Things you should maybe avoid

[AG31]

But it doesn’t necessarily tell you their age....
Plenty of people go to college later in life.
I had a guy in his 50s in one of my accounting classes in college. He was older than the Professor.

OK. But it does tell you something about his educational niche. And, if its a guy in his 50's, and the point is his age, he'd probably say, "even though I'm in my 50's." It would say something about his initiative. It would be interesting.

 

[MrPixel]

I had a guy in his 50s in one of my accounting classes in college. He was older than the Professor.

I was older than the professor in the orchestra conducting class I took by 20 years.

 

[RetroFan]

For the most part the writers on this site - including myself - are amateurs, writing our stories in the time around work and other commitments, often self-editing or writing in genres where we lack experience. It is understandable that things go wrong from time to time. But it is much harder to explain how such awful, cringe-inducing things end up in the final product of high-profile movies, TV shows and professionally published books when sighted by numerous people in the production stages.

For example, the now infamous line in 'The Rise of Skywalker' by Poe Dameron of 'Somehow, Palpatine returned.' This line was written by a professional screenwriter, and would have been sighted by editors, producers and directors before it was filmed, and then watched and reviewed in post production. Yet somehow in a movie with a huge production budget and in a franchise worth millions, this got past everyone and ended up in the final cut of the movie released to cinemas.

 

[Britva415]

You don't think details add depth to a fictional world and its characters? Some of the info dumps I've read contain good information about a character that helps me understand them. But I'd rather find out about the gloomy mc's sad childhood through a line of dialog or behaviors than a lengthy exposition

Well, exactly.

A character doesn't need any more depth than the actual plot calls for. If there is a depthy detail that the plot requires, it will come out.

Depth doesn't matter if nothing happens which dredges it up.

 

[forgotmyantidepressants]

If there is a depthy detail that the plot requires, it will come out.

I agree. I just think it takes time for a writer to figure out where and when to sprinkle in the spicy details.

 

[Britva415]

If this is "First person but not addressed to anyone," then it's addressed to the reader

Except that sometimes it isn't. I have literally had AH authors say exactly that to me: It's not addressed to anyone. It's just a recording, which the author is omnisciently privy to, of the character's internal experience. The character isn't intentional about representing that experience to anyone else.

It's a situation where they either don't believe or don't want to admit that it really is a penthouse letter, but they don't want to do the mental exercise of letting the narrative show who the addressee is and why the narrator is addressing the story to them.

That is a separate matter from when it's the author addressing the reader while their intention is that the narrator addresses no one. The "stream-of-somebody-else's-consciousness" thing can be done, but it's not often done well.

 

[Britva415]

I prefer descriptions that add a *sense* of depth.

No worldbuilding required, just a few words that bring the story to life in the reader's mind.

Very nice.

 

[MajorRewrite]

I’ve shared this before but it’s worth repeating. Definitely avoid ...

I used the term “dick snot” one time in my first story! I thought it was funny; readers did not. One commenter wrote:

”if you ever refer to ejaculate as 'dick snot' again I will hunt you down and take a sledgehammer to your keyboard”