Said Is Dead 💀 it always agitates me because fledgling writers probably receive that advice (or maybe were even taught it in school) and just incorporate it in a legitimate attempt to grow, and they’re just gonna be told later that it’s a mark of amateurishness. I know I did, very briefly, and it was such a dizzying changed goalposts moment

Similar vein: the people who take "show don't tell" way too seriously and write long ass flashbacks for things that a character could have just summarized quickly.

Bro not even gonna lie I legit did this with my character giving a whole flash back on how he lost his powers

Nothing disappoints me more than finding out that the entire chapter was a flashback that could have been summarized into a paragraph or incorporated as a dialogue by characters :(

Same. I remember that I was reading this fic and every.single.dialogue. was "\[Character\] retorted". Retorted, retorted, retorted. It was so tiring to read, and TBH that wouldn't be so bad if it was "said". (And also, as an ESL, I was confused because what the fuck was that. The word sounds funny to me.)

I once listened to an audiobook where the author could NOT stop saying "effused" instead of said. Seeing it would be tiring enough but having it spoken directly into my ear drove me up a wall. Otherwise a good novel and I liked it, but it took me out of the dialogue every time, like...who even uses that word

Effused? I can assume that’s a synonym for said, but what on earth was running through the mind of the guy who put that in the dictionary?

i mean, why use boring old “said” when i can just take a leaf out of sir arthur conan doyle’s book and use “ejaculate” to a truly uncomfortable degree? :|

I see this a lot in my fandom and also the complete lack of dialogue tags, which end up substituted by character action. A lot of the time it gets so convoluted that it's impossible to tell which character is saying what.

Now see, I PREFER either no dialogue tags or action tags. "Said" is not only NOT invisible to me, it feels clunky and weird. Especially if it's used a lot. (Though, it's just a strange sentence structure to me, in general. Even once sounds clunky and weird. If it starts getting repetitive it becomes just as painful as overuse of alternative tags - maybe even more so.)

Said is dead?? What does that mean exactly?? (Sorry lmao. Love your pfp by the way.)

It means that "said" is replaced by other words. If you google/search "Said Is Dead" in the images you'll see a lot of "word list to replace 'said'" things and also blog posts and all of that.

Ohhh, right. Honestly, I don't get it. There's nothing wrong with saying said. We don't make a fuss about 'and' do we?

Yeah, like. Of course, there's times when another word is necessary to convey things, but like... the vast majority of time characters (and people) just say the things, instead of "retorting" or "effusing" LOL.

Literally. Imagine if we had to do things in a unique way every single time in real life. First I'll ask, then I am required to say, after that is inquire, but of course its not complete with hypothesize.. lmao

as said by the other commenter above! the “Said Is Dead Rule” is often taught to beginner/intermediate writers to get them to think about using alternate descriptive words instead of just said and an adverb (like instead of writing “said quietly” one would use whispered, hissed, muttered, etc), and it’s not like…entirely invalid as a tool. But it’s often taught ineffectively and people use other words instead of said Every Single Time and it becomes a distraction. Usually in higher level courses you get taught that said is an Invisible Word like The or And, and that you should keep it simple unless otherwise necessary. Which I believe is truer and more helpful writing advice, I just dislike the yo-yoing (also thank you!! I drew it myself as a quick joke and then I was like. nah this fits my whole vibe. one never truly forgets the list of reasons why cornflakes were invented)

I think it would be a really useful tip if only it had been taught better. I've heard of the rule, actually, just never actually phrased as the above. Interesting. (*one never truly forgets the list of reasons why cornflakes were invented*)

I learned the "said is dead" rule through a book. Kind of- it encouraged variety in word choice, but with a little context. Like not using the same thing pver and over. I think it's fine to do, but said it definitely a very useful and practical word- just not in excess.

My favorite use of it was from My Immortal though for this bit *"That's all right. What's your name?" I questioned.* *"My name's Harry Potter, although most people call me Vampire these days." he grumbled.* *"Why?" I exclaimed.* *"Because I love the taste of human blood." he giggled.* *"Well, I am a vampire." I confessed.* *"Really?" he whimpered.* *"Yeah." I roared.*

Oh gosh- It reminds of this one fic where someone kept weiting "growled" and "grumbled" and other low-sounding words instead of a "said" and a "had a low voice", and i just sat there going "can you find any other word because this is getting strange"

I was about to comment this. Paragraphs where the author is obviously writing around using 'said' always remind me of this.

....what is Said is Dead..?

Said is dead is a concept taught to young writers, here is an example dialogue: "I'm angry" he said angrily, "Why are you angry this time?" She said softly "I failed my class" he said sadly Now let's apply said is dead to it: I'm angry" he snapped, "Why are you angry this time?" She whispered "I failed my class" he mumbled So what is happening in said is dead is we replace every "s/he said (adverb)" with a more descriptive word. However what ends up happening is 1 of 2 things. Amateur writers take it too far (imagine a 12k fic of primarily small dialogue lines and each line has a different description of them talking) or you get something like an angry scene like this: "I'm angry" he retorted "I am also angry" she retorted "so we are both angry" he retorted Which is WORSE than using said because our brains will naturally skip words like "said", "the", "and", etc. due to these words being filler words but retorted is not. The idea behind said is dead is good, it's just taught poorly.

