(no subject)

[louiselux]

I should have typed up more of the Sherlock Holmes meets Crowley story tonight, yet instead I played Thief for an hour. I wrote on the train home though, and on the train this morning.  The thing about writing in longhand is that it results in what manual workers call double handling. A longhand version is even more of a first draft than a typed first draft - more of it changes in the typing up, almost like I'm writing it from scratch.  As it is, Holmes and Crowley are engaged in an exhausting conversation, so I'll leave them there until 7am tomorrow. 

Recently I've seriously cut back on my use of 'really'.  I was just using it too much - I really couldn't write without it, it was really the centre of universe, taking all my time, my money and…

CTRL F for each instance of 'really', because see above. Now I'm down to one really per fic, if that, which is cool. I can manage that. 

Does any one else have this problem - is there a word that takes over your fic?

Comments

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yes! "Suddenly" and the verb "to wonder." Argh.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

God, yes, I recognise both of those as words which can be just *too* easy to use. Like 'looked' and 'seemed'.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhh! Holmes and Crowley!

And as for word infestations, everyone in my fics used to do things "after a long moment". I don't think anyone's done that for a while, though, although now they tend to do things "suddenly", the impulsive bastards.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Holmes and Crowley are still staring at each other in disbelief. Oh dear.

'Suddenly' appears to be quite a common one. I dread trying to thnk of another way to say it, and also another way to describe a pause. Hmm, perhaps I'll nick your 'after a long moment'. *g*

[ekaterinn.livejournal.com]

I tend to begin sentences with "And" in my fic. It's a cool effect if used rarely, but repeated loses its charms. ^^;

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Heh. I like to do that as well, but like you say, oft repeated it looses its sparkle. I find that I use it mostly when writing dialogue-- it seems naturalistic. But now I might cut back on that too, for a bit.

[temaris.livejournal.com]

I just noticed, just this week, that I tend to use 'just' just a little bit too much.

It makes me paranoid that I've missed something else...

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Just stop!

Yes, it's alarming how these things are suddenly noticeable - I must have been using 'really' too much for months before it hit me.

[lisa-bee.livejournal.com]

Oooh, Sherlock Holmes and Crowley. That sounds very interesting.

When I'm writing, I have to constantly check my sentance structure to make sure it's not too complex, or too passive. And weed out adverbs. But I don't know if there's one word that gives me problems by popping up all over the place. Hmm.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Oh, adverbs! I tend to CTRL F for words like feel or felt, or was, then try and make the descriptive bits a bit more lively.

[lisa-bee.livejournal.com]

I try to use descriptive verbs. Of course, then I usually go through with a comb and weed out the overly ornate bits, because sometimes, an 'is' or 'was' just fits.

Sometimes. Unfortunately, most of the time when I have boring bits in my writing it is not the studied result of overediting, but me being lazy about going over and fussing with my prose.

[randomblade.livejournal.com]

Commas and parentheses tend to take over my sentences. They never seem to end. I try to write in short sentences but it never feels right. I don't like full stops, maybe because as a learning to write child, I could never figure out where the capital letters should go (a result, I think, of learning german grammatical structures at the same time.) I always just capitalised the words which I thought were important. So I used to get 'Capital letter after the full stop' written on my work. So I radically cut down on my full stops. I'm actually not sure that this is the reason for my long sentences, or whether I just like babbling, but it's a good theory innit? :P

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

I've heard that Germn uses capital letters far more than English - that must be incredibly confusing if, like, you, you learnt them at the same time. No wonder you developed a style that cut them out as much as possible - actually I think that's rather wonderful:)

[cygny.livejournal.com]

When I'm writing a lot, there are words which I notice appearing more often, but it varies in periods. And of course, now that you ask me this, I can't come up with any of them right now ^^;;; Oh wait, in comments I noticed I started using quite a bit 'as for' when I want to change the subject. But as I said, it'll pass and there'll be something else soon.
And yay for Crowley and Sherlock :D

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Crowley and Sherlock are being bad and not talking to each other. They're bloody awkward to write, but I shall perservere!