I’d comment on my hill, but I need to get my crazy stories out of my head/daydreams and on to paper (or a word document) first!
I must beat writers block.
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When I was very young I did a novel critique swap. The author had one character in her generic fantasy novel who was very critical of the young, blonde, pretty, awkward, chosen one heroine. This side character was a “raven haired goth” who kept inadvertently making very valid criticisms of the main character’s actions, yet whom the author seemed to hate with every fibre of her being. I loved this goth bitch. Thinking about the story from her perspective was way more entertaining than the fairly bog standard chosen one narrative.
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You don’t need to give a character trauma/a tragic backstory to make them interesting. Characters can have a perfectly normal childhood and still be complex and multidimensional. NPCs that grow and develop alongside the plot (rather than get pushed around by it) are so fun to read about. Not that sad backstories are bad! I do love a good dose of angst, but your angstless NPCs can be just as strong too.
Also +1 on the “diversity is unrealistic/pandering” thing… I’m East Asian, grew up in the UK, and the majority of my friends are POC or LGBT or both. It wasn’t like I went round putting up casting calls so I could cultivate a friend group that met my diversity quota, this was just something that happened naturally. So it does makes me wonder what kind of bubble some people live in when they complain that a piece of media is too diverse… Your straight white friend group isn’t a accurate representation of the real world either, y’know.
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Agreed! It bugs me when I see authors telling their readers “wait until I reveal this character’s tragic backstory” or “strap yourself, my story is going to be full of angst!” Like…what? lol Sometimes people act the way they act because they were born this way. Not everyone has a “tragic backstory” and, frankly, I’m getting sick of both “angst” and “tragic backstories” getting thrown around like they replace actual depth in your story.
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HELL YES. In interactive fiction it’s really, really boring to have one path where the player “succeeds” which is long and well written, and another where they “fail” which is short and boring. In the extreme, I’d say that getting a “game over” is a failure of game design.
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Idk if this counts cause I’ve only heard some people not like it but I love when Choice Games and books change the pov to another character for a little bit so we can hear their thoughts and experience the story from their perspective a little bit even if its a repeated scene just from their angle.
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There is a place for adverbs,
Characters with stereotypical traits can be fine- sometimes girls giggle- just make sure not all the characters are like this,
I’m not bothered if the persepective switches in the same paragraph (Terry Pratchett did this a lot)- so long as it’s clear what’s happening,
Conversely, I hate when the authors tell you the future to add drama or emphasise description- even Stephen King does this. If I read, say, “The old man told his family he’d be back- but he would be proven wrong”, not only does this take me out of the action, but I spend the next three chapters knowing this poor bloke’s going to snuff it.
Colloquialisms and obscure references are welcome- they can add presonality to a story, and I’m happy to look things up and expand my knowledge
Long words for the sake of long words are not ok. If it’s for dialogue, to avoid repetition, does what a more common word can’t or is used for poetic assonance then fine- if not, all I’m thinking is “the author is trying to show off their vocabulary”,
Similarly, if a writer has thoroughly researched a topic, but can only get two sentences out of it that are useful to their story, then that’s all they should use- I don’t need to read half a page about the history of the gatling gun just because the writer’s spent a whole day in a museum to get their facts right,
I would rather have the characters names repeated often then completely lose track of who’s saying what in a three-way conversation,
Breaking the fourth wall is fine if it’s done well and used sparingly (or maybe often if that’s the point of the story),
Making words up is welcome if it’s the kind of story where a little quirkiness helps (I’m not going to read ‘greeny’ and then reach for a dictionary to check if it’s there when I fully know what the intended meaning is)
Also, I really appreciate a good descriptive word to replace “said”.
And I’ll stop there… as my intention of a short reply has turned into a long venting session. Thanks for this thread- I feel better now 
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I don’t know about you, but Gower really opened my eyes about this one. 
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You know, I absolutely loathe David Cage’s works, but I will say that, regarding interactive fiction, he was right about that. What’s the point of giving me multiple options if you’ll just invalidate what I picked and, in some instances, kill my character off? Either don’t add that branch you clearly don’t want to write, or work more on it.
(I do hope you were quoting David Cage, otherwise I sound crazy lol He said something like that word for word a few years back.)