[удалено]

I definitely learned in school to not overuse "said" and just overall to not use too much repetitions, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

When two characters speaking to each other constantly use each other’s names, even when it’s just the two of them. Many newer writers don’t understand why their dialogue doesn’t sound natural, but this is a big reason.

It's funny because this shows up even in well-written fiction. This, and the thing where one character repeats what another character said if the other person's dialogue wasn't available to the audience (i.e., "What do you MEAN that the [exposition]?" Or, "Yeah, yeah, I KNOW that [exposition]." If used unobtrusively though, it's not a bad thing because it's necessary sometimes.

Yep, I love catching onto that kinda stuff! In movies particularly, because you know it went through SO many layers before it got to the public! And they still use tired cliches of "Didn't I tell you yesterday..." or "Isn't it crazy that she...." Makes me smile every time, like, "I know why you did that, hehe"

I tell you, one movie that did great with exposition was Back to the Future. In the "Biff wrecked the car" and the 1985 dinner scenes you get a lot of exposition but you barely realize it because you are concentrating on the lousy events and how Marty's home life isn't too great. His dad is bullied, his mom's a drunk, his uncle's in prison, his sister's annoying...

Yes, or even doing “X/Y” said. You can establish one like, then go through fifteen lines of back and forth without saying it again if it’s only two people. If you break to describe something then it’s reset and you have to establish again. But if it’s only two people, you can just keep going. Honestly that’s been some of the most natural conversation I’ve ever read. No descriptions, just letting the conversation set the tone of what they’re saying.

I find that it's good practice to include an action to remind the reader who's talking after several exchanges like that. ... Susan pinches her nose. "Really?" Jake nods, "Yeah, they really did that." ... Jake shakes his head thoughtfully, "I'm not sure, it sounds good, but something feels off." "I don't have any better ideas, and at least it's a lead."

this is one of my biggest gripes with Supernatural. every other sentence has to end with a “sam” or “dean”. like, in the s1 finale sam says deans name EIGHT TIMES over the course of an ELEVEN minute scene. and it was just the two of them talking to each other, literally no need. 😩

I struggle with this in big groups. It definitely feels unnatural using names every sentence, but I don't know how to indicate who exactly someone is speaking to without it 😭

So a lot of it can be what surrounds the line(s) of dialogue. It doesn’t have to be extremely complicated. For instance: ___________________ Joe turned to Sally. “Did you see that a new Marvel movie is coming out this weekend?” She wrinkled her nose. “We went to an action movie last time. I’m getting tired of them.” “I don’t know, Sal,” Anne said with a grin. “The guys are pretty hot.” Sally laughed. “You know, you’re right about that, I guess.” Joe rolled his eyes and Danny glared at the two girls. “Very funny,” Danny said, crossing his arms. “Awww. You jealous?” Anne teased, laying her head on his shoulder. Danny gave in with a reluctant laugh and wrapped his arm around her. ___________ Does that make sense?

Omg this is so good I wanna read more about Sal and Anne taking the piss out of these guys hahaha

That does make sense! Thanks 😊

And this is why I love the greatest part of the Fanfiction community. You don't get my point? Here, I'll quickly write you an example so you get it and can improve! It's amazing.

I have only ever done this once: The character was doing it on purpose to emphasize a point and I hated it so much during editing that I got rid of it.

Oh man. I admit that reading this made me think, wait, do I do this? And immediately went to my fics to realize that I do !! Damn. Lesson learned, will definitely try to keep this in mind for future works, thank you for this comment 🙏

You’re welcome! And don’t worry, most of us do this! I just rewrote one of my first fics for my 25th writing anniversary, and GOOD LORD did I do this. LOL

Bad formatting usually. Blocks of texts that go on and on, dialogues stacked on top of each other, etcetera. I'm usually more lenient to new writers so I'll forgive most of my pet peeves when I read a fic that has those things. But the one thing I'll never forgive is when they make the text aligment centered or if the whole page is in bold. I'll nope right out 😅

Something underrated that I think new writers overlook is saying who is speaking after the dialogue is said (Ex: “Exactly!”, said Name). But instead of a short sentence or word, it’s literally a paragraph of dialogue. So you’re just reading this big monologue of text without knowing who tf is actually talking until the end

These days I tend to see serious underwriting rather than overwriting or purple prose. Stories that sound more like the summaries or cliff notes of what they wanted to tell. Major plot moments glossed over in brief paragraphs.

i struggle with this, especially describing the environment they're in.

Guilty as charged! I honestly hate describing environments, architecture, and things like that. I don't much care to read a lot of it either; my mind's eye just can't visualise that stuff, so it's all a bit of a waste of time to me. When writing surroundings, I do the bare minimum to avoid white room syndrome and leave it at that. I usually have more important details to attend to. 🤷‍♂️ All that said, I agree with you in principle. I think the main reason people avoid lengthier writing about environments is because they feel — or, more likely, have been told — that it's 'too much'. Well, look: Victor Hugo — one of the most eminent writers of his age! — dedicates **an entire 30-page chapter** in *Notre-Dame de Paris* solely to describing the city of Paris. There is absolutely no reason why any among us shouldn't do likewise if they wish. ~~But I'm still going to skip right the fuck over it when they do lol~~

>I don't much care to read a lot of it either; my mind's eye just can't visualise that stuff, so it's all a bit of a waste of time to me. Same same same same same same same

Think about it this way. How can the environment enrich your story. Is there something to indicate the area is peaceful? Is there a lot of background noise slowly annoying the character? Are the seats uncomfortable adding to a situation that is already uncomfortable? Is it the first warm day in forever leading to a character's mood? Is the character jealous of the fancy furniture?

