Personally, I LOVE chapter titles. :) And I have met plenty of strikingly attractive people, so as long as it's not overdone, I don't mind it. But I guess the keywords are: not overdone. I like bowtie endings in feel-good novels, but not in any other kind. This is such a great channel! Thanks for all the food for thought.
I have to say, I actually love chapter titles. Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, in my opinion, is a good example. Obviously done right, they can add an evocative quality to the telling.
I like chapter titles, too. When i go to Amazon, for example, and find a book that seems interesting, the first thing I do is to open the PREVIEW and read the chapter titles. If there aren't any, it's disappointing to me, and I might sometimes even think twice before I buy the book. Also, if I get a book from elsewhere, the first thing I do is to open it up and read the chapter titles. Moreover, I would have a difficult time reading a book that just runs without any chapter breaks at all.
im going to cry, i wrote a really long comment about my favorite book, AND TH-cam HAS TO BE STUPID AND DELETE IT. ALL I HAVE LEFT IS THE SECOND PART, WHICH IS THIS: "okay now to continue that: Here's what the like... I guess silly main character has in her little thing: --- Molly - Human Cosmic Brownie - The cast's only working brain cell - ...And she's literally always working. --- Here's the author's "stupid bell daughter" [he has like 15 plushies of her that watch over him, and in one of the newest tweets on the official account for the show/book, called her a dummy. Wow.]: --- Phoenica - Literally the richest girl in the world - Terminal stupid - Thinks that the word "stupid" is a swear --- And here's my favorite character: --- "Rick" - Sh-shaped like a friend? - Default response to feeling an emotion: Scream - Has a great smile! *...Doesn't blink.* --- Here's the universal fan favorite: --- -Giovanni- VINCENT MURDER! - AN AWESOME NEW VILLAIN! - JOIN HIS BRAND NEW BAD GUY GROUP TODAY!! - DEFINITELY NOT GIOVANNI POTAGE!!! --- And finally, here's the character the author finds hot and also voices. [this is literally one of the shortest and oldest male characters. He has green hair, HOW DO YOU FIND THIS MAN HOT-] --- Naven - Teaches speech classes - Gets bullied by 12-year-olds - If you yell at him, he might cry. --- yep.
I love chapter headings. Actually, they help me write, because I’m not an outliner; the heading sets the scene in my mind and the chapter flows from that.
I dont Outline as well and am now asking myself how you get a chapter heading if you dont know the chapter yet? Often I Simply know the rough Theme of the chapter but wouldnt be able to create a Headline out of that.
@Lachgummei all the time I can plot out entire stories just from a phrase or word. I love having chapter headers for this reason. Just like I can create a whole world or movie from a song, for me personally, i just think its cool.
Chapter numbers without titles feels like a modern convention, but I do think we need to return to titles. They're simply helpful for remembering what a chapter was about. I suppose they're not always necessary, but more often than not they are missing, when they would actually be helpful.
As an ex slush pile reader for a top agent in San Francisco, I usually agree with most of what you say, but there are some things on your list that I don't hate. I don't hate an accent if it is done well and doesn't fill up the whole book. I think it's fine, especially if it's not the protagonist with the accent but incidental characters. It helps me to get a flavor of a place. The world would be less interesting without accents. If the accents are not done well, then obviously I don't like them either, because they distract from the story. Also, for the most part I think all a chapter heading needs is a number but if they're done well, what's wrong with chapter titles? They don't have to summarize the chapter, but again if they're done well, they might give me a flavor of what's to come and and peak my interest. One thing I HATE that you didn't mention is endless filler and long descriptions of minutia that I don't need. I can imagine what the tea cup looks like just fine. I'm personally sick of having to wade through all that excess to get to the meat of the story.
It is interesting to see what one reader or editor for an agent or a publisher might accept and what another might not. We never know what might turn one on and the other off. I never really thought of it that way until reading this comment. On another note, I agree with you about the accents. I think it adds to their character and the scene.
Oh no! Everything you hate....I love! :) It's okay lol I love written out accents, pidgeon english, wierd grammatical shifts, dual language dialects, lisps. It's part of the fun of meeting new characters with their own unique traits - otherwise they all tend to sound the same American accent, lingo, idioms - and thats way worse! I give you Mark Twain, who probably did it best, and loved describing the different kinds of speech phonetically depending on which part of the South you were. It's beautiful and gives a history and depth to the characters and the story. Also - I love weird pronounciations, and chewing on words. That's part of the fun and beauty of the english language - it's capable of that and I think its good for writers to explore and find new and inventive ways of effectively describing how people speak. Damn the cowering PC hall monitors. If you live around people with accents (like I have my whole life) you quickly realize written accents aren't offensive unless one hasen't encountered people with accents in life and is afraid of offending. Besides it's what the characters do and say that matter, and as long as they are nonstereotypical and become their own type we can get to really care, get endeared and even miss their way of speaking. I love chapter titles! For example, The I love the descriptive titles in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series - I mean I really love them and wish more authors would do them because to me they build anticipation on what to expect in the chapter (like it's supposed to be this one character's chapter, but the title hints that they may meet this character or get close to them.) Honestly chapter titles are the best, and a number only tells me that the writer didn't care enough or wasn't capable of thinking of cool clever title. For example, I wish George RR martin titled his chapter - imagine how much fun that would ave been! Un realistics physical attributes...c'mon push your suspension of disbelief a little! You can't get through a sci-fi or fantasy novel with this (not a good one anyways lol). I love Bowtie ending - JRR Tolkien is a great example. When you've followed a set of characters for 3 books - you love them and you kinda want to know how their life turned out. And of course I love the sequel tease. Obviously I read fantasy and scifi - atleast two thirds of an authors works is a sequel lol. So after the main adventure is done, I don't mind a taste of new adventure on the horizon. I don't think writers to alter their story to suit the tastes of publisher or agent. The story should serve only one master - the author. But thank you for putting your convictions out there though. Please give us more!
I don't 'hate' any if these ... I just dislike it when they're poorly executed, but there really are many examples where they are well executed. Personally, I would categorise these techniques into the _'tread carefully'_ category.
