How often do you really roll your eyes?

Everyone knows that firsts drafts are crap. They're meant to get ideas on the page, and to be glossed over later. Still, when I was looking over my work in progress, I had a sinking feeling that I had way too many mannerism cliches. A search confirmed it; Word let me know that I had too many instances to preview of these mannerisms:

• shrugged
• rolled eyes
• sighed
• nodded

In the words of Admiral Ackbar, "it's a trap!"

I'm sure I'm not the only one to use mannerism cliches in the first draft, but I certainly don't want to keep them in the final draft. So how to get rid of them?

After scouring over my story, I took out a lot of the character movements and tried to convey their emotions through dialogue. When a section became too dialogue heavy, I tried to find another way for the character to manifest his/her feelings. What else could a person do besides roll eyes, shrug, etc.?

The only way to find out was to people watch. I spent a day at work playing close attention to my co-workers, noting when they seemed annoyed or excited. Some cliches are real - people DO shrug, roll their eyes, etc., but they also might scratch the back of their neck if they're feeling cornered, glance around the room if they're annoyed, etc.

Take a look. You might find a new way for your character to move.

PS - Nick Harrison has a great post about mannerism cliches here.

Mmmm...fonts

I freaking love fonts.



 When I was taking graphic design classes, I got to learn all about fonts, which was damn sweet. I had delusions of grandeur of creating my own fonts, but those plans fell to the wayside.

Maybe it's because I'm an uber-dork, but I had fun today going through the handwriting fonts on dafont.com and trying to determine how my two main characters would write. Plus I was hunting for the perfect title font, as I'm going to self-publish.

Funny thing about that is that once you've decided on the best possible font, another one comes along that makes you start all over. Such is life.

Back to the handwriting...looking through the fonts was so much fun it got me to imaging what a written conversation would look like between the two. There are a few instances of note-passing in my story, and besides, the idea of giving more of an identity to them was exciting.

Yeah, I'm a dork.

Anyway, I give you a snippet of a written conversation between the two. A found note, if you will.

Enjoy my dorkiness.

FYI - Jonah's handwriting is in MT Matto Script, Evan's is in Fright Night.

Shoehorns = Satan

I have decided that shoehorns are evil.

Let me back up.

There are times during writing when you just HAVE to get a certain line/scene/character in your story, and you move things around to ensure that this does happen. While you may not know it, you are forcing this tidbit in, or shoehorning it in.

I'm guilty of this. I had this great scene set up, the dialogue worked, I was a happy clam. That is, until I realized that the dialogue and the scene didn't fit the rest of the book, some characters didn't seem like themselves, and the whole thing interrupted the flow of the story.

In short, I shoehorned the scene in.

I cut it out, preserving it in case it works for another story, but it might just go the wayside. If that happens, hey, it's okay. As long as the story and the characters aren't compromised, I'm happy.

So yes, shoehorning is evil, and it's difficult to look at your work and realize that you've done it, but what's more important: admitting fault and fixing your story, or maintaining that you are flawless and possibly ruining your overall work?

Yeah.