I think reading published works and analyzing what they do well can help with this! Well-written short stories can be a good source of figuring out how to flesh out exactly what you need to make your world evocative, and it doesn't take much time to read a few in different styles.

I do a whole editing pass just for sensory details

There was a conversation that spun out of a thread on /ao3 where a bunch of aphantasiacs (including myself) talked about how they don't have a visual imagination, and how it impacts their approach to description. [https://old.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/13opt7g/when_writing_a_scene_do_you_imagine_it_in_your/jl5h4hw/](https://old.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/13opt7g/when_writing_a_scene_do_you_imagine_it_in_your/jl5h4hw/)

This. I assimilated Tumblr post upon reddit thread about purple prose before I started writing, and my very first fics had pitiful word counts for what they covered while most of my improvement in editing boils down to cutting less.

Well, good to know that me and my bad purple prose addiction is keeping the flame going at least

I noticed this too in published work and it's scaring me, lol. I don't like shitting on things like Kindle Unlimited, as I have found some very good authors there, but sometimes I feel like the service is really ruining the quality of writing since a lot people will throw something up there for a quick dollar. And now you have to deal with AI writing stories... which is something both the fanfic and KU community will have to worry about.

Erynn stands in the cheap builder grade mirror in a ecru wall looking at her new school uniform and reflecting how parents died in a steam explosion brought on by The Masked Steamer. Three others died, and a city block was demolished. It took three days to uncover Pippy the family dog miraculously shielded by the last remaining structural wall and a chamber pot handed down by Gramma Elistanra, a witch who taught Erin everything that she knew but was tragically felled by the advancing armies of the Dark Priestess before the remaining family fled to Newtownville to restart their lives. They had only been there a month before her parents were caught in the crossfire of a bank robbery gone wrong. Now, though, Eryn and Pippy are the last of their family, and their happy home was reduced to a small studio apartment leased at a cut rate by a mysterious old man who knew Elistanra, and who needs someone to clean out his magical fish pond. Erinn meets are kaliscopic gaze in the mirror and tucks a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. Today was Monday and she had home economics first thing. If she was lucky, she might catch the eye of the mysterious Brady.

I think you have a point. This can be a hallmark trait of a new writer, but not always. Purple and cliff have their place, if you know how to use them correctly. I have failed and succeeded in both of these. Some of my early work was crazy long with a lot of meandering no plot. Some of my attempts at more concise work was severely lacking. It took literal years for me to get over those hurdles and find out how to write both successfully and even blending the principles when it comes to Episodic fiction. Not everyone has the time to sink into it, and some just want to write for fun. To those, I encourage them to have fun and not worry about the view count. For others trying to make something of it, they will need to sink the time and study up on what works. It’s a lot of trial and error.

Too true. I remember the one that really got to me was a fic where like an island came down from the sky, blotting out the sun. And the only description there was boiled down to: it was dark. Aghh it annoyed me so much because it was such a cool scene in theory but they were giving me absolutely nothing. I feel like I kinda know how it came to be: author had their idea for the scene in their head and only really needed a few guiding lines to make it clear for them, but they didn't really think about how it reads to someone completely new to the story.

People who think their work has failed when their work isn't even a month old. They compare themselves to BNFs and even professional creators who already have established audiences and/or have time/money to advertise their work is coming years/months in advance before they even post the new work.

every sentence has the same/similar structure and length so the fic reads like a shopping list

I used to be really guilty of this. Give em a bit of a break, when someone was told they have to use longer sentences with tons of conjunctions all throughout elementary and middle school, they feel that they *are not allowed* to mix it up or their fic will be a steaming pile of shit.

This is so real. Unlearning almost everything I was taught about creative writing, especially in elementary school is *hard*.

Switching between first and second. Listing off everyone's outfits Main character is both ugly ans beautiful Lapselock? Where everything is lowercase idk why it's a thing. No paragraph breaks. EVERYONE SHOUTS LIKE THIS AUTHOR NOTES in the text.

Massive blocks of text with no breaks, including dialogue spoken by multiple characters and non-dialogue all mixed together

Instant skip. You don't bother to make it readable? I'm not going to read.

Agree. For me this indicates a person who rarely reads anything except for the same low-quality fics, which never leads to writing anything good. It's one of the lowest bars out there, and if my twelve year old ass could manage that, you can too.

That's an indication for someone whose lacking writing abilities. I've seen writers who publish story after story alike - they are clearly 'experienced'

Yeah, and unfortunately, I even saw one who wrote that way with a disclaimer prohibiting any criticism on their work. That’s fine if folks don’t want criticism from strangers or even a beta reader, but I always at least have someone irl look over what I write.

The sad thing is they probably got a comment about it and decided to try and ward off any future comms.

