Bad Habits?

[Guest]

Yes, I'm talking about bad writing habits here, not any other kind!

The one thing I get picked up on, when I ask other writers to critique my work, is my bad habit of having run-on sentences (comma splices). I think it must be the way I write, kinda as it flows into my head. I try to look out for them now, but, even after I have gone through and done what I feel is a thorough edit, there's always one or two that slip through the net.

Does anybody else have this problem, or a different recurring problem?

Lou

P.S. Here's a link to a good webpage about run-on sentences, and how to rectify them. I've found it's helped me! Run-on Sentences, Comma Splices

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I don't know. With all the revising and editing I do, I think I'm pretty much in control of my style and language, and the things I do that bug other people are usually done intentionally. People might argue with some of my punctuation (I tend to use semicolons a lot) but I stand ready to defend what I do.

I also use very long sentences on occasion, but that's done on purpose, to get a certain tone and kind of rolling sonority. I pay a lot of attention to the rhythm of sentences, and sometimes I want long, humpy, convoluted strings of words; sometimes I want the sentences to be more short and staccato. It's just another tool in the box.

The one thing I was taken to task for lately by an editor was the use of "said adverbally" attribution statements. You know: "he said swiftly", "she muttered complacently". The edior said that wasn't acceptable but I stood by my guns and said that I'd done it with full awareness of what I was doing and that they were necessary, and he backed down.

---dr.M.

 

[minsue]

I want to be Dr M when I grow up.

- Mindy, merciless abuser of commas & parenthesis

 

[shereads]

I use dashes - lots of them - where parentheses ought to be, and I use far too many parenthetical phrases. These are habits that I developed over years of working in advertising, on tight deadlines, for clients who are invariably suspicious of any punctuation other than commas and periods.

For six years, I worked for a man who forbade the use of semicolons because, as he put it, "You and I and maybe three other people in the whole stupid populace are the only ones who know what a semicolon is for." Personally, I don't think a reader needs to know what a semicolon is for; it's simply there, like a curb between the street and the sidewalk. Even I don't know what it's for. It just seems to belong in certain places.

I've been using semicolons like a maniac ever since I left that company; with six years of semicolon deprivation, I seem to find a need for one wherever I turn.

 

[raphy]

Bad writing habits. Hmm. I don't know.. I have a bad habit of starting sentences or paragraphs with "And then" which is terrifically grammatically incorrect, but as of yet, I haven't figured out any other way of impacting what I want to feel on my reader.

Like Dr. M, I use long sentences, but they're intentional when I do - I also use short, grammatically incorrect sentence fragments, and they're also intentional.

I'm not really sure. I guess that most of my 'bad habits' are style related and come from my desire to avoid certain overused things in my writing.

So I don't know if you'd call them bad habits at all.

 

[McKenna]

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[Guest]

...

Dr. M. or anyone else who's worked with editors-- How do you know when to "stick to your guns" regarding editing, and when to give in?

That's the thing.

Dr M. you made some very good points. I once tried to argue that it could be an issue of style, but I was jumped on by at least three "experts" (HA!), who told me that no, it was fundamentally wrong. Style is one thing, blatent errors are another.

I use a lot of short, choppy sentences, too, oh, and how I love the semicolon. I'm not afraid to use that. It's just these damn run-ons (see, the first one in this paragraph was. )

Thanks for the replies so far! Cool!

Lou

 

[A7inchPhildo]

Thanks Katie,

That was a great site. I plan on taking a closer look at it when I return back home.

Shit! Now I feel concious of what, and how I am responding on this thread.

Good grief!

Phildo

 

[McKenna]

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[Guest]

Thanks Katie,

That was a great site. I plan on taking a closer look at it when I return back home.

Shit! Now I feel concious of what, and how I am responding on this thread.

Good grief!

Phildo

Cheers, Phil! Glad you found it useful. I know I did.

And, yes, I know exactly what you mean.

Lou

 

[shereads]

Dr. M. or anyone else who's worked with editors-- How do you know when to "stick to your guns" regarding editing, and when to give in?

When the editor is your boss or your client, you give in at the point where his face starts to turn purple. If you're smart, you give in long before that, but I'm not that smart.

 

[A7inchPhildo]

I only read a little bit of the text. It was easy to understand, grasp what was being explained. Like I said if I was home I could down load it. No reason for me to do that here. Definately, I, will, read up, on what I, have been doing wrong. Period/comma I think are still my weakest areas. Spelling, who cares get it close and let the checker fix it.

 

[shereads]

I'm stealing this from Perdita's "Art/Use" thread, because I love this example of something that would have been ruined by correct puncuation:

Evelyn Waugh cut commas to convey the clipped dispatch of upper-class speech: ''You see I wasn't so much asking you to agree to anything as explaining what our side propose to do.'' (Note, too, the pluralization of ''side,'' so cozily snobbish.)

 

[SnoopDog]

Of course i'm not a serious writer, more occasional, but the one big problem I always have is that I start writing a story, then at some point go back to read it and decide to put in some more detail or info at a certain position. But then it gets more and more and sometimes I kinda lose myself in my own story, i.e. too much detail, getting too long and confusing. Arrrghhh, I feel like I'm in a maze.

