SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Anthony's Top 12 SFF Books thread generated a side track about authorial tics.

I sometimes cannot finish a book if a particular tic hits me too frequently, so this subject is always interesting to me.

A couple of examples, some recent, some not so recent:

Cyteen: Every! Single! Character! uses "damned" as a swear, and they use it constantly. As a result, they all sound exactly alike.

Raymond Feist's long series: this isn't a tic as much as a stylistic choice. Every chapter starts with a three-word paragraph in the form "The [x] [y]ed," i.e. (made up examples) "The rain fell," "The army rallied," etc.

Blackout: again, made up examples...
"He'd hoped to make it to the drop that evening. He didn't."
"She answered the phone, expecting the doctor on the other end of the line. He was."
I tried to get over this. I couldn't.

Mine is the over-use of the word "amazing". I remember one book used it six times within the first 10 or twelve pages. I gave up on it after that sixth occurrence.

Mine is too obvious foreshadowing. Anything you can respond to with DUN DUN DUN....

Basically it's all some version of : she didn't know shit was going to happen, but it is, and I'm going to tell you now that it will... but... she doesn't know. Get it.

braid twisting in The Wheel of Time

the same character tossing their hair multiple times within the first chapter of a book

Beth wrote: "Anthony's Top 12 SFF Books thread generated a side track about authorial tics.

I sometimes cannot finish a book if a particular tic hits me too frequently, so this subject is always interesting t..."

I'm annoyed reading those last two examples. I'd have noped out of that book so fast.

tugging braids

oops, I meant tugging and we're likely thinking about the same series

CBRetriever wrote: "oops, I meant tugging and we're likely thinking about the same series"

We all know and 'love' the Wheel of Time braid tugging...

In a data collection feat worthy of Anna, a Reddit user actually tallied all the braid tugs and skirt smoothings in the series.

https://www.tor.com/2017/03/24/how-ma...

The "winner": 107 "smooth"s in Crossroads of Twilight!

Not a single author tic, but once I noticed how often "calloused hands" got brought up in several SFF books, I've been keeping mental tally of all the various calluses (calling the instances out occasionally - jsyk, if you happen by that on any of my updates and should wonder *hah*).

It's become a sort of 'Wilhelm Scream' for me: a device which every other production seems to utilize in one form or other, so much so that it's making you suspect some might be using it purely out of irony.

So, not a repellent 'tic', but one which I'm actually quite excited to keep discovering.

CBRetriever wrote: "oops, I meant tugging and we're likely thinking about the same series"

Yep! I hadn’t actually seen your post when I made mine, but all the braid tugging drove me nuts in WoT!

Emma wrote: "Mine is too obvious foreshadowing. Anything you can respond to with DUN DUN DUN....

Basically it's all some version of : she didn't know shit was going to happen, but it is, and I'm going to tell ..."

I recently read A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World and the dramatic foreshadowing was one of my main complaints.

The 'Skylark' series by E.E. Doc Smith has a catch phrase used to the extreme. He always described advances in science as different from each other as "10,000 rows of apple trees". My blood pressure rose every time I read that phrase. Story after Story - 10,000 rows of apple trees!

Beth wrote: "In a data collection feat worthy of Anna"

Hmm, how did you find out that I keep a database of everything SFFBC members do? It was supposed to be a covert operation!

Becky wrote: "Emma wrote: "Mine is too obvious foreshadowing. Anything you can respond to with DUN DUN DUN....

Basically it's all some version of : she didn't know shit was going to happen, but it is, and I'm g..."

in that case, I will seriously avoid!

Purple prose that makes no sense and contradicts itself. Check out this excerpt (not made up, the novel won the "Clifton Fadiman Medal For Excellence In Fiction"), and please forgive the length:

"We dash the black river, its flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great estuary is wide, endless. The river is brackish, blue with the cold. It passes beneath us blurring. [...] we rush by the shallows, boats beached for winter, desolate piers."

