(Idea for this obviously stolen from Sei Shonagon’s “Hateful Things.” Hilarious and true. Thanks for the reminder, fellow dwank. Also, these are just my complaints. Don’t take this as advice though some of this sounds like advice. If you disagree about anything here, make your own stupid list.)
Bad names. I cannot stress this enough. I once had the pleasure of reading a story with a protagonist named Diamond. Fuck you, fucker, what the fuck is that? I avoid this altogether by not naming my main characters. Sure, this may be taking the easy way out, but at least I don’t get responses like, “Taylor Kelly Josephine McIntyre? What kind of bullshit name is that?” The way I see it though, unless you’re really good and you have a clue as to what you’re doing, main characters can’t be properly named. I only name insignificant characters because they mean nothing, because they can be labeled. Main characters can’t be labeled. They’re not their names; they’re what they do, and if they’re good characters, what they do can’t even be pinned down. So how can their names, their labels be so easily pinned down? Better to not in such circumstances. If you have bad characters, by all means, name them.
Poorly chosen details of any character’s physical appearance. Chiselled chin; sharp, intelligent, aqua-blue eyes; etc. Oh, Lord. Even worse, I’ve seen height and weight written down in figures. If one can effectively pull off physical description, be my fucking guest, but I don’t need five paragraphs about his broad shoulders and high cheekbones. Honestly, I think two sentences are enough. And a common mistake is thinking you have to describe the character in one shot. If there’s any physical description in my stories, it’s usually scattered. I don’t know why people have such a hard time with this concept. (The only recent time I’ve ever physically described a character was through another character’s eyes. Other physical descriptions I confess to writing were all written before I turned 12.)
Poorly chosen details of anything. Can’t even discuss this here. It just makes me weep. Nothing to be said, really. You either just get it right, or you don’t.
Contrived characters. During The Overlook Press internship, I read a manuscript whose main character is an unattractive, dirty, sandal-wearing, long-red-haired hippie (yes, the word “hippie” is actually used) who, in the first chapter of this mystery-thriller, saves kittens from a garbage dumpster. No. No. No. FUCK NO. This is called “Trying to Create a Character So Original and Astereotypical, One Creates Unreadable Shit.” Don’t do it. I’m fucking begging you. It’s one thing to create stereotypical characters (like the blue-eyed mess two paragraphs above), but it’s quite another to put this shit on paper and waste my time.
Horrendous and unnatural dialogue. You know it when you hear it. My most recent and memorable encounter with atrocious dialogue was in the movie Gone Baby Gone. I had to stop watching the movie 15 minutes in because it was so fucking bad. “Make me a martini! Make me a fucking martini!” shouts dumbass detective Casey Affleck to a bartender as he is escorted from a bar.
Sub-complaint of above: I love witty banter as much as the next person, but too much is irregular. I’d rather have a page full of pleonasmus and tautology. Why? Because people talk like that. See Pinter’s The Homecoming, which is a brilliant depiction of the bleakness of everyday conversation.
Synonymizing. Hateful. Especially attempts to use “guffaw” and “interject” and other such hateful words, which J.K. Rowling uses. I closed Harry Fucking Potter right there and then – not to mention the noticeable fact that she does other things on this list. If you mean “eyes,” just fucking say “eyes.” I mean, what the whore are these “crystal orbs?” That’s not descriptive. That’s just bad.
Obvious symbols. Broken, or often “shattered,” glass. The worst. Don’t be an asshole – just don’t do it. Dead leaves. No. Falling snow. Waves and water. No. No. No. No. No. Etc. Symbols, also, in case you didn’t know, should never be explained in the narrative. Huge mistake that just makes me want to puke out my intestines.
First-person narration. If you’re not a good writer, by which I mean goddamn awesome, stay away from this. I don’t touch this muck (and I’m goddamn awesome). I really think only amateurs and idiots attempt this point of view – amateurs because they’re idiots, idiots because they’re amateurs. They assume it’s the easiest point of view because “Hey, look at me, I live my life in first-person narration, and I can just write whatever the character’s thinking in his or her head because that’s first-person narration.” Bad writers abuse this narrative perspective way too much. It’s quite disgusting. Charles Dickens could barely pull it off, and you think you can?
To end and make you all think you are above-average writers, here are some excerpts I took down during the summer I spent reading shit manuscripts for Overlook. These are all real. People actually sat down, wrote these on paper, and believed it was worthy of publication. I kid you not. For fun, I grade each of them.
“Cathal is tall, lanky, and has sparkling deep blue eyes with curly, tousled hair.”
— This can’t even be saved. I’m not going to try. F.
“He looked at her as if she’d grown another head.”
— F.
“Rank fumes of whiskey rose from his person.”
— He smelled of whiskey. But obviously this needs more to have any real effect. F.
“…where people conversed brilliantly.”
— I don’t even know what the fuck this really means. F.
“She hurled a hateful look at me, her dark eyebrows joining together in a squirrel’s tail.”
— The fuck? Trying way too fucking hard. F.
“Desperate, she stumbles away from her tormentor, but he keeps coming. Beyond him, she sees her daughters helplessly flailing in their captors’ grasp.”
— Jesus H. Christ. By the way, these tormentors/captors turned out to be pirates. F.
“Her large, luminous eyes, ever a magical mixture of fire and ocean, were of a hue that changed with her moods.”
— Oh my Jesus. F.
“For all my life, I prided myself on the fact that I was totally self reliant and need no one.”
— Just shut the hell up. F.