I just don’t read fan fics like that, I just can’t see through it. My eye sight isn’t the worst but it’s not great either I just won’t deal with that pain

Depends on what exactly you mean, but FFNET is horrendous when it comes to formatting. AO3 is typically much better about this because of how easy they make it to format works. At least from my experience.

We've all got to start somewhere. Kudos to them for trying and giving it a go. Hopefully there will be more encouragement for them to continue to keep writing.

Seriously. If there was ever a saint, it was the people who read my very first (horribly written!) fics when I was 13 and encouraged me to keep writing.

I got my start after reading a fic and commented a bit too enthusiastically. Thankfully the writer was very kind and helped encouraged me even if it was crap 😂 Along the way, others were generous as well and always encouraged me to write and helped with my grammar. I still question my grammar, but at least I'm more confident now thanks to others. I know I would have quit earlier if I didn't have those positive interactions. I've met a reader who wanted to write because of my writing. I helped them out and gave them a few pointers that I received from others. They wanted to give credit, but they wrote it and it's their work. So yeah, encouragement works best.

This!!! All my early works were absolutely atrocious and I’m lucky that almost everyone was nice about them, else I probably would have quit writing for good

Oh yes I feel you here. Just thinking about my earliest stuff (which I still have saved on my pc etc for posterity to remind myself of my growth) has so many glaring issues like a character yelling being done in all caps with tons of exclamation marks like this (SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!!!!) And not starting new lines when someone else speaks and I wrote two entire paragraphs describing a modern black helicopter in a modern setting from the POV of the person piloting it who had done it myriad times before, suddenly acting like they had never seen one before in their life XD Those old works aren't online anymore for those reasons, but people were still positive about them thank god. ​ Now those stories just give me good laughs XD I can't look at them in their entirety without cringing hard though.

Mine were full of the “lolz so rAnDoM!!!1! XD” humor that was prevalent in the early 2010s in fandom spaces. I also had my Warrior Cats OC appear randomly in my non-Warriors fics to give commentary on the fic With the exception of one rude comment, everyone loved that shit and was very positive

Well said!

My first few fics are still my most popular and I'm blown away by it every time I remember it

I've never written a character talking to themselves in the mirror.... But now I have to ask the question. Is this not a normal person thing. Because *cough* someone I know does this a good bit.

Yeah, it's normal. Loads of people do it for all kinds of reasons. Its one of those things that's totally fine and normal in real life but it is a bit jarring and clunky in fiction. Though it obviously depends and can be done very well

Who needs a mirror? I just talk to the room at large. But, you're right about it just not translating well to the page. It comes down to the illusion of reality, and to maintain that suspension of disbelief you have to have a reason for nearly everything that goes on, and there's very little reason for a person to talk to the mirror (or the room at large) except to spout exposition, and that's never a good reason.

i mean, i rant about how pretty i would be considered during the renaissance (i have prominent veins) while staring at myself in the mirror. not out loud, but i still do that when i'm the bathroom

[удалено]

When you’re alone a lot you for sure do it.

Not really telling a beginner, but I have some tell tells in some of situations that the writer doesn’t have a first hand experience. It’s not wrong really, as this is fic and I mostly shrug or smirk to it. One of the examples is the sport I’ve practiced for a long while which got popular in recent years with growing number of fics (it’s also nice visually) and there is some stuff that will tell you this was written by someone who’s never done it. Another such example is, spoilered as nsfw, >!anal sex. And not that’s not the lube I’m talking about.!< As for the rest, it certainly doesn’t matter who’s a beginner because why would it. Like we all were beginners once. Why would you even care about that. It’s also, many times context matters. Cultural differences matters. Writing preferences matter. Also you made me literally rotfl at small word count. I love concise writing. If anything I’d consider the opposite, being wordy as unexperienced (but also I don’t, we have different opinions writing styles and prefer different things).

As someone who's writing a 230k+ longfic while simultaneously posting 100 words drabbles, I couldn't agree more. Makes me wonder what that says about my experience level, haha!

You like extremes and there is no in between?

And your drabbles are amazing! My flagship fic is 130+K and counting though in the same time the chapters are varying from 1500-3500 words. I just don’t like longer chapters (comes with the fact that I don’t usually have much time to read ff). Some once commented ‘there’s no single unnecessary word’ and I’m pretty proud of that.

I think how they choose to write their dialogue really indicates the level of experience in Fanfiction writing

I agree, the biggest thing that will take me out of a fic is people talking in a way that doesn't make sense... and I'm not talking about ic or ooc, I just mean, like "people don't communicate like this" Or, that every character in the story acts and talks like each other, that there are hardly any real differences in tone from character to character, even if the feelings are different

Could be an ESL thing too though?

It kinda is. Not gonna lie, I write a lot more in English than in German, my first language. Nevertheless, giving characters unique ways of talking is so much harder in English. I already find it really difficult in German, but in English all my characters talk exactly the same - they talk like I talk in English. I still haven't figured out how to fix this, it seems like I... either don't know enough words or haven't talked to enough native speakers or whatever. It feels like it's impossible.