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Lol no I just played DBH (gotta give Kara a happy ending damnit) and that was exactly what I was thinking. I was just too lazy to look up the exact quote. You’re good.
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Haha, yeah, I know that it’s standard writing practice not to mess with “said”- I should, of course, put a disclaimer out there saying that all views expressed are my own!
Personally, I’ve never minded Sherlock Holmes ejaculating… so to speak 
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Weird… What I have gathered from published writers, its better to use “said” than more descriptive words. Except if you add sentence of action.
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You’re right- this is definitely the favoured viewpoint but… as the title of the forum states- this is my hill! It doesn’t need to be anyone else’s 
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Yeah, I get it. 
Hmm, took me a day of thinking about my hills. And I couldn’t think of one. Either I don’t know myself enough as a writer or I need some people to challenge me more. Or… I’m just sadist who likes to kill his darlings. 
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I tend to dislike pure good characters more than evil or gray characters. I mean you don’t even need an motivation on why the character is good, it’s just a normal thing apparently. And then from their dialogue is pretty generic because they’re so nice. I prefer good guys who at the very least can tease people, not out of any sort of angst but because that’s how they are. Evil people can run into the same problem of not having motivation (I don’t think it important all the time either, usually the goal is broad enough for you to have a good idea why) but you have much more freedom with their interactions.
Also characters can disagree morally and ideologically and not break apart their relationship. And they don’t need to come around to the others viewpoint either. On the inverse side don’t have a major disagreement on something and make nothing of it. A lot of times I’ve seen works just kind of stick to one or other no matter what type of disagreement as if they’re the same
Selfish doesn’t equal evil.
God this is such a huge problem for me.
Quoth? Murmered? Trotted out? Replied? espoused? Gasped? Breathed out? Choked out? Verb out? Verbosed? Boasted?
Ejaculated?
I dislike using said multiple times in a row but also dislike seeing weird words to specifically avoid it (like ejaculated)
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Heh, I feel I need to explain myself more! Obviously “ejaculated” sounds a bit daft now due to the shift in language meaning/ context so let’s replace it with “exclaimed”. Here are a few examples of how (almost) the same information could be conveyed:
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“So that means the Major’s the killer,” Sherlock exclaimed.
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“…the killer,” Sherlock said, excitedly.
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“…the killer,” Sherlock said with an exclamation.
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“…the killer,” Sherlock said.
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“…the killer,” Sherlock said, leaping out of his chair and scrambling for his coat.
For me, 5) is the best to use because body language/ physical action is the most vivid means of description. If this was unavailable (I dunno, maybe he’s tied to the chair, or something), then I’d favour 1) because I like writing in a compact way- and this is the most economical way of getting the information across- apart from 4) which doesn’t give enough description. Although, for this example, you could also use an exclamation mark.
It’s been pointed out that replacing “said” can turn into a kind of arms race but, like with adverbs, I think if you use alternatives sparingly and only when it’s the best option, they can add some colour to the prose.
Obviously, this is not everyone’s opinion- and some people would like the act of speaking to be referred to so it becomes noticed almost subconciously but… my hill, my rules 
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“So that means the Major’s the killer!" Sherlock leapt to his feet, ripping the pipe from between his teeth and hurling it into the fireplace.
If the words are followed by immediate action, I skip the tag and dive right in. I remember in school my English teachers were obsessed with replacing said with any other word. It was one of the hardest habits for me to break and unlearn.
As for the Hill I would die on… I would say Diversity is more natural than homogeny, always. I’m honestly sick of media that doesn’t contain only white males being labeled “woke” or “progressive”.
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I struggled with this a lot. As a reader of old literature, I actually wrote ‘ejaculated’ as an attribution word in a first draft (I believe it was for Bly) and that got revised real quick, lol 
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I’m still convinced dialogue grammar is something made up by English teachers specifically to spite students.
In all seriousness though, every form of media that includes some kind of narrative contains a theme, whether that theme was imparted on purpose from the writer or not. And this isn’t high school English class BS, it’s just the way art works!
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Frequent use of adjectives makes good prose and engaging writing!!
I don’t know why but some people out there really hate adjectives.
Edit: also, adverbs are good and help ground the world and deepen immersion. Fite me!
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