and the" and "a little bit" a lot. Able to not do that as much, though.
no subject
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 21:42 (UTC)I absolutely have too much smiling in my fics too. >_
no subject
Date: Thursday, October 20th, 2011 04:21 (UTC)I can't think of so many words or phrases offhand, but I know for a fact that I am very free with semicolons and dashes! I'm trying to behave with those, though; that's usually what gets edited whenever I do a run-through of my fic. I'm also probably use too many adverbs, but I don't care too much about that, hehe!
no subject
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 21:42 (UTC)I rely quite heavily on semi-colons & dashes myself, eek!
no subject
Date: Thursday, October 20th, 2011 08:23 (UTC)My overused words and phrases: 'beautiful' (uggh!) and 'stared straight at' (is it even possible to stare crooked?). Also, when I'm not in the mood, I revert to language that soulds like a dry technical report.
no subject
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 21:43 (UTC)I guess the opposite of staring straight at someone would be if you look up at them through your eyelashes or if you look from the corner of your eye or something?
no subject
Date: Thursday, October 20th, 2011 13:25 (UTC)Words I use a lot...hmmm...'and' and 'but' primarily, especially in dialogue, but I revise constantly and get rid of them.
I do notice when people use the same word or phrase a lot. Generally my critique partners tend to do it in clumps of two or three and then they move on to a different word or phrase, again in clumps.
I generally just let the words flow on the first draft knowing that on the second, third, and fourth revisions everything will get weeded out.
no subject
Date: Friday, October 21st, 2011 21:45 (UTC)I think when I overuse words I do it in clumps, too -- I have to be careful in later editing passes b/c I tend to think I need to change a word & then I think, "Ah-ha, I'll use word X instead!" w/o realizing word X sprang to mind b/c I'd just read it in looking over the three paragraphs before the one I'm working on. Yay for ctrl-F, when I realize enough to look for overused stuff.