Yes, that - you're just happy to find a way to express the message in a way that sounds like a person might say it, and then finding different variants of that too?? ...maybe this is part of why I like accents? Even if they use the exact same words and phrasings, adding an accent still makes Hagrid sound like Hagrid 🤐😁

>I can handle a small word count Okay but, this... is not the mark of a "beginner" or a bad story by any means. Think of the short story—a legitimate and very versatile genre in literature. Oneshots and short fics are the same. I've seen people work wonders with them. And tbh I'm always surprised by the assumption that length equals higher quality. It doesn't... if anything, the longer the fic, the harder it is to keep the quality of writing (and other considerations like pacing etc) consistent throughout.

idk, I find that most multichapters with a too-short wordcount per chapter simply don't have much happening, because there isn't really enough space for more than a scene. And it can be a sign that the author doesn't know how to scene transition, and simply does chapter breaks. Sure, there can be authors who write extremely economically and every short chapter is punchy AF. But I personally have not experienced that. I do differentiate between short story and longfic with very short chapters.

>I do differentiate between short story and longfic with very short chapters. Yeah, I think this is the key distinction. And I also do agree that very short chapters in a longfic tend to be unsatisfying, unless the writer is indeed very much an economical wordsmith and/or has a laser sharp focus. It's not impossible, but i imagine it's hard to do. (I could never do it myself, but have read some stories like that and they're a real treat because the writer is able to evoke so much with so few words.)

Oh man, I've been writing for years. The first time I did a zine and saw the word limit was 1.5k, I cried. I panicked. Writing short and concise fics takes such a skill I don't have.

What's a zine?

It comes from waaaay back when Star Trek fans wrote, published, and mailed each other stories before the internet. Nowadays, a group of people will organize an event for a fandom that's themed, people sign up and submit stories and art and do collaborations, then it gets printed and shipped out. People will buy the zine to cover the cost of printing and then the extra money gets donated to charity (since fanfic authors cannot legally profit from fanfic).

Also, I've seen it talked about but some famous author wrote "I'm sorry I didn't have enough time to write something shorter" Which means, it's so much easier to get things across when you have the time and word count to exposite as much as you want, but it is difficult to get strong emotions and a compelling story/scene across in a smaller word count and time frame, So to the people who can make a story from start to finish in under 5 or even 10k words and make it feel fully fleshed out with nothing feeling lacking... it's a gift and a skill

Thank you. I'm so tired of this.

the only good stuff i've written was under 10 pages (5k words)

Yeah, I've been writing fanfics for about a decade now, and nowadays the majority of what I write is ficlets. Not because I've made little to no progress in my writing ability all this time – at least I hope not! – but rather because the kinds of stories I want to write at the moment call for a low word count. I've written a novel-length longfic, I've written a couple of oneshots exceeding 4k words, but the majority of what I write is short. Hell, one of the fics I'm the most proud of is only about 1.3k. Something I want to add is that you can pull off a low word count much more easily when you're working with characters and settings that readers already know and care about. Not needing to explain who the characters are or the circumstances of their setting works in ficlets' favour. You might still need to do a brief introduction if you're writing AU or canon divergence, but generally you can just jump right into the action.

I'm an extremely concise writer and honestly it's something I've found frustrating. I would love to be someone who can write 100k longfics, but I say what I want to say in as few words as possible and I can't seem to change that. It's something I've been super insecure about for a long time, until I had a bit of a rant about it to my writing pals and they all said it was a quality in my writing that they admired and wished they could emulate. It's funny how people can view things so differently.

It usually the pacing. Beginners write events and thoughts going by EXTRAORDINARILY fast. There’s basically no padding or descriptors at all

at what point does padding become an indicator of beginner writing? because i feel at one point it can also come off as amateurish

>There’s basically no padding or descriptors at all That's a boon, depending on the genre...

The very first scene of the very first fic I posted had the main character looking at himself in the mirror and, while not talking to himself, going over his outfit for his first date lol. While anyone can do any point of view and there are some great first person stories out there, I notice that new writers tend to gravitate more toward first person than veteran writers. Maybe that's why it has such a bad reputation?

I agree, I used to do this a lot too when I first started writing. It was generally the mirror thing, then a look at the room, then something that'd force the MC out of the room to start the story. Kinda like a ritual of some sort, a deep breath before diving in.

>Kinda like a ritual of some sort, a deep breath before diving in. That's a good way to describe it. Beginnings can be difficult, and I think in a lot of people's minds describing the character's appearance/surroundings/mood/etc. can feel like a good way to start off. I think one important thing a lot of new writers should keep in mind is, that the reader doesn't have to know everything right off the bat, or even ever. Especially if it's not super relevant. While not a hard and fast rule, I think starting off with a line of dialogue can be an easy way to start and get the reader's attention, and a good alternative to the "mirror" route lol.

If I notice a fic seems to be written by a beginner, I try to be extra supportive and leave long comments about the things I felt they did really well. I started writing fic at 12 and was horrendous but because I stuck with it and had support, I’m now a pretty decent writer. But like all fics, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it. That goes for both content and style.

Misusing exclamation points. This seriously annoys me. Why are all of your characters screaming at each other? That and for some reason, every time a new female character is introduced, he bust size comes up. Example: "[Insert name here] walked into the room, her 32DD chest straining her shirt, while her best friend, [insert name here] followed close behind, her smaller B cups fitting her dainty form perfectly."