I was just about to sat this. 😅 I write fantasy and my started, much like LotR is NOT a stand alone for the full plot unless you are okay with not knowing the rest of the story.
My novel has 24 chapters. Each has a title. The titles are relatively vague but thematic, like: "First Lesson", "Have a Drink", " Stealing Time" and so on. They are meant to set the tone of the chapters. My three viewpoint characters are often experiencing something related to the chapter theme, but often in vastly different ways.
I write novels for young readers, both series and stand-alone novels. For these ages especially, I think chapter names/naming chapters can be a generous act on the part of the writer that will help young readers keep track of where they are in the story. Also, sometimes an upcoming chapter name can coax a "reluctant reader" to keep reading or help a more eager reader remember where they were in the story if a significant amount of time has passed between readings. (Chapter names are also a revision aid for me, I find.) I agree, however, that they can sometimes look dated in adult fiction. Thanks for an interesting post!
Oh man! Alyssa, I love your content and I have learned a lot from your channel. Some days when I don’t have time to write, listening to your videos helps me still feel connected to my project. This is the first video that totally missed for me. My favorite novels demonstrate a collage of all of your pet peeves. Maybe it’s because I like epic fantasy. I feel that all of the items listed here are very common in fantasy.
Haha, that's totally fair! Fantasy is a genre I don't really work in, so these techniques might be better targeted towards other genres. Thanks for commenting :)
I don't agree with avoiding writing out dialects because you don't want to sound stereotypical or offensive: just do it right and without exaggerations. If your character is a man from the Deep South of the US in an area where standard American English is rarely used, some "flavouring" in his words would be great to make him sound authentic. Obviously the spelling must still be understandable, but the great thing about vernaculars is they rarely have standardised spelling, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
one recent example of some 'controversy' surrounding this was in the hit novel 'Where the Crawdads Sing' where 1. many of the characters spoke in a very exaggerated southern dialect that sounded like alabama/louisiana yet they were in North Carolina. And 2. most of the 'bad characters' spoke this way and the 'good' and 'educated' ones spoke normally, which seemed to reinforce some stereotypes. With that said I sort of agree with what you're saying because everyone is so quick these days to dumb everything down and this is one example of it and personally I like reading the written out dialects when it's done well. One huge hit novel where it's done really well (in fantasy) was The Name of the Wind by patrick rothfuss, where a character towards the end spoke in a really ridiculous over the top phonetically spelled out dialect. But it was funny and great and most people loved it
A lot of Black authors write out dialects: Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes. If you're from the culture you know how to write it out. If you're not, you're not gonna know how to write dialect.
As someone who writes in dialect for some of her characters, there are times it’s absolutely necessary. And as a black woman, AAVE reflects how SOME of us communicate. I drop the Gs from the ends of some of my words so do my characters. Some of my characters are from the South. It's a tricky situation and intent (whether it's for authenticity OR to further stereotypes) is what should be taken into account.
Another method is to use syntax or word choice rather than misspellings to indicate a character who has a regional accent or speaks another language. Use English words, spelled correctly, but alter the word order to follow Spanish, French, etc., and use a few words in the other language/vernacular the way the character would in real life. Basing a dialect on the speech of actual people you know helps with authenticity. It should also fit the time and place of the story; British vs. American terms, slang vs. proper diction, archaic vs. modern terminology. I read a friend's Sci-Fi piece that featured four different scientists; in the dialogue they all sounded the same. Careful consideration and research is key to making this work.
Chapter titles are not always needed, but if applied without too much spoilage or spillage, can do a lot to build anticipation and clue the reader in to the author's tone and orientation.
Your chapter name issue boggles me. As a reader/writer of fantasy fiction the story can get quite long and complex, and if I want to flip back and reference something chapter names make it much easier.
I think chapter titles have their place, in particular middle-grade fiction like Harry Potter. I remember as a kid I'd open up the book and dream myself away at what would happen in the different chapters when reading through them. I'd even list my favorite chapter titles. A kid's imagination is a powerful thing and those really do evoke it. But I would say for adult fiction they're all but useless. I mean if you read Epic Fantasy you might have a book at 400 000 words, having chapter titles at that point (like Brandon Sanderson is doing) makes them all but redundant; the only thing that matters going into another chapter is who the POV is going to be. GRRM did find a nice in-between on this with his ASOIAF series where he started naming chapter titles something that has to do with the character like The Captain's Daughter, usually when it was a character that wasn't a frequent POV. So you could guess at who it would be in advance, and that's a really cool way of engaging the reader. Although that's hard to do unless you have an established relationship with your readerbase such that they know what it is you're trying to do.
Chapter titles, epigraphs, can work. Frank Herbert's Dune is an example. Packs an emotional punch too when at the end of the book you find out why Irulan has written so many books.
I agree. I also think Pat Rothfus’s chapter titles are great and the same is true with Sanderson. Love them, and for me, looking forward to learning their full meaning by the end of the chapter often motivates that “just one more chapter” reading binge.
I’m just glad Robert Eggers didn’t pay attn to the dialect tip when he wrote The VVitch and The Lighthouse. Like, I dunno, I feel like it’s like saying “don’t use charcoal, oil paints are best”
Totally agree about phonetically writing out dialogues, it's rarely done well. It also forgets that actually we ALL have an accent, and yet correct spelling is common to us all.
Dialect vs Accent! Writing out an *accent* can be hard to understand, disrupt flow, alienate readers of that accent etc. BUT a *dialect* is a combination of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation - and writing out the words a character would use, and the grammar with which they would speak (e.g. word order, presence or absence of articles etc.) is, from my perspective, only correct - not everyone speaks in the same way and this is part of it - I wouldn't want all my characters to sound like a 1950s BBC broadcaster, and vocabulary and grammar thus have to differ to show a characters voice. TLDR; it is definitely possible to write out *dialect* whilst still spelling words as they are spelled in standard English, and I would suggest that this is an important thing to have within a book for representation/accuracy purposes
All good tips to keep in mind. I do a little bit of dialect/accent writing (probably less than 100 words in the entire novel); a little bit of character looks description; I have a number of POVs, so my chanter headings just include the name of the new POV character, etc. The point you make (with which I agree) is any writing technique which overly draws attention to itself detracts from a reader's immersive experience, and you name some good potential pitfalls. I just tried experimenting with switching between past tense and present tense for a few paragraphs. Very difficult to do well, but I think it works for the little bit of the scene where I tried it. We'll see how beta readers respond.
