Now that I’ve workshopped five manuscripts with my writers group, they’ve gotten a pretty good idea of my writing quirks. We have a good rapport as well, so I fully expect to get teased when one of my recurring tropes shows up. The question is, are these quirks something that needs to get ironed out of my writing? Not necessarily. If my writing was perfectly generic, with nothing to set it apart from anyone else’s, it would have nothing new to offer readers. It’s those distinctive qualities that endear us to particular writers, bringing us back to their books over and over again because we like what we find there.
Having said that, I will acknowledge that not every quirk is endearing. Some are merely repetitive, tiresome or grating. And because the writing process flows at a much different rate than the reading process, it can be all too easy for a writer to miss their own foibles until someone with an outside perspective points them out. Once they’re aware, that writer has to make an honest assessment of whether a particular feature serves a functional purpose or detracts from the quality of their writing. Does it help establish a unique, engaging voice or it is grating? Does it create engaging plotlines or are they hopelessly predictable?
These answers will, of course, vary from one writer to another. There are genres with hugely enthusiastic readerships whose predictable plotlines are a feature rather than a bug. We want the mystery to be properly resolved at the end of every cozy mystery; we want the couple to get together in a romantic comedy. Naturally there are exceptions to these tropes, but they only work if they provide some alternative means of satisfying the audience. The important thing is for a writer to be deliberate about their quirks rather than oblivious.
So why don’t we look at a few recurring features of my writing and see what we can learn? We’ll start with stylistic quirks. I have learned, during the grind of the revision process, that I have a favorite sentence structure. “Verbing adverbly, she verbed.” Occasionally it’s reversed: “She verbed, verbing adverbly.” Objectively there’s nothing wrong with that structure (though the overuse of -ly adverbs is a different problem that I’m also acutely {see? another one right there} aware of) but if it shows up too frequently, it becomes jarring, even sing-song. It’s just something I have to watch out for.
I also love commas a bit too much. In their most basic sense, they signal a pause in the flow of the sentence. So I’ll read a sentence out loud and ask myself whether I would take a breath there or not. If not, the comma is eliminated. Or sometimes it’s a sign that the sentence is too long and needs to be split into smaller ones. Yes, I like long sentences. And esoteric vocabulary. I’ll go ahead and blame that on all those vocabulary units we were assigned in junior high and high school. Truth is, I love learning new words and incorporating them into my daily speech. Fun, but not always the right choice for my novels. I have to make sure the characters are speaking in their own voices rather than a thinly-veiled version of my own diction.
There’s plenty more stylistic tics, but let’s move on to big picture stuff. Nearly all of my books can check off all these features:
- Is the protagonist a fiercely principled idealist who gradually becomes more and more displeased with the current government and/or society, and decides to fight against it?
2. Is there an overly-talkative character who has long, one-sided conversations with a taciturn character?
3. Is said taciturn character a gruff, hardened type who has a secret inner heart of soft mush? Are they the primary love interest?
4. Is there at least one scene with a gaggle of little children interacting with the protagonist?
5. Does the climax involve the emergence of an inexplicable magic that changes the protagonist beyond all understanding and terrifies the onlookers so much that they agree to whatever the protagonist demands?
Okay, that last one only applies to four of my books, but that’s still a significant pattern. What do these tropes mean? Maybe I struggle to create inventive but believable climaxes. That’s definitely something to consider and work on. But maybe I also love magic that represents the ineffable, those wonders that surpass our limited capacities. Maybe I adore little kids, soft-hearted curmudgeons, and idealists. Nothing wrong with that, especially if I can find a readership who feels the same. I could identify certain tropes and quirks from my favorite authors that I can’t get enough of. Again, the important thing is to be deliberate. When I become aware of these recurring bits, it facilitates a bit of writerly self-assessment about what can be kept, refined or discarded.
Now I’ll just take a look at this post before publishing it and find out how many quirks have shown up….
cynthiaailshie 