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Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

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Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#21

Post by aetherson »

ABCLAW wrote: post #19
Animats wrote: post #12

From the article: Many writers rely more heavily on pronouns than I’d suggest is useful. For me this sort of thing comes under the heading Remember that Writing Is Not Speaking. When we talk, we can usually make ourselves understood even amid a flood of vague “he”s and “she”s. On the page, too many pronouns are apt to be confounding. I’d strongly suggest to the point of insistence that you avoid referring to two peop…

I prefer the author's version. What you have gained in brevity, you have lost many times over in tone, pace and depth. The author's repetitions are not errors - they highlight his insistence. Additionally, despite ample pronoun use, his text is clear and illustrative of his point.

I don't think that the author's complaints about overuse of pronouns are meant to include the first or second person, just the third.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#22

Post by winter_blue »

Animats wrote: post #12

From the article: Many writers rely more heavily on pronouns than I’d suggest is useful. For me this sort of thing comes under the heading Remember that Writing Is Not Speaking. When we talk, we can usually make ourselves understood even amid a flood of vague “he”s and “she”s. On the page, too many pronouns are apt to be confounding. I’d strongly suggest to the point of insistence that you avoid referring to two peop…

I bought Benjamin Dreyer (the author)'s book on writing style, and the arrogant title of his book alone should have been a red flag. I'd strognly recommend On Writing Well instead.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#23

Post by asark »

Someone1234 wrote: post #18
coat wrote: post #9

There should be a version of this for hacker news comments and tech blog posts. Every time I see the phrase 'that said' or 'that being said' I involuntarily cringe. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...

Can you explain why? The phase allows you, after having made a point, to invert that point then suggest an alternative explanation or perspective. I read a few of the posts in the search results, and "That being said" felt natural in many cases to join sometimes contradictory positions or different degrees of the same position together into one fluid thought. Someone can cringe at anyone. Without offering critique, i…

Not sure what the exact complaint is here, though using said or sounds to refer to something written can be considered a defect. Comes up often in speech, too. One would substitute "read" or "reads" or something like that.

Also, using stock phrases—especially ones that are overused—where a word would do ("however" or something along those lines) is often discouraged.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#24

Post by scott_s »

ABCLAW wrote: post #19
Animats wrote: post #12

From the article: Many writers rely more heavily on pronouns than I’d suggest is useful. For me this sort of thing comes under the heading Remember that Writing Is Not Speaking. When we talk, we can usually make ourselves understood even amid a flood of vague “he”s and “she”s. On the page, too many pronouns are apt to be confounding. I’d strongly suggest to the point of insistence that you avoid referring to two peop…

I prefer the author's version. What you have gained in brevity, you have lost many times over in tone, pace and depth. The author's repetitions are not errors - they highlight his insistence. Additionally, despite ample pronoun use, his text is clear and illustrative of his point.

Same. The edited version loses the author's voice - which is what good editing is not supposed to. And the aside about same-sex romance authors goes from a personal anecdote to a general statement. Personal anecdotes are more entertaining.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#26

Post by [deleted] »

apo wrote: post #2

My own pet peeve in non-fiction, particularly the kind that appears on blogs: the excruciating warmup before the author finally gets to the point of the post. I know why this happens. When you sit down to write, you don't know what exactly you're going to say. You may even be anxious about it. Then, an idea sparks your imagination and you start writing stuff. The warmup that comes out initially gets you on track. Not…

[deleted]

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#27

Post by adelie »

jbattle wrote: post #11
nn3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is even worse in internet recipes. The authors tend to go on and on about their feelings, family and personal stories before finally getting to the point how to actually cook the dish. I usually have to skip several paragraphs.

I think that 'fluff' is actually interesting content to the bulk of people landing on that page. I know folks who read recipes for fun, I expect they genuinely enjoy reading the color commentary just like I might enjoy reading some 'extraneous' content in a movie/album review

am one of those people!

depends a lot on the commentary, though - i probably don't care about your feelings (sorry) or descriptive prose. on the other hand, when i'm looking up a recipe from another culture, i really value commentary on the background or history of the dish.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#28

Post by kleer001 »

fanpuns wrote: post #25

It a my first time to see lithub.com. I was hoping it would be like Github for writers, but was disappointed. Does anyone know if such a thing exists?

There's https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/

and

https://english.stackexchange.com/

I'm not entirely sure what would be on a literature GitHub.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#29

Post by coat »

Someone1234 wrote: post #18
coat wrote: post #9

There should be a version of this for hacker news comments and tech blog posts. Every time I see the phrase 'that said' or 'that being said' I involuntarily cringe. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=...

Can you explain why? The phase allows you, after having made a point, to invert that point then suggest an alternative explanation or perspective. I read a few of the posts in the search results, and "That being said" felt natural in many cases to join sometimes contradictory positions or different degrees of the same position together into one fluid thought. Someone can cringe at anyone. Without offering critique, i…

I don't really have a good explanation other than we already have words like 'However' and 'But'. It also seems redundant, maybe just start typing your contradictory position without the need for a connecting phrase?

That being said, it may just be me who is annoyed by the phrase. I think it just gets used a lot and I can't help but notice for some reason. I think I've associated the phrase with strawman arguments and my hollow cringe is unfair judgement.

Re: Bad Habits Creeping into Your Writing?

#30

Post by fanpuns »

kleer001 wrote: post #28
fanpuns wrote: post #25

It a my first time to see lithub.com. I was hoping it would be like Github for writers, but was disappointed. Does anyone know if such a thing exists?

There's https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/ and https://english.stackexchange.com/ I'm not entirely sure what would be on a literature GitHub.

When I was first exposed to Medium (which was before I started coding), the coolaborative notes and highlights really felt like what I would want a literature github to be.

Just as a thought experiment, it's interesting that I think nothing of forking and maintaining a codebase for personal use, but I can't imagine participating in the writing of stories in the same way. Literature seems to maintain the primacy of the 'maintainer', but if I think about the evolution of storytelling generally, this doesn't seem to have always been the case

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