What bad writing habits are you trying to fix?

[spankableBelle]

And...
Just...
But...
Seemed to...
I use these too much. They're my current crutch words.

Also, inconsistency in my writing schedule.

 

[32aa]

Repeating the word "I" throughout a process of say, undressing the female character.

"I unbuttoned her blouse slowly. Then reaching behind, I unclasped her bra and then I slowly pulled the straps off her shoulders. I let my eyes gaze down her bare chest to two firm breasts."

Instead.

"Her silky blouse opened with gentle touches of my fingers. The clasp followed easily until the sex bra just hung off her smooth shoulders. A little shake and gravity did the rest revealing the most beautiful sight in the universe."

 

[SimonDoom]

Repeating the word "I" throughout a process of say, undressing the female character.

"I unbuttoned her blouse slowly. Then reaching behind, I unclasped her bra and then I slowly pulled the straps off her shoulders. I let my eyes gaze down her bare chest to two firm breasts."

Instead.

"Her silky blouse opened with gentle touches of my fingers. The clasp followed easily until the sex bra just hung off her smooth shoulders. A little shake and gravity did the rest revealing the most beautiful sight in the universe."

The other thing you do in this passage is focus on the verbs. I think that's a key of better writing. Trim the adjectives and adverbs, and try to find the right verbs so you can focus on the action and keep it in the active voice. All three of your sentences are in active rather than passive voice. The rhythm of each sentence is different from the others, as well.

 

[Djmac1031]

My characters sigh, shrug, smile, chuckle and laugh a lot when speaking.

He sighed.
She shrugged.
They laughed.

It's especially tough when writing conversations between two or more characters.

He said.
She said.
He asked.
She answered.

I am finding myself going back and editing a lot of that nonsense out, although it's easier when only two characters are speaking. You can just write their dialog and let the words hopefully convey the contextual emotions / responses.

Still, I think it's probably more repetitive than it actually is. At some point in any story, "he said / she said" becomes a necessary evil.

 

[writerzblok92]

Editing while writing. Totally kills my progress. I judge my writing and it's never good

 

[Jmanchu]

My biggest bad one? Procrastination. Got back into it a couple weeks, and I just have get my ass in gear and finish some stories. And I've been working on taking out words like "seemed" "felt" "saw" "heard" "realized" etc. when it's unnecessary to make for more direct narrative feel to the prose.

 

[RoperTrace]

My characters sigh, shrug, smile, chuckle and laugh a lot when speaking.

He sighed.
She shrugged.
They laughed.

It's especially tough when writing conversations between two or more characters.

He said.
She said.
He asked.
She answered.

I am finding myself going back and editing a lot of that nonsense out, although it's easier when only two characters are speaking. You can just write their dialog and let the words hopefully convey the contextual emotions / responses.

Still, I think it's probably more repetitive than it actually is. At some point in any story, "he said / she said" becomes a necessary evil.

 

[RoperTrace]

My characters sigh, shrug, smile, chuckle and laugh a lot when speaking.

He sighed.
She shrugged.
They laughed.

It's especially tough when writing conversations between two or more characters
He said.
She said.
He asked.
She answered.

I am finding myself going back and editing a lot of that nonsense out, although it's easier when only two characters are speaking. You can just write their dialog and let the words hopefully convey the contextual emotions / responses.

Still, I think it's probably more repetitive than it actually is. At some point in any story, "he said / she saidradn" becomes a necessary evil.

I'm guilty of 'sighed, laughed, said' etc. also. Trying to improve my dialog's and think it's improved. I've just been writing the conversations and implying who said it. I'll attempt to make it obvious. But my old habits creep back in, and rather than getting hung up on using 'said', I keep the writing process moving. When I do one of my many re-reads and edits, I sometimes remove 'said.'

 

[Jonnymc]

Trying to not attach personal feelings or bias to the characters when writing new material is hard, feeling like I'm holding back multiple ideas for the sake of morality, maybe more character development and and plot development is required, to help solve this delema

 

[EmilyMiller]

Author injection.

Then it’s hard to avoid in mostly autobiographical work .

Em

 

[Andrew1968]

Not seeing the characters clearly in my mind and not watching what they are doing and not listening to what they are saying. I tend to sit at my desk here with my eyes closed a lot trying to see/hear what is going on with these damned characters. Things go wrong when I'm not focusing on the characters and not tuned in to what they are saying and doing. I tend to look at hundreds of images of women/men when I'm trying to find a character in my head somewhere. Other problems: not being concerned enough with the overall plot of the story and not eliminating enough repetitive unnecessary words. Oh, and another one: using people's names too often - big problem. I love the seduction most - I just wanna write long seduction stories, but I think it would be useful having some other storyline besides that. I just wanna make my readers jerk off - that's my problem I guess...

 

[SamScribble]

Still, I think it's probably more repetitive than it actually is. At some point in any story, "he said / she said" becomes a necessary evil.

'Also,' he said, 'never underestimate the value of "he said" as a device to slow things down. A lot of amateur writing is just too rushed. Let the reader savour the words. Give them a moment or two to create the pictures in their mind. The end will still be there at the end.'