As several below have said, and I agree, I like chapter titles, and think they add to the story, if well-chosen. That said, I have done it both ways. I typically write with chapter titles, sometimes change them as the story matures, and then, if at the end I don't feel they serve the purpose I want, I remove them in the final product. But I do very much like them, and generally feel they are desirable, if they work well with the final story.
I'm actually quite surprised at how many I disagree with! Everyone has their own opinion. I agree with the dialect it can be distracting and the sequel thing. For chapter titles, I think it all depends on the effect you want to have and just, in general, the author's preference, no matter if you choose titles, just numbers, numbers spelled out, blank space... they each have a different effect that refects an author's style so it's also equally still important. Maybe its purpose is to disrupt your reading, maybe it's to leave an open-end, maybe a number has significants-- there are so many possibilities playing with the format of a novel to trick or cause the reader to feel a certain way, even if they just skim over it. For unrealistic features, it really is significant especially in fantasy where characters really are supposed to be refect as superhuman and you want the readers to feel like they see this awesome human creature with wings, etc. It does have a place and time when it doesn't need to be used but again it's another effect. I think you can use it incorrectly but I do still think there is a specific way to help a reader understand if done properly and not overuse. I also disagree with bowtie endings, it really is all about how you want your reader to feel after reading something. Like maybe the purpose is to make them feel sad and open-ended to get their message across. And despite what everyone says, nice happy endings can leave closure. It maybe clique but also it's something like a trope where some people like it and maybe drawn to stories with bowtie endings. I mean we can watch movies all the time that have happy endings and rewatch them so many times as well just for that satisfaction and feeling of comfort. Also, if it's a genre like the real-life coming of age then maybe not, but others may have the intent to make you feel like you are in another world where things will end perfect--such as fairy tales.
Yep, I'm Black, and I can attest that sometimes it's absolutely necessary to write out dialects. That also makes our job infinitely harder (so, what else is new) when it comes to connecting with readers like Alyssa who tend to be in the majority of readers. But I have to be real and take my lumps.
Very helpful! Thanks. I see in the comments that several love chapter titles. I'm using them too as I write, but will be able to remove them easily from my finished draft. I guess after reading the comments about chapter titles, I'm ambivalent on keeping or getting rid of them. I liked all the tips. Especially the last one since this my be my one and only book. It will need to stand or fail on its own. I'll have to revisit this video when I'm closer to the finish line.
Your confidence helps me to be more confident. I agree with your dislikes and I appreciate your alternatives. I also try to use what I learn to help others who are worried about their writing.
For those who self-publish, chapter headings help sell the book when people do the look inside, say you start your first chapter with a dragon and later-after the free preview further down is a chapter with the title of the dragon it may help to sell the book. I assume it might help when an agent requests a full and it might lead them to read certain chapters they might not if they didn't like your opening?
I'm another one here who will speak out in favor of chapter titles. You can have them, you don't have to. It's a matter of stylistic preference. I just submitted my novel to a publisher, it's a novel I first tried to write when I was 18 and then came back to as a middle-aged person with more life experience (am now 43). There are 30 chapters in my novel, and each of them has a title. One of them is the same title I used for the relevant chapter upon my first attempt all those years ago. These titles are meant in part to give the book a light poetic quality. To each their own. We'll see what the editor, if the book should be accepted for publication, will have to say on the matter. Other than that, I think I pretty much agree with most of what you said.
Tabitha King, finished another authors novel, "Candle's Burning." She used a broken southern dialect for a female character that was overkill. The story was great, so good I suffered a massive headache forcing myself to read on to the end.
I don't name the chapters for the readers, I name them for me. I like naming chapters and it helps me remember not only what parts of the story I've already covered but what I still need to add. no reader is going to complain about a chapter that has a name and if they are, they aren't my demographic.
Love your content (been binging your channel since yesterday instead of Netflix) and I agree with all of these. Chapter titles are fun in children's fiction since it can serve to intrigue the reader (most of my literacy intervention students are 10-14 and skip the chapter titles, but I *did* read them as a kid and enjoyed them, especially in fantasy). In adult fiction, I prefer simple numbers. One pet peeve is chapter titles with no numbers because there is no clear order when flipping through. I did a creative writing MA a few years ago, which steamrolled us with literary fiction (I'd never heard of it before then, and other students and I wished we were allowed to focus on YA, which was frowned upon). I might have been fine with all of the things you mentioned before that program, and even though I feel the literary fiction standards are restrictive, I now agree with many of them. That said, I wish literary fiction were less depressing / more exciting. Here's to non-distracting writing techniques AND fantastic stories! If anyone has recommendations for exciting, magical, whimsical literary fiction, especially YA, please suggest. Thank you for sharing your expertise with the community, Alyssa!
One of my top 5 favorite novels, Children of Time by Tchaikovsky, commits all of these peeves but for the unrealistic descriptions. Once a craftsman understands a variety of techniques, and they choose the one that they think best enacts their intentions, then they can do whatever they want. If a writer chooses to do all of these things when they could have chosen others, and they have a great story, then the story is going to be great; and it will be great because they chose those techniques. When you end up using one technique because you don’t know any others, odds are you’re not using the best (or near best) for your intention. Great video though!
People should write what they want to read. We all have different tastes. I absolutely love all the things mentioned as pet peeves. There are readers for every book. ❤
Thank you for this information. The last one is about foreshadowing sequels. If you go through a traditional publisher and they do not pick up the sequel, can you self-publish it? Is that something that would need to be covered in the contract? Thank you again.
I knew someone with turquoise eyes that impressed me to the core. He's shows up in my book and I describe how he looked, including his eyes. Is that wrong?