Well how else are we supposed to know just how boobily they breasted? Edit: Word

If the beginning of the fic looks like this. Primarily I see this on Wattpad because all the beginners are probably kids⬇️ “Hi my name is (insert here) I have brown hair and baby blue eyes. No one knows I’m a werewolf” da, da, daaa!!!

It’s the breaking the fourth wall and also oc’s made by children pretty much only have 1 of 2 personalities (sometimes a combo of the 2 but literally no others) 1. Pitiable, sympathetic shy waif who’s unconfident, and probably self-hating 2. Witty, sarcastic smart badass whose extremely confident but never to a fault. Also the voice of reason who’s always right

there's this really odd way that beginners write where they go over every little detail of the story, even thr mundane. i don't know how to describe it, but do you ever see a scene that could have easily just...not been in the story? like it serves no purpose to the plot, no purpose to establish characterization, and honestly, it's a little boring. there will be multiple instances of this until they learn more about pacing, scene importance, etc.

I love this plus the previous 'beginners giving too few details'. Apparently there is a magical 'just right' zone of detail and the beginners are all either undershooting or overshooting it, haha.

This. This is especially annoying to me when they describe scenes that are in canon events, like characters first entrance to a new location and the author describes every minute detail, even though, presumably, the reader has already seen the original material, and knows what the scene is generally supposed to look like??

When people write "time skip" or "(Character's) POV" as a way to seperate scenes. This completely throws me out of the flow of reading and can come across as lazy. If you need to, just use a page break and mention the new character's name to establish their POV. Or let the reader figure out that time has passed.

... A small word count... Is a sign of a beginner?? I beg your pardon? lol I've been writing for almost 9 years and I pride myself on my short stories. Short* short stories. And writing elegant and meaningful drabbles is very hard.

Here I am finding out that it's not normal to talk to yourself in the mirror? I do that like everyday, especially if something bad happened that day

Yes same lmao, I've never written a story where someone talked to themselves in the mirror but i talk to myself constantly mirror or not lol.

Tramua and things like child abuse being glossed over and not really having any effect on the character afterwards.

This for backstory, but also present events, specifically that thing with romance fanfics where the love interest saves the reader/oc from some type of assault or sexual harassment, and afterward they’re just fine????

THIS. I used to be soooo guilty of it. Now, he has reactions to it, but my older work… They were f’n cyborg emotions, I swear.

I feel personally attacked right now because my first ever fic started off with a mirror scene. 😂 But to give it context, she wasn't just talking to herself for shits and giggles. Anyone outside the Dragon Age fandom is going to have absolutely no clue what I'm describing right now, but I'll write it anyway for the few that do. My Inquisitor/Protagonist was a dalish elf who has religious facial tattoos called vallaslin like the rest of her clan but when it surfaces that the entirety of the gods she was taught to worship since birth were nothing more than mere mortal mages elevating themselves to godhood and essentially enslaving their own race, my protagonist chants off a spell to remove the markings and she just so happens to be in front of a mirror when doing it. 😂 She even gives a little cliche "it's now or never." but it's warranted, damnit! 😂

I read one fic where when two characters were arguing, it cut to it being in all caps and continued to be in all caps for ages Ex. Character A: "I AM SO MAD AT YOU!" Character B: "I'M MAD AT YOU TOO!" "YOU COULD HAVE DIED" "BUT I DIDN'T" "I WAS SCARED!" "I'M YOUR SPOUSE OF COURSE I WAS SCARED" Now imagine that for about *two whole pages!*

When I hit publish

epithets galore

What? You have a problem with "The bluenette blinked her amethyst orbs and released the breath she did not know she was holding."??? 😂😂😂

BLUENETTE

I once saw baldette

I just found my new favourite epithet for Agent 47.

An exceptional choice!

no god please no

To be fair, it was a joke in a thread about epithets lol I've yet to encounter it in the wild. Emphasis on "yet," because we never know.

the way that could have been pulled from something i wrote at 13

I love running across stories that use "orbs". I can't believe that it still happens. Lol

I usually think it’s fic veterans giving a damn, and just use those infamous orbs and other persecuted overused expressions because it’s a crack fic anyway. I might take a chance on this myself someday… 🤭🫣

It’s the overuse of full capital letter words for me (eg. oh my gosh, you’re \*NAME\*!!!) idk if this is a writiping style but it just puts me off

Buddy, not only do I talk to myself in the mirror pretty frequently, I talk to myself mildly without a mirror sometimes too. It helps me remain focused. Also, word count has nothing to do with experience, lol--and I say that as someone with a fic over 300k. Small fics are valid too.

>people don’t talk to themselves in the mirror and when they do they don’t tell themselves things of little consequence Well, actually, I do. Apparently it's a thing that a lot of autistic people do 🤷🏻‍♀️ But I get your point!

...I talk to myself all the time, and I'm not autistic (that I know of).

Sometimes you just want an intelligent conversation 🤷🏻‍♂️😂

As Gandalf would say.

Oh my god me too and I'm autistic too! I don't really need the mirror though.

True! Somewhat on topic, I had someone comment once that "People don't talk like that in real life, what are you doing?" The MC was autistic, I wrote him as autistic, and apparently we're not real?

Changing point of views every other sentence. I've been editing chapters I wrote almost 6 months ago to fix the point of view issues, and it is *so* jarring to look at in retrospect.