Okay, firstly it's "to dash ACROSS" a river, not to dash a river. Then we learn it is black, not one single bit of white, there is not a single ship around, the flats are totally smooth. Next sentence, we learn that actually, nevermind, the water is "broken, cracked from the wind". Broken, cracked water looks whitish, not black, and isn't "smooth as stone". Then we learn the estuary is so wide, it's endless - even though the author has just described the flats, or banks, to us. So could you or could you not see the flats? Then we learn that the river is blue. (Wasn't it black a moment ago?) Then it "passes blurring". (That happens when you film it, not when you're actually in a boat looking at it. It does blur if you look somewhere else, but you've just described it in detail, obviously looking at it.) Then the boats in the shallows, beached for winter, are described. Just a few sentences ago, you said there were NO boats visible to break up the complete blackness.

"The day is white as paper. [...] The Hudson is vast here, vast and unmoving. A dark country, a country of sturgeon and carp. [...] The tide flows in from the sea. The Indians sought, they say, a river that "ran both ways." Here they found it. [...] The sky has no color. [...] The river is a reflection. It bears only silence, a glittering cold. The fish are numbed; they drift with the tide."

Okay, if the day is white as paper, and the water is smooth and reflective as described, then it *must look white, not black or blue*. But before, we were told "not one cry of white". Then the Hudson is somehow both unmoving, AND moves both ways, and the tide flows, but without moving. Okay, gotcha. And somehow, we (and the anonymous "they") know what the first, prehistoric American Indians were looking for (an estuary) - well, good thing they apparently looked at the coast, because that's where estuaries are.

By this point, not just the fish are numbed. I'm ready to take the author's temperature and check for signs of a stroke. If you read on a bit, on the same (first) page, you'll get "Her eyes are black, lustrous, with the long, crazy lashes of a drunken woman." Gee, I wish my lashes grew when I get drunk! I'd get drunk all the time, just for the lashes.

This is James Salter, by the way, and a famous passage known to demonstrate the beauty of his prose.

Emma wrote: "Becky wrote: "Emma wrote: "Mine is too obvious foreshadowing. Anything you can respond to with DUN DUN DUN....

Basically it's all some version of : she didn't know shit was going to happen, but it..."

Ahh, well, to be fair, I think it was likely intentional to the story. The main teenage character and narrator loves books and writing and is writing their story, so it kinda fits that a young writer would overuse it.

Doesn't really make it less eye-rolly every time it crops up, but still, I think it was a deliberate choice the author made to have the narrator try to dramatize their story a bit. If that makes sense.

I will say that it was a great book otherwise. :)

Emma wrote: "Mine is too obvious foreshadowing. Anything you can respond to with DUN DUN DUN...."

This happens a bunch in the first Kushiel novel, too--the ones I specifically remember are in the form of "if only I'd known what would happen." She doesn't tell the reader the specifics, and sometimes the DUN DUN DUN didn't seem to connect with anything.

There are better ways of foreshadowing than this--DUN DUN DUN is the "ten-ton mallet" version of it.

Beth wrote: "Emma wrote: "Mine is too obvious foreshadowing. Anything you can respond to with DUN DUN DUN...."

This happens a bunch in the first Kushiel novel, too--the ones I specifically remember are in the ..."

YES! That drove me absolutely crazy! It's the main reason I almost didn't finish it, and definitely never continued the series.

There's a story-telling tactic that I think gained popularity in the pulps of emphasizing an emotional reaction or realization of something by putting it

on its own line.

I recently finished a book, The Remaking, which in its initial sections overused that tactic, making everything the main characters think seem more important than some of it was to the novel. Chapman reined it in a bit in later sections, but for me to notice it at all suggests it was overdone.

Omg, Eva, you just wrote out a real life scary story for me. I'm running for the hills!

Mary Robinette Kowal’s characters are constantly biting their lips and always on the verge of throwing up.

I really like her stories, but she overuses those things a LOT.

Don't run, get drunk instead, your lashes will be amazing!