I don't think so. When I create my characters, I want them to seem as real to the reader as they become to me, so giving them distinctive features makes them stand out from the other characters. Perhaps it doesn't work all the time for all genres but I don't think it should ever be ruled out.
@@megorra I agree. This person had a unique spiritual quality that came through in his eyes. Not something I'd make a habit of but, in his case, worth describing.
My favorite part was how you informed us that teasing sequels may come off as leaving readers unsatisfied, and that the stand-alone quality of a story cannot be understated. I'm writing a novella in the discovery writing format, and have thought about making it a series, and you prove a great point. I inversely have a question pertaining to sequels and if it's a decent idea to write them as much as possible as standalone pieces as well? It's an interesting thought that I might try regardless, and it would be interesting to have your thoughts.
So, I guess what you're saying is, you love Harry Potter. I'm afraid I have to fall in with the others on chapter titles. I also disagree about teasing the next book. It's my very favourite thing when a book does that. Especially if the next book is already available.
I agree with all of your points! Especially writing out accents. It's way too distracting and I have put down multiple books because of it, it just makes the dialogue a chore to read.
Yeah I mostly agree. Although some chapter titles can be fun, like in Percy Jackson, lots of them can also be overdone and go into spoiler territory. In those cases, I'm a little surprised that nobody on the author's publishing team said anything about it.
I politely but very strongly disagree with the bit about chapter titles. I have always felt that *tasteful* chapter titles (some are not) give character to the book, look nice, show that the author thinks of each one as more than a number, and gives a nice page heading when a book takes that stylistic choice. Just my view though. Books without Chapter titles always just feel a bit more... flat. A movie in Book form.
Hi Alyssa - with regard to physical attributes, don't you think it's beneficial to highlight certain traits in a subjective third person narrative? If one character is in love with another, for instance, I think it behooves the writer to embody that POV by highlighting how beautiful they are, for example.
Nothing really to unpack. "Accent" isn't captured in written language. Jargon and slang and phraseology is. But use too much of that and it becomes distracting.
When physical features such as blue eyes are simply stated as a 'stand alone'- they serve no function except to describe a person's features; I would agree with you. But, if the physical feature is integral to the plot, a sign of ancestral lineage - a genetic marker- would you still hold to your premise?
In The Locked Tomb series(Gideon the 9th, etc), eye color plays SUCH an important role in the world building and plot. To the point where it drives quite a few significant character motivations and causes major info revelations. Weird or over-the-top physical attributes do too. Like, all of sci-fi and fantasy would be bland goop without unrealistic physical attributes.
Yeah, I use chapter names in my novel, too. I wrote song lyrics with the words I wanted and highlighted those words/phrases. Yes, I wrote the artists and asked permission. I also wrote an epilogue that takes place one day to six months after the last chapter. But nothing turns out good for anyone. The reader will want to know what happened to them, and it was the best way.
I'm in favor of using any and all of these techniques, as long as you do them the right way. To wit: *1. Writing out dialects in dialogue:* True, I don't like writing out accents and mangled colloquial language quite the way Mark Twain did, but mostly only because replacing the "g" at the end of every gerund (and every other word ending with an "-ing" suffix) with an apostrophe to indicate e.g. a drawling Southern twang really drives my word processor's spell-checker crazy. Something I find works quite well in its place (and is much easier on the spell-checker) is using the grammatically improper Southern syntax, e.g. "since you was up" and "you shouldn't ought to do that" and "ya might could get some more of that" and so forth. Bizarre syntax and use of unfamiliar metaphors also works rather nicely when working with fictional extraterrestrial species: think of Yoda's odd way of speaking in the Star Wars movies, or the some of the bizarre ways various other humanoids and the like spoke in various Star Trek series, and how it immediately signaled how alien some of these characters and their cultures were even though it was still spoken in (or translated into) English for our benefit. *2. Naming chapters:* That is a little old-fashioned as you say, but some readers and writers like things a little old-fashioned like that. Also, with one of my novels, I found the challenge of summarizing each of eleven chapters in one word for each chapter's title helped get my creative juices flowing. Using chapter titles to set the tone in this manner can work just fine as long as you really are just giving the reader some idea of what's coming and aren't trying to show off how smart you are by presenting the title as some kind of enigma you expect the reader to circle back and solve; J.J. Abrams' "mystery boxes" (which I blame for his being so talented at starting stories but so terrible at finishing them) are not welcome here. *3. Unrealistic physical attributes:* Like odd dialects and alien syntax, rare and/or alien physical attributes can help establish a character as being a bit out of the ordinary as long as you don't feel compelled to rhapsodize about these traits for paragraphs or pages. While I generally prefer to leave most of my characters' physical traits (both common and rare) entirely up to the reader's imagination, I might have a character linger over something unusual about another character's physical appearance if that anomaly contributes something to the plot, e.g. the first clue a character gets about another character being an extraterrestrial in disguise is "Hey wait a minute: her eyes are purple! Is that a natural color human eyes can be? Is she maybe wearing special contact lenses? She doesn't look like she could afford those..." *4. Bowtie endings or epilogues:* Sometimes, you have to make sure the end is truly at the end so you don't accidentally leave your readers hanging. One novel I wrote was originally going to be about 80,000 words long and end with the characters disembarking from the ship on which they'd been having some bizarre romantic adventures during their honeymoon cruise only to discover they had landed in a heretofore unknown nation because they were now on an alternate version of Earth in an alternate dimension. As I neared that ending, however, it occurred to me that was not the right place to end: contrary to being the ambiguous "the adventure continues" ending I intended, ending there would surely leave a lot of my readers expecting a sequel they were never going to be getting. So I ended up writing approximately another 20,000 words describing the characters settling in and adjusting to their new homeland (which it had to be since there was no way they or any of the other passengers on that ship were ever going to be able to get back to their own dimension) and gradually coming to accept this (actually rather pleasant) fate; which might seem a little too tidy for your tastes, but I'd say after reading so far, my readers deserved such complete closure to the story, wouldn't you? *5. Teasing a sequel:* Speaking of sequels, a "sequel hook" (as this kind of ending is known) is perfectly fine-if, in fact, you definitely are going to write the promised sequel. If you have a tendency to procrastinate and/or put your intentions to write a sequel on hold indefinitely (as I often do), then no, you definitely shouldn't cheat your readers by ending with such an idle promise. If you were already writing the sequel even as you were working on the original book, however (a pretty good sign that you actually will manage to finish that sequel), then it's perfectly fine to end on a sequel hook like that.