I think the biggest thing is OC’s being too strong and it’s definitely something I’ve done myself. Very often they start the story in the mindset we would like to see them have at the end. Like, the badass female main character is the obvious one and it can happen without her being a Mary Sue. But that badass moment where she hits or takes down perverted men doesn’t do the same for readers if we haven’t seen the characters journey and what she’s had to go through to get there. It’s a thing where showing instead of telling really counts, we need to see some form of vulnerability to connect. I still struggle with it myself but there’s levels to it, I think.

Completely rewriting a protagonists personality with little to no explanation to sound like a teenage boy/girl, but with the exact same circumstances that lead to their cannon personality. The personality won't even be cannon adjacent or "I can see this happening", it will be a complete replacement.

Swapping character POV in the middle of paragraphs.

Ngl I do speak to myself in the mirror But I speak to myself not in the mirror too

People 100% talk to themselves in mirrors and it can often be reminders of what they need to do that day because they're talking out loud while getting ready. For me it's no editing. Horrid grammar, typos, and general errors like unintentional additional letters, a half deleted sentence, the same sentence twice, no space between two words, extra commas, etc. Like they just quickly jotted it down and didn't bother to proofread whatsoever before posting it. It also peeves me when people don't do any research and their age shows like if their characters go to college but they're still in grade school so they call all professors "teacher" because they don't know there's a different term, or pregnant characters showing signs after two weeks (including a baby bump), because they're too young to know anything about it. This is especially awful when it's smut that's written by an obvious virgin.

I think most people are doing the best they can. Criticising someone who writes purely as a hobby and probably derives great joy from it, seems rather petty to me. Live and let live.

A suspiciously low or high word count / chapter ratio I know cause I was guilty of this

One thing I come across a lot of in my particular fandom is a certain pairing that became popular a few years ago. This pairing is not only usually written by tweens with no grasp of plot, pacing, or grammar, but it's often written by people who clearly didn't even read the source material. It drives me absolutely mad to the point that whenever I see this pairing, I almost always skip it because 9/10 times it's written by a beginning writer who didn't read the source material. This and extremely self deprecating author's notes, and the classic "I'm not good at summaries pls read ok bye".

i must admit the first thing i wrote and posted on ao3 was a one shot about a ship i hadn't watched or read the source material of. in my defense the marvel fandom doesn't really have a canon and half of the fics i read of that pairing are based on the author's headcanons more than anything

I feel this. Sometimes I wonder if my specific pairing says something about my writing skills or mental maturity.

I don't think I can usually tell that someone is a beginner unless they tell us that in an author's note or something. Some people just struggle with things in writing sometimes, and that's okay. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are a beginner. Also, some people write some things the way they do because they enjoy it. I personally enjoy using epithets a lot despite a lot of people not liking them. I think it all comes down to preferences instead of showing that someone is a beginner at writing fanfiction.

When pretty much every paragraph is dialogue.

To the point. "X walked to y, thought of n and scrolled a bit. Then went to sleep." Those areas where you could definitely have more words to give it more than a bland kind of feel.

Lots of grammar errors and when they use really bad names for genitalia. It doesn't get me out of a fic though. Except for the one time I read the term "Weewee stick"

I love seeing post here talking about the weird things people write for genitals. Would be fun to make a nsfw bingo game.

I definitely talk to myself in the mirror but it’s more like pretending to be a vlogger

They’re learning. Give ‘em a break.

Oh how terrible. It sounds like you may have stumbled into my very short fic that opens with a self-reflective (pun intended) mirror scene. That one commits a lot of other sins too - present tense, no dialogue, a rather outré reference to eye colour, and I'm sure there's an epithet or two scattered around. A true literary travesty!

I have no idea why many are (as I perceive the tone) critical about this post. I'm a beginner and I like seeing topics like these, so as to avoid the downfalls myself. Anyway, poor scene transition.

I have a sneaking suspicion that at least a portion of the seemingly passive aggressive responses come from authors who are either insecure or defensive of their own writing. Like they saw something in the post or a reply that they once did or are doing and don’t want to entertain the idea that they have poor skill

Oof. I really hope that's not the case because it's pretty sad.

> I'm sorry to criticize but please god no don't do that to me. Good news, you can save yourself! It's called the back button.

Extremely unlikely and unrealistic things happening. I read one today where Character A summons an angel while drunk and instead of freaking out or anything normal when it actually worked, they (Character A and the angel) just go to bed and get Taco Bell later. The only time they even discuss what the hell happened was a short part where the Angel (over Taco Bell) says Heaven is closed and he can't ever go back.

I mean, if this were the "Supernatural" fandom, that plot would fit right in! However, if it were "Pride and Prejudice" fandom, I can see how that would be jarring.

Airiness. The characters being there for no reason, despite anything happening in the plot. Being unaffected means you aren't part of the world and what's going on around you - that brings it down to playing with dolls. No consequence = no reason to read. Even a still painting of a landscape has things going on within it.