Eva wrote: "Don't run, get drunk instead, your lashes will be amazing!"

hahaha!! This is

solid advice.

Hahaha!

Tics are inexcusable in this day of word-processing, imo. Thank you all for naming names so I can avoid those books.

Foreshadowing sucks. I don't believe I've ever seen it done well.

I like what I'll refer to here as 'lavender' prose. That is to say, purple prose but light. And it has to be omg self-consistent & accurate! Eva that's a horrible example!!

Elowen wrote: "And in several very recent novels I've read, characters were releasing breaths they didn't know they were holding, and honestly... this is a cliché that I hope will be retired soon."

Yes, as much as people complain about this, it still shows up in most books. It's silly, but I get thrown completely out of the story when I encounter this, especially if it's a favorite author, or a non-YA/MG book.

Purple, flowery prose is a definite turn off for me, too. Insta-love. Love triangles. Magic without any structure or rules or boundaries. 2nd person narrative.

What I'm getting at is I hated everything about and every single word of The Night Circus, and now it's like a sort of torture that she's got a new book out and Goodreads keeps doing the "hey we see you've read Erin Morgenstern! Her 'highly anticipated' new book is coming out! Check it out!"

I'd walk on hot coals to avoid ever reading another word she writes. So, I'm gonna pass. AND FIX YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS ALGORITHM! A 1-star rating should indicate maybe not to recommend similar stuff to me.

I'll see myself out.

Ugh it's the worst. I wish I could just turn it off.

Beth wrote: "Emma wrote: "Mine is too obvious foreshadowing. Anything you can respond to with DUN DUN DUN...."

This happens a bunch in the first Kushiel novel, too--the ones I specifically remember are in the ..."

I remember!! Rereading it more recently was hard. I'm way less accepting of these things now.

I think the breath thing is supposed to be an authorial trick instead of a tic. When you see people take a big, deep breath we often mimic them a little, so it feels like we'd bee "holding on" to some tension that the author gets to release us from.

But I hate it, too. I don't think I've ever not realized that my breathing wasn't working. It's usually a red alert sort of thing, that.

Becky wrote: "Emma wrote: "Becky wrote: "Emma wrote: "Mine is too obvious foreshadowing. Anything you can respond to with DUN DUN DUN....

Basically it's all some version of : she didn't know shit was going to h..."

Yeah it's a bit different when it's a specific feature of character or style isn't it?!

And I've found that it's more likely to be overused in other genres than SFF, crime fiction for example.

Yes, we see that you've just marked this book "DNF" - here's the next in the series!

Beth wrote: "Emma wrote: "Mine is too obvious foreshadowing. Anything you can respond to with DUN DUN DUN...."

This happens a bunch in the first Kushiel novel, too--the ones I specifically remember are in the ..."

I wonder if that's just a hallmark of the time it was published and printed? The mystery type foreshadowing. I remember when it came out. There was no Goodreads or bunches of online book shopping. I found this one while doing it old school: wandering a bookstore and the cover called me from across the isle.

I seem to recall reading other books that had the same (but without the lushness of the rest of her books)

Allison wrote: "I think the breath thing is supposed to be an authorial trick instead of a tic."

Allison's on the right track here. As a slight clarification, this thread's not so much about cliches, or writing style, but more about words, phrases, etc. that an individual author gets too noticeably attached to. Like WoT's braid tugging, or the "10,000 rows of apple trees" that Sam mentioned.

Cheryl wrote: "Tics are inexcusable in this day of word-processing, imo."

I'll blame editors at least as much as authors for tics. While I know nothing about the specifics of editing, I'll bet you at least three figures (!) that concordance software exists that can tell a line editor in seconds if, for example, the word "skirled" shows up five times in one book. (a word that outstays its welcome, imo, if used more than once.)

Eva wrote: "Yes, we see that you've just marked this book "DNF" - here's the next in the series!"