I must say I wrapped both my books up in a bow at the end and I think it works in both cases. The first book started with a pregnancy announcement which started a string of events that was the story. With the bow ending, I was able to end the story with a pregnancy announcement. The second book was about a man with a rare gift. A genetic anomaly that no longer exists in the world except through him. That bow ending allowed me to show that the woman he fell in love with was a carrier of the rare gene so their child was born with his abilities.
I have been doing a lot of research on African American Vernacular English and Māori slang, as two of my characters speak this way. The best advice that I saw was to use grammatical inconsistencies, but not spell in dialect. An example of this would be the habitual tenses of AAVE "he be cooking," or "he done cooked" without using the shortened spellings such as "God willin'," or "what 'bout" instead of "what about." The idiomatic grammar will automatically clue the reader into ascribing the accent you are going for. I have some characters (wolves) who speak untranslated Proto-Germanic phrases, which are not critical to comprehension, which I just put out there raw. They are supposed to be unintelligible and jarring.
The time when teasing a sequel while still having a standalone novel is just fine is in the horror genre. There's a ton of stories I've found end like that, and it's often expected and even hoped for, as far as my experience has been.
I use misspellings and apostrophes to represent accent, but I do it sparingly, definitely ~5% of the words at most. It can be overdone. I do it because I enjoy it when reading. Also, 3:23, I'm afraid I can't take seriously an opinion base on "need". We could list 1000 things that didn't need to be in a book to make it enjoyable and even great, yet made it even better with a thing that didn't need to be there.
Your commentary hit on an instance where chapter titles are appropriate. I wrote a novel where the protagonists' story is tied to the US Civil War. The use of chapter titles helps to "age" the account, to add to the sense of reading something written in the 1860's, not the 2020's. Chapter titles should (key word>) hint at what's coming, without being a "spoiler". The title choice should also reflect the tone of the chapter. "Being Where Bolthan Meets His Doom" isn't likely to work with a chapter that is humorous. Unless, perhaps, it's humor based on hyperbole? What if Bolthan is a young lad whose doom is to be condemned to washing dishes for a week?
The only issue I have with chapter titles is if there’s a spoiler in the title. Otherwise, chapter titles aren’t disruptive or nor inherently problematic. If some readers skip over the chapter title, so what? That's not going to take away the meaning of the titles to the writer and the readers who do read them. I love the chapter titles of the Harry Potter books. Another book that did chapter titles brilliantly is Uglies, a book I consider perfect in every way and a must read. Shannon Hale's The Actor and the Housewife did brilliant, unique chapter titles where there's just the title not the chapter number and it has a 19th century style in a contemporary novel.
As a reader I love when characters have an unique attribute, even if it's deep see blue eyes or rainbow hair. It makes the character more memorable and when the book has many characters it's really helpful. And I love epilogues, but that might be because I'm reading romance and if there's not HEA or 2 years later... the story doesn't feel right. I 100% agree about teasing sequels and dialects. Any weird spelling pulls me out of the story and then I can't stop thinking about how annoying I find it.
@@sharcon3891Anne Rice doesn't do what she describes. At least not that I ever recall. Mind you, many of her characters are supernatural beings, so there's that. Heh.
Here are techniques of writing I hate: 1) Filler 2) Undoing plot points set up (especially if it's meant to be suspense) 3) Stating the obvious 4) Not delivering on promises the premise introduced; telling another story within the story entirely 5) Having to "streamline" stories to fit a certain structure, and then repeating that structure for everything else.
*_Nnnnope!_* Not a one. While you do go into more detail on these items, your title implies that these things are bad and that they shouldn't be done. However, as with *any* creative technique, it's all about the skill of the artist, not the technique, itself. At the risk of inflating my own expertise: *1.* Writing my MC's dialect is a critical part of the story: urban Black. If readers initially feel that his dialect stereotypical, that reveals something about themselves as they read the story and learn more about him. It's an intentional theme. It's also a *major* clue, the slap-the-side-of-your-own-head kind. *2.* Most of my chapter names are major clues, collectively; whether the reader reads them or not, they're there. Also, the chapter names are important for association when discussing the book. Saying _"... in chapter #64..."_ creates a weaker association than _"... in 'Fan, Meet Shit'...."_ The latter creates an immediate visual for those who've read it. *3.* Certain physical attributes are important for the story, such as eye color; some characters interpret the color differently, ultimately coloring their own impressions of the person, negative or positive. *4.* My epilogues are critical for the understanding of the story, wrapping up some elements, but are not "bow-tie." *5.* Yes, I tease a sequel at the end, but it's also a *major* reveal for the story; it's standalone, but the MC is left in a *very* unstable place.
Dialect. So hard to do well. And even the masters sing do this well sometimes. Example. I find Twain's _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ nearly unreadable since dialect is so heavy throughout. Another approach is simply to drop in small bits. Example, if you character is from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, have them say "yinz" and not "y'all." And refer to rubber bands as gumbands. Small things like that.
"Strikingly beautiful characters are just unrealistic," says strikingly beautiful person. Seriously though, it bothers you when beautiful people have fairy tale endings? I get if it's over-the-top or comes without some sort of satisfying struggle, but in a lot of fantasy (though maybe not all), I think the element of escapism almost necessitates some measure of idealization. I read fiction to experience a world where everything's better than my own depressing life; if I wanted to see tragically flawed individuals achieving a sort of reasonably stable end point, I'd just look at myself in the mirror. Totally agree with you about dialects though.
Im writing a book with a small subplot underneath the main plot and this subplot does not get resolved by the end of the book 1. It will continue on in the sequel and turn into the main plot for book 2 and book 3. If i just didn't mention it at the end of book 1 and left the readers thinking i forgot about it, they would be like, "what about this huge mystery you've been spoon feeding us??" So I think in some cases foreshadowing the sequel is necessary.