But I can also understand this 'running-on-sentences', Lovely-Lou.
That sometimes happens to me as well.

Snoopy, realizes he hasn't checked out any of Lou's stories so far. Sorry darling.

 

[English Lady]

I write in my dialect alot. I am very northern english and i don't seem to be able to be anything else in my writing...so I end up with sentances that look completely wrong gramatically if you live anywhere other than the north west of england*L*

I do try and write proper english but it never really works out.

I can't write the queens english like what you do!

 

[McKenna]

.

 

[SnoopDog]

I write in my dialect alot. I am very northern english and i don't seem to be able to be anything else in my writing...so I end up with sentances that look completely wrong gramatically if you live anywhere other than the north west of england*L*

I do try and write proper english but it never really works out.

I can't write the queens english like what you do!

I actually like slangs and certain special uses of the english language. I'm very interested in the language in general but the oxford-english we used to learn at school soon bored me and I especially like the us-american use of the language.
But some of the british accents really are cool as well. (or more older english like in Tolkien).

Snoopy

 

[shereads]

I write in my dialect alot. I am very northern english and i don't seem to be able to be anything else in my writing...so I end up with sentances that look completely wrong gramatically if you live anywhere other than the north west of england*L*

I love that I can hear your voice in what I see on the page, EL. You and Pops both have that talent. I enjoy the delusion that I'd recognize your voice if I heard it, because I have such a vivid sense of it from reading you.

 

[Guest]

I'm sorry to see so many authors being defensive here. I thought 'bad habits' meant writing skills gone askew. Style is one thing, bad grammar another; not that they can't be combined well at times.

For me, I am always conscious of being effusive. There are certain words I use too often and only recently can go back and see them staring me in the face. I use them because I "feel" them, but I see they won't matter to a reader even if I underscore, italicize and bold them.

I finally stopped trying to change all my dangling infinitives, sometimes they just seem right.

Comma loving, semicolon ambivalent,

Perdita

 

[shereads]

If an infinitive enjoys dangling, who's to say that isn't its natural state?

 

[Guest]

If an infinitive enjoys dangling, who's to say that isn't its natural state?

Yeah, but my problem is judging the dangling, very anxiety producing. I so wish my infinitives were less passive/aggresive. P.

 

[Guest]

I'm sorry to see so many authors being defensive here. I thought 'bad habits' meant writing skills gone askew. Style is one thing, bad grammar another; not that they can't be combined well at times.

That's the thing. It's learning and idenfitfying what is glaringly (to others, perhaps) grammatically wrong, and what is ok, style-wise. I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

For me, I am always conscious of being effusive. There are certain words I use too often and only recently can go back and see them staring me in the face. I use them because I "feel" them, but I see they won't matter to a reader even if I underscore, italicize and bold them.

Yep, I do that, too!

I finally stopped trying to change all my dangling infinitives, sometimes they just seem right.

Comma loving, semicolon ambivalent,

Perdita

As Sher said, sometimes you just have to let 'em dangle.

Comma over-enthusiast, semicolon loving, full stop avoiding,

Lou

 

[raphy]

Raph, I've read where beginning sentences with conjunctions is becoming more and more "acceptable," if not grammatically correct. I see sentences beginning with conjunctions frequently in published pieces.

Also of note is the practice of ending a sentence with a preposition: gramattically incorrect, but becoming more "acceptable."

i.e. "What did you go and do that for?" --gramatically incorrect

"For what did you go and do that?" --gramatically correct, but 'sounds' stupid.

Oh yeah, I'm certainly not saying that because I want to change. I write the same way that I speak - Every word intentional and chosen for its impact.

 

[oggbashan]

I'm sorry to see so many authors being defensive here. I thought 'bad habits' meant writing skills gone askew. Style is one thing, bad grammar another; not that they can't be combined well at times.

For me, I am always conscious of being effusive. There are certain words I use too often and only recently can go back and see them staring me in the face. I use them because I "feel" them, but I see they won't matter to a reader even if I underscore, italicize and bold them.

Perdita

I recognise Perdita's dilemma in my work. I overuse some words that I enjoy. As one of my fellow students at creative writing put it "I find some words are 'yummy' and have a seductive sound" so I use them too often.

I have too many 'but's. No. Not 'butts' - 'but' the conjunction. I write too much dialogue with 'he said', 'she said'.

One difficulty is knowing when to stop editing. Beyond a certain point I start diluting the story and losing impact. Recognising when I have reached that point isn't easy.

My main flaw is writing too much. The introduction to the foreword to the prologue is recognisably 'Og'.

Og the prolix

 

[raphy]

I've had another think about this

I think every writer has favourite words or phrases that he or she likes to use, and hence ends up overusing.. I know that I like 'suddenly' a lot, because so much of my stuff happens, well, suddenly.

Suddenly he turned around and she was standing there. He hadn't heard her approach

I also overuse the long, slow, Clint Eastwood dirty look. I'm a huge fan of dialogue, but not speaking is as effective as speaking sometimes.

"Well, knowing what they know, what do you think they're gonna do?"

He looked at me for a long time, then reached for the phone

Unlike Og, I don't write enough he said she said in dialogue.