Confronting Creative Writing Habits Editors Hate

"It was a dark and stormy night when suddenly…."

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be an editor for a big publishing firm? Think of how many manuscripts they must read. Correction—think of how many manuscripts they must start to read.

I’ve often wondered what criteria they use to kick a book to the curb. I’m sure plot and characters are up there, but what about wording issues the beginner or even average writer may commit?

I knew suddenly was a no-no. But what else? I decided to do some research. Here are three of the more helpful sites I visited:

10 dialogue mistakes

Jerry Gross’ “The Most Common Mistakes I See in Fiction Manuscripts--And What to Do About Them”

“Words Editors Hate” discussion thread

There are tons of issues there to talk about. I’m focusing on three:

1. Death by adverb – The whole problem with adverbs is they tell the readers what to think, leaving them little room for imagination. Wouldn’t you rather figure out that Jeff was angry because he spat and kicked the gravel than “Jeff angrily replied…”? If you have to tell readers how something happens, you rob them of getting to see it in their mind’s eye.
2. Death by overactive action tags – To me this faux pas goes hand in hand with adverbs. We are caught between the need to paint a picture of what’s happening as our characters talk while not thinking for readers. I’m not saying we should turn Cormac McCarthy and use only “said” for every tag with no variation at all. But I think the trick is to put the detail into the dialogue and description and then we won’t feel the need to get cute with characters exhorting, chortling, and other -ings.
3. Death by cliché – Ick. It happens to the best of us. This is just where revision comes in.

So what can we do to improve?

1. Read. Seems like that’s a theme here. But seeing others navigate these pitfalls can give us ideas.
2. Be observant. How do you describe people? Get beyond “short, tall, blond, skinny.” What about the girl who looks like she bites her fingernails. What about the guy who always fidgets with his belt buckle. (As I re-read it, I'd like to give these descriptions more dimension, but this is a jumping off point to show how each layer of detail makes a story that much more real.) These are the action details about people that make them feel authentic beyond blond/tall/skinny. Learn character traits that you can put to work on your characters (and details you can use for places) without resorting to adverbs, action tags, and clichés.

So if you’re suddenly caught in a dark and stormy night, I guess take along a book and do some people-watching. What about you, aspiring writer? What are your fiction writing pet peeves and how have you learned to combat them?