I agree with points about endings. I think "accents" and "distinct physical attributes" can be often be taken too far, but hating those tropes is creating an expectation of taking them out entirely is "whitewashing". I'm from a mixed race family and offended whenever this is treated so harshly (saying you hate is harsh). It also is depriving people of sprinkles on their Sunday just because a few people complained about them. I think it can (and should) be done well and done with nuance.
What if you have to write sequel because your whole stories isn’t fit in just one but. Eve thought it best to stay write standalone until editor give you green light to continues. What should you do?
I don't think that naming chapters is bad. I use it as working titles so I know what the chapter is about so I can easily pinpoint stuff in my story for if I need to change or edit them for example when I suddenly get a hunch for a specific scene, it's really easy to find the scene rapidly within just minutes of the entire work. (Going through 60.000 words without it can be a real doozy) I do plan to get rid of the working titles in my final draft for a better flow and a more immersive experience. Kind of ruins the chapter if you already expose what it is about in 2 to 5 words.
I have many main characters which have big important role of themselves as result too many chapter which have their own POV and some time because of that I run out idea for write their stories. Should I continues like that, or eliminate number of characters and their POV so I won’t have too much chapter and lose sight of story.
I do this all the time, I know how you feel. My solution is to cut and set them aside, and maybe they'll become their own side-story. This works really well if the lesser MC is actually interesting, or if you have an arc in mind for them. Works especially well if the MC has few interactions with the main MC's of the current story.
I agree chapter names are fluff and half agree with not having characters with too striking of features. I say half because I only agree if those striking features are delivered as statements of fact to build that character up in the eye of the reader. I disagree if those "striking features" are the opinion of another character because that shows who they are and what they notice and want and what bias or blind spots they possess. I disagree with not writing out accents or unusual speech patters IF the reason is fear of perceived stereotyping or of offending. Self-censoring out of fear of a negative opinion from a future reader is the same sin as writing with the primary purpose of selling your book to that same faceless reader. Damn the torpedo-readers. Tell your story how you want to tell it and do so full steam ahead. Lastly, I'm going to split hairs on sequels ( Harry Potter) vs continuations (Lord of the Rings). If you're writing a more episodic type series like Harry Potter you should end each book cleanly and neatly. The Basilisk is killed, Ginny is saved, Dumbldore has returned so we can all go be happy in the Great Hall. The end. But when the Ring remains undestroyed, and the fellowship has broken up, and Merry and Pip have been captured you have to tell the reader more is coming.
I'm glad you made that last point, as I was struggling to put it to words. There is certainly a case to be made for writing a multi-novel story which by necessity does not wrap up the main arc in book 1. Specifically in adult fantasy trilogies are the norm - I know I seldom want to invest my time into a one and done novel.
I've seen chapter titles done well (especially with comedic narratives), but yeah, they usually make the text seem amateurish. George RR Martin in _The Song of Ice and Fire_ named his with the first name or the PoV character for that chapter. This was a good and useful use of it. Normally though, yeah ... amateurish.
I'm so glad that this otherwise spot on vlogger titled this installment "I actually hate" - with the emphasis on "I." Because listing her pet peeves is fine as long as she doesn't pretend all readers, agents, and publishers agree with her on each and every one. They emphatically don't.
What is your opinion on naming chapters or act breaks if there are multiple threads in different time periods? Still no naming, and focus on making the first paragraph clear enough to orientate the reader? What if some scenes are epistolary?
Didn’t J.K. Rowling have an epilogue to her Harry Potter series, which showed what happened to the characters in the future. I could be wrong (it’s been many years since I read those books), but I recall something like that.
I kind of disagree with the last one. Not all stories can be finished in a single novel. Harry Potter, Star Wars and Game of Thrones all being very good examples where the story unfolds over many years and books.
I like the accented dialog. I think it's fun. I don't really see it that much, maybe in Stephen King? I'm a sucker for different fonts, lol. I don't think an exciting prologue makes up for a boring beginning in chapter one. Or a bunch of characters that only get interesting when they finally meet each other. Actually, I skip villian pov chapters in thriller novels like C J Box. I don't like too much description that slows things down, but I guess that's subjective. Or a bunch of flashbacks. People are too good looking in movies and tv. We need more realistic looking actors, lol. Does everyone have to have perfect abs and no body hair? Books (or comics) and tv/movies are different things. This is a little specific, but I don't like fantasy books that are just 99% history.
#1 isn't bad as long as it isn't done in a negative manner. I'm totally with you with #2. Silly chapter titles are very much unneeded. I'm totally with you with #3. It distracts from the personality and growth of the character. #4 is totally cheesy. I don't like them either because they have nothing to do with what you spent time reading. #5 isn't bad, hah. As long as the main plot and problems are resolved, there's nothing wrong with introducing a slight tease.
Yeah dialects drive me nuts. Few authors can pull it off without it being grating to read. Unrealistic physical attributes seem to be pretty generally distributed in mainstream literature.
My protagonist does have blue eyes and (later in the story) a scar on his cheek. (lol) I don't describe him as if he is th most perfect man though. I actually hate that in novels as well. In "Cinder" by Meyer, the love interest is described over and over and over again as "so hot" and "attractive" and "desirable" and "Don´t you like him as well? How can you not fall for him?" and we never actually get more of a description than what his hair looks like. None of his actions made him any more attractive either and it just felt very forced and unrealistic.
I don't think that is what she is describing. She is describing characters superficially given random striking features which is common in more sophomoric works.
I need to say first that i enjoy your videos. I also need to say i disagree with almost every point you made. I also need to say im not an publisher/editor, so I'll take your opinions to heart.
The worst kind of Bowtie Ending is in Deception Point by Dan Brown. Despite the intense journey, the book ends in a sex scene in the president house and none of these characters developed relationship within 24 hours! I call the tropes " Love Puzzle ", characters share something in common, like a lack of partner, to bypass relationship building.
The talk about attractive characters as if they're not realistic reminded me of an episode of Workaholics. A very attractive woman is around the guys and they get mad at it, saying "You're not real. You're an angel."