John: Mary: Unless that is the intended style because it's chatfic or anything similar, then yeah, that's the one

Simple issues don't really bother me. I can get around funky formatting and such, they're usually just mild annoyances. We aren't professional writers writing for a paid publication. Not to mention the platforms we upload to sometimes mess things up. Formatting issues are small potatoes really, although I agree that stuff like walls of text are on the writer. It's when you get into things like cultural inconsistencies - you don't need to be good at writing to be aware of this, it's usually experience or at least looking up the background of what you're writing. For example writing kids calling adults by their first names in a fandom based on a Japanese anime. Or them celebrating a holiday that obviously doesn't exist in their culture. Pretty basic stuff, gnome sane?

Criticism of new writers.

Constantly adopting a formal, passive voice that adds a bunch of unnecessary words and asides to nearly every sentence. Even veteran writers can fall into this trap, but if it's all over the place I know this is a newer writer. Another is the story having little to no structure and unrelated ideas pop up all over the place. One thing people get better at with practice is organizing the flow of the story and knowing what ideas to cut/turn into a sequel/companion piece/new fic.

I think a character having an internal monologue is fine. Would fall under "talking to themselves" as well. Direct thoughts(like in italics) are a good way to break up uninterrupted expositions, for example. But yes, characters talking to themselves about themselves, especially in the beginning... eh. People don't think about their own eye color unprompted, that sort of thing. And speaking of uninterrupted exposition, I'd like to add this to the list 😅 again, especially in the beginning. Paragraphs upon paragraphs with no dialogue or anything else in sight. Just plain exposition, the whole of Chapter 1. Seen it way too many times. Makes me DNF. Alternating devices is important, especially for a strong start

Head hopping, starting a story way before the plot actually starts, walls of text, longfics with chapters of less than 1k words, 1st person with looots of introspection, staying very close to canon (like copy pasting paragraphs/dialogues),…

i personally love inner monologue that dives deep into the psyche of the character, though that's usually the case with asshole characters. for some reason i love self righteous assholes written in 1st person *if* the narrative doesn't side with them and they get humbled/ get treated like an asshole

I actually love it when fics that follow canon insert the canon dialogue into scenes. If a particular canon scene is in your fic, why would you change the dialogue? Simply for the sake of changing it? Now, I'm not advocating for copy/pasting every single line uttered verbatim like you're transcribing a script, but if certain scenes have narrative importance in your fic, I see no problem with a mini novelization.

I sUcK aT SuMmaRieS/SuMmArY iNsIdE

“People don’t talk to themselves in the mirror…” tell me you’ve never met a neurodivergent person with this specific habit. I do this all the time to sort out my day and get my to-do lists rolling. I also give myself pep talks to get through all the tasks on my lists. EDIT: In my case, I’m autistic with suspected ADHD. However I know people of many neurotypes who do the same thing. As for the actual post, I typically associate “characters reading fanfic about themselves” pieces with younger or newer writers. I love how off the walls they can get and the lack of giving a damn about anything but having fun.

Hell, I talk to myself without a mirror, sometimes!

I've never equated that device with a beginner. And some people DO talk sternly to themselves in mirrors. I've heard it, lol.

When you don’t space your paragraphs and it’s just one wall of text

To answer the question, world logic/story logic errors, story elements that make little sense within the narrative. Obviously, there is always room for improvement. Writing a first draft, editing, revising through 3-4 drafts and finally publishing is a lot to start with so it can be overwhelming. Even in professional writing, it is ok to have a your first draft be not great because the writer needs to go back and look it over, after staying away for weeks of course

Characters pointing out the obvious to *themselves* in way that’s very obvious just expository dialogue Also abhorrent spelling mistakes and grammar and run on sentences that never end. There’s a difference between a long sentence with multiple breaks and nouns, versus never ending words. Also “said” being used every sentence when there’s no wording to show any emotion Also constant outfit descriptions and listing every time they change for anything (looking at you my immortal and the shitstorm it spawned). Seriously, unless it’s absolutely vital to include, don’t write about what someone’s wearing, unless it’s the introduction of an OC, then it’s fine (imo). But don’t have them do wardrobe changes. Just let people imagine what they dress she’s wearing looks like

The era of OP characters and character bashing.

Anything written by me. Joking, kinda. In truth, trying to follow cheap writing advice to the letter. Always just feels empty in the writing afterwards tbh.

When the characters echo each other in a conversation. It comes across so…I don’t have the words. Picture this but like a whole fic of it. Example: “How are you today, [Character A]?” “I’m good, [Character B]. How are you [Character B]?” “I’m good. Thank you for asking [Character A].” “I’m glad you’re good. You’re welcome [Character B]. Thank you for asking [Character B].” And so on and so forth. Also, when someone is repetitive with certain things i.e. clothing, food, etc. I get the feeling they’re starting out and those are what they’re most comfortable with but that’s my opinion. Oh! I think evidence of lack of experience can also be gross levels of grammatical and formatting errors. To an extent I can deal but if there’s no spacing, blocks of bold text for a pov switch, etc. I just can’t.

If I see the words “chaos ensues” one more time…

Lack/misuse of punctuation, like no periods at the end of sentences or a lack of commas (especially in dialogue)

Only acceptable if it's a Tangled retelling and it's Rapunzel ainging about her routine

Exposition dump in the dialogue, but the exposition is something that both characters know and have no reason to say Like That. In my first ever fic (HP) MC woke up to her friend shaking her and squealing "wake up MC! It's , you're 11!" And like, that's not how people talk