The Insecure Writer's Support Group is the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh. He, his clones, minions, friends, and fellow authors make it an amazing event every month.
Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!
And we’re revving up IWSG Day to make it more fun and interactive! Every month, we'll announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.
IWSG Day Question: What are your pet peeves when reading/writing/editing?
Fun Question!
Reading Pet Peeve
- when I come across authors who use "that" instead of "who". When people who earn their living with words make this mistake, it's like nails on the chalkboard!!!
Writing Pet Peeve
- Titles! These are so hard. I tend to come up with super cheesy ones first and then they're so hard to get out of my head!
Editing Pet Peeve
- redundancies!!! My first drafts are littered with them! I'm pretty good at catching them when editing, but I need to learn to eliminate them when writing in the first place!
How about you? Any pet peeves you'd like to share? Do you sprinkle redundancies everywhere as well?
35 comments:
I hate coming up with titles as well! In fact, I didn't even create the titles to two of my books. A title is so important and creating one makes my brain freeze.
I'll still find myself writing that for who sometimes and have to go back to fix it.
Had to laugh at you peeves....I think we can all relate to these.
Titles are hard. The manuscript I'm working on is called New Story right now.
I often ask my publisher for help with titles because I can't think of one that I like.
I'm really going to have to work on that who vs that rule. I'm often guilty of that one. Titles are incredibly hard to come up with. It's such a make or break decision. Cheers - Ellen
I shake my head when "that" is used for a person, too. "That" is for an inanimate object.
I'm with you on those redundancies. I suppose they come because we are so intent on making the point that we keep putting it down. Oh, well. That's why rewriting was invented. :-)
Titles... I sometimes wonder how some published books end up with such generic titles. Apparently that's an issue that plagues a ton of people. =)
Me too! Brainstorming with others helps! :)
LOL - I'm sure I've done it too. When we're drafting our brains are too busy flying :)
The life of a writer! :)
LOL - love it!! I tend to go with MC's name :)
That's a good plan!
It is! We can catch the who/that in editing - but titles are forever!!!
I love coming up with titles. I don't like finding certain words I've used way too much. When reading, I'm always let down when the author takes the predictable course.
So true! I can spend an entire revision round searching them out!! :)
Yep! Trying to find something that fits the feel, genre, and hasn't been used can be tough!
Ack! Really??? I may be calling on your title brain one day! :)
Wordle searches can break my heart when I find how often I've used some words :)
Coming up with titles is the worst! I share some of your pet peeves. :)
I've actually come up with (what I thought were) some decent titles, though I really don't like coming up with them. My drafts are full of repeated scenes. I'll have essentially the same scene in three different places sometimes (sometimes, I'm aware when drafting that I'm doing this; sometimes, I'm not). Harder to get rid of is when you have two very different scenes that do the same thing, and I have those, too, so I feel your pain!
I need an internal title generator! :)
Ha! I used the that/who as one of my pet peeves. And I had to laugh at the titles issue. I have the same problem.
You know my pet peeves, jemi, having visited my post. Yeah that 'that' and 'who'. I ask is you main character an animal?
titles are sometimes soooo stupid, especially when you can translate them into one's own language :)
Ack! That would be so hard - I'm still learning to identify WHAT the scenes are doing from an analytical standpoint. Definitely not my strength!
I laughed when I saw your post as well! Great minds and all that :)
LOL - exactly!!! :)
Yes - translating is tough! The nuances are often difficult to get with a literal translation
Hey, redundancies are just our writer mind's way of making sure we haven't forgotten anything.
I just use placeholder names for my title, figuring I'll eventually come up with a good idea before I finish writing the story.
LOL on the redundancies - I really REALLY make sure I don't forget anything! :)
I label all mine by character names for now
I wonder if titles are difficult because the self-pub revolution means that thousands of new titles flood the market every month/year, making it more difficult to come up with fresh and original titles?
Titles are hard to come up with- I agree! I also am redundant with my writing, but I am getting better and better with it all the time. I can spot it more now (thank goodness). :)
~Jess
I bet that's part of it. They're so hard. Cheesy ones I'm great at tho if anyone needs one... :)
I agree! It's such a relief to spot some of my own before I send drafts off to CPs! :)
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