Personally, I LOVE chapter titles. :) And I have met plenty of strikingly attractive people, so as long as it's not overdone, I don't mind it. But I guess the keywords are: not overdone. I like bowtie endings in feel-good novels, but not in any other kind. This is such a great channel! Thanks for all the food for thought.
Fair enough! Writing is all subjective, and there's an audience for everything!
I have to say, I actually love chapter titles. Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, in my opinion, is a good example. Obviously done right, they can add an evocative quality to the telling.
I'm reading that right now.
@@Padruig9 I really enjoyed it! Definitely a good read!
I like chapter titles, too. When i go to Amazon, for example, and find a book that seems interesting, the first thing I do is to open the PREVIEW and read the chapter titles. If there aren't any, it's disappointing to me, and I might sometimes even think twice before I buy the book.
Also, if I get a book from elsewhere, the first thing I do is to open it up and read the chapter titles.
Moreover, I would have a difficult time reading a book that just runs without any chapter breaks at all.
im going to cry, i wrote a really long comment about my favorite book, AND TH-cam HAS TO BE STUPID AND DELETE IT. ALL I HAVE LEFT IS THE SECOND PART, WHICH IS THIS:
"okay now to continue that:
Here's what the like... I guess silly main character has in her little thing:
---
Molly
- Human Cosmic Brownie
- The cast's only working brain cell
- ...And she's literally always working.
---
Here's the author's "stupid bell daughter" [he has like 15 plushies of her that watch over him, and in one of the newest tweets on the official account for the show/book, called her a dummy. Wow.]:
---
Phoenica
- Literally the richest girl in the world
- Terminal stupid
- Thinks that the word "stupid" is a swear
---
And here's my favorite character:
---
"Rick"
- Sh-shaped like a friend?
- Default response to feeling an emotion: Scream
- Has a great smile!
*...Doesn't blink.*
---
Here's the universal fan favorite:
---
-Giovanni- VINCENT MURDER!
- AN AWESOME NEW VILLAIN!
- JOIN HIS BRAND NEW BAD GUY GROUP TODAY!!
- DEFINITELY NOT GIOVANNI POTAGE!!!
---
And finally, here's the character the author finds hot and also voices. [this is literally one of the shortest and oldest male characters. He has green hair, HOW DO YOU FIND THIS MAN HOT-]
---
Naven
- Teaches speech classes
- Gets bullied by 12-year-olds
- If you yell at him, he might cry.
---
yep.
are my comments just not going through.... im gonna save the comments on notepad and try again tomorrow, im too tired for this
I love chapter headings. Actually, they help me write, because I’m not an outliner; the heading sets the scene in my mind and the chapter flows from that.
I dont Outline as well and am now asking myself how you get a chapter heading if you dont know the chapter yet?
Often I Simply know the rough Theme of the chapter but wouldnt be able to create a Headline out of that.
@Lachgummei all the time I can plot out entire stories just from a phrase or word. I love having chapter headers for this reason. Just like I can create a whole world or movie from a song, for me personally, i just think its cool.
You don't publish your draft. So, remove your notes. Heh.
Chapter numbers without titles feels like a modern convention, but I do think we need to return to titles. They're simply helpful for remembering what a chapter was about. I suppose they're not always necessary, but more often than not they are missing, when they would actually be helpful.
As an ex slush pile reader for a top agent in San Francisco, I usually agree with most of what you say, but there are some things on your list that I don't hate. I don't hate an accent if it is done well and doesn't fill up the whole book. I think it's fine, especially if it's not the protagonist with the accent but incidental characters. It helps me to get a flavor of a place. The world would be less interesting without accents. If the accents are not done well, then obviously I don't like them either, because they distract from the story. Also, for the most part I think all a chapter heading needs is a number but if they're done well, what's wrong with chapter titles? They don't have to summarize the chapter, but again if they're done well, they might give me a flavor of what's to come and and peak my interest. One thing I HATE that you didn't mention is endless filler and long descriptions of minutia that I don't need. I can imagine what the tea cup looks like just fine. I'm personally sick of having to wade through all that excess to get to the meat of the story.
It is interesting to see what one reader or editor for an agent or a publisher might accept and what another might not. We never know what might turn one on and the other off. I never really thought of it that way until reading this comment. On another note, I agree with you about the accents. I think it adds to their character and the scene.
Oh no! Everything you hate....I love! :) It's okay lol
I love written out accents, pidgeon english, wierd grammatical shifts, dual language dialects, lisps. It's part of the fun of meeting new characters with their own unique traits - otherwise they all tend to sound the same American accent, lingo, idioms - and thats way worse! I give you Mark Twain, who probably did it best, and loved describing the different kinds of speech phonetically depending on which part of the South you were. It's beautiful and gives a history and depth to the characters and the story. Also - I love weird pronounciations, and chewing on words. That's part of the fun and beauty of the english language - it's capable of that and I think its good for writers to explore and find new and inventive ways of effectively describing how people speak. Damn the cowering PC hall monitors. If you live around people with accents (like I have my whole life) you quickly realize written accents aren't offensive unless one hasen't encountered people with accents in life and is afraid of offending. Besides it's what the characters do and say that matter, and as long as they are nonstereotypical and become their own type we can get to really care, get endeared and even miss their way of speaking.
I love chapter titles! For example, The I love the descriptive titles in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series - I mean I really love them and wish more authors would do them because to me they build anticipation on what to expect in the chapter (like it's supposed to be this one character's chapter, but the title hints that they may meet this character or get close to them.) Honestly chapter titles are the best, and a number only tells me that the writer didn't care enough or wasn't capable of thinking of cool clever title. For example, I wish George RR martin titled his chapter - imagine how much fun that would ave been!
Un realistics physical attributes...c'mon push your suspension of disbelief a little! You can't get through a sci-fi or fantasy novel with this (not a good one anyways lol).
I love Bowtie ending - JRR Tolkien is a great example. When you've followed a set of characters for 3 books - you love them and you kinda want to know how their life turned out.