That's one algorithm tic ;) (see, I'm staying on topic!) that cracked me up. "Based on your DNF shelf, you might enjoy this!" You can toggle off recommendations for any of your named shelves on the shelf page in GR if you don't find it amusing:

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/edit

FYI we now have a Goodreads Recommendation Mishaps thread :)

One thing that I paid attention to was how many times (five) someone "made a moue" in Revenant Gun. I always seem to notice these things more when I'm listening to the audiobook. I read this when it came out and then immediately listened to it. I can't remember noticing it when eye-reading, but it was very noticeable while listening. Possibly because I'd just read it five times, and then had to listen to it five more times.

Thank you, Beth! That helps.

Other tics:

- Always using 'he smirked' instead of smiled, grinned, looked amused, laughed, chuckled, or any other word - or just implying amusement by letting the character say something witty. My dictionary says "to smirk = to smile in an irritatingly smug, conceited, or silly way". If your hero does it every second page, you've got a problem.

- Believing that happy endings are bad writing and won't give you any literary cred, so you write a limp squid of an anticlimax non-ending into *all* your books instead.

- Sparring half-naked and with sharp weapons. That's not how staying alive and keeping your appendages works. Especially not in a world without antibiotics.

- "Their tongues battled for dominance". That's not how kissing works.

- Unpronounceable names. Extra minus points if they contain apostrophes. Extra extra minus points if they all start with the same letter or syllable (ahem, VORkosigan series - you are my all-time favorite, but still!).

- Characters constantly understanding sentences being 'mouthed' at them (A Little Life, Harry Potter). Anyone who's ever tried mouthing a sentence at somebody will understand that it just doesn't work.

It Doesn't Work Like That - Books That Get it Wrong

(I'm trying to make an infinite loop.)

Oh I thought of more! Stephen King edition.
- Stating something in dialog and then making it a question. "That grass is green, isn't it?" Or "Water makes things wet, doesn't it?"
- Formal and then informal introductions with a dozen reminders. "My name is George Wallace Crenshaw III but you can call me Skipper." (And then at least 3 follow-up reminders when the people forget to call him Skipper.)

Eva wrote: ""Their tongues battled for dominance". That's not how kissing works."

"He took possession of her mouth."

Gag.

Now I will have to watch for my pet peeve. Never really thought about it except for grammatical errors.

Anna wrote: "...(I'm trying to make an infinite loop.)"

I like that :D The very principle of the webs: interconnectivity.

Becky wrote: ""He took possession of her mouth."

Gag."

Once the legal documents are finalized, it's tough to get it back.

Our webfox keeps us in orderly coils!

Elowen wrote: "Brandon Sanderson ruined it for me with his first Mistborn book, for several reasons, one being that the only facial expression he seemed to be able to convey is frowning. Every single character frowns the whole time. It drove me mad. "

Oh, that reminds me of Seven Blades in Black by Sam Sykes — if you started a drinking game for every time he says someone’s mouth looks like a scar, you’d maintain a pleasant buzz throughout that entire book. 🍻 📖

Becky wrote: "Eva wrote: ""Their tongues battled for dominance". That's not how kissing works."

"He took possession of her mouth."

Gag."

You’re only gagging because your tongue lost its battle for dominance, so now you have two tongues in your mouth. #science

GRR Martin overuses “half a hundred”. Why not just say 50?!? I recently read that phrase written by someone else and had to groan. Oh no! They’ve been infected!

Diane wrote: "GRR Martin overuses “half a hundred”. Why not just say 50?!? I recently read that phrase written by someone else and had to groan. Oh no! They’ve been infected!"

Does he mean 50 or does he mean 60? Because “hundred” used to mean 120, and a “short hundred” meant 100. Probably he meant 50, but it’s been so long since I read those that I don’t recall, and it seems like the obscure sort of thing he’d refer to.

Trike wrote: "Becky wrote: "Eva wrote: ""Their tongues battled for dominance". That's not how kissing works."

"He took possession of her mouth."

Gag."

You’re only gagging because your tongue lost its battle for dominance, so now you have two tongues in your mouth. #science"

Checks out.