And of course I love the sequel tease. Obviously I read fantasy and scifi - atleast two thirds of an authors works is a sequel lol. So after the main adventure is done, I don't mind a taste of new adventure on the horizon. I don't think writers to alter their story to suit the tastes of publisher or agent. The story should serve only one master - the author.
But thank you for putting your convictions out there though. Please give us more!
I agree, clearly Alyssa has a lot of valuable knowledge but isn’t a lover of fantasy.
I don't 'hate' any if these ... I just dislike it when they're poorly executed, but there really are many examples where they are well executed.
Personally, I would categorise these techniques into the _'tread carefully'_ category.
Trainspotting is an example of a well done dialect filled novel.
I think your tips work well for most genres, however, fantasy would be the outlier, where most of these techniques are used and are even expected.
Yes, great clarifying point! If a specific scene or technique used is relevant and intentional to the story, it makes sense to keep it in.
I was just about to sat this. 😅 I write fantasy and my started, much like LotR is NOT a stand alone for the full plot unless you are okay with not knowing the rest of the story.
My novel has 24 chapters. Each has a title. The titles are relatively vague but thematic, like: "First Lesson", "Have a Drink", " Stealing Time" and so on. They are meant to set the tone of the chapters.
My three viewpoint characters are often experiencing something related to the chapter theme, but often in vastly different ways.
I write novels for young readers, both series and stand-alone novels. For these ages especially, I think chapter names/naming chapters can be a generous act on the part of the writer that will help young readers keep track of where they are in the story. Also, sometimes an upcoming chapter name can coax a "reluctant reader" to keep reading or help a more eager reader remember where they were in the story if a significant amount of time has passed between readings. (Chapter names are also a revision aid for me, I find.) I agree, however, that they can sometimes look dated in adult fiction. Thanks for an interesting post!
Great clarifying point! Thanks for sharing :)
I name my chapters just for revision too!
Oh man! Alyssa, I love your content and I have learned a lot from your channel. Some days when I don’t have time to write, listening to your videos helps me still feel connected to my project.
This is the first video that totally missed for me. My favorite novels demonstrate a collage of all of your pet peeves. Maybe it’s because I like epic fantasy. I feel that all of the items listed here are very common in fantasy.
Haha, that's totally fair! Fantasy is a genre I don't really work in, so these techniques might be better targeted towards other genres. Thanks for commenting :)
I don't agree with avoiding writing out dialects because you don't want to sound stereotypical or offensive: just do it right and without exaggerations. If your character is a man from the Deep South of the US in an area where standard American English is rarely used, some "flavouring" in his words would be great to make him sound authentic.
Obviously the spelling must still be understandable, but the great thing about vernaculars is they rarely have standardised spelling, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
one recent example of some 'controversy' surrounding this was in the hit novel 'Where the Crawdads Sing' where 1. many of the characters spoke in a very exaggerated southern dialect that sounded like alabama/louisiana yet they were in North Carolina. And 2. most of the 'bad characters' spoke this way and the 'good' and 'educated' ones spoke normally, which seemed to reinforce some stereotypes. With that said I sort of agree with what you're saying because everyone is so quick these days to dumb everything down and this is one example of it and personally I like reading the written out dialects when it's done well. One huge hit novel where it's done really well (in fantasy) was The Name of the Wind by patrick rothfuss, where a character towards the end spoke in a really ridiculous over the top phonetically spelled out dialect. But it was funny and great and most people loved it
@@etluxaeterna I've been to North Carolina. Though a thick southern accent is rare, it still exists, especially in the more rural parts of the state.
A lot of Black authors write out dialects: Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes. If you're from the culture you know how to write it out. If you're not, you're not gonna know how to write dialect.
As someone who writes in dialect for some of her characters, there are times it’s absolutely necessary. And as a black woman, AAVE reflects how SOME of us communicate. I drop the Gs from the ends of some of my words so do my characters. Some of my characters are from the South. It's a tricky situation and intent (whether it's for authenticity OR to further stereotypes) is what should be taken into account.
Another method is to use syntax or word choice rather than misspellings to indicate a character who has a regional accent or speaks another language. Use English words, spelled correctly, but alter the word order to follow Spanish, French, etc., and use a few words in the other language/vernacular the way the character would in real life. Basing a dialect on the speech of actual people you know helps with authenticity. It should also fit the time and place of the story; British vs. American terms, slang vs. proper diction, archaic vs. modern terminology. I read a friend's Sci-Fi piece that featured four different scientists; in the dialogue they all sounded the same. Careful consideration and research is key to making this work.
Chapter titles are not always needed, but if applied without too much spoilage or spillage, can do a lot to build anticipation and clue the reader in to the author's tone and orientation.
Thanks Alyssa.I really like that you provide us alternatives. Great video. Super helpful for where I'm at in my process.
Your chapter name issue boggles me. As a reader/writer of fantasy fiction the story can get quite long and complex, and if I want to flip back and reference something chapter names make it much easier.
I think the same
If you have to flip back to a chapter title, mayhaps the author has failed to keep you invested in the words before you.
Agreed. I commented above that Sanderson and Rothfus us these chapter names to great effect, especially given the length of their works.
@@clintcarpentier2424 The stormlight archive is up to book 5, and they average 400k words.
I agree. In a complex novel it can have a good affect on the reader when executed well.
I think chapter titles have their place, in particular middle-grade fiction like Harry Potter. I remember as a kid I'd open up the book and dream myself away at what would happen in the different chapters when reading through them. I'd even list my favorite chapter titles. A kid's imagination is a powerful thing and those really do evoke it. But I would say for adult fiction they're all but useless. I mean if you read Epic Fantasy you might have a book at 400 000 words, having chapter titles at that point (like Brandon Sanderson is doing) makes them all but redundant; the only thing that matters going into another chapter is who the POV is going to be.
GRRM did find a nice in-between on this with his ASOIAF series where he started naming chapter titles something that has to do with the character like The Captain's Daughter, usually when it was a character that wasn't a frequent POV. So you could guess at who it would be in advance, and that's a really cool way of engaging the reader. Although that's hard to do unless you have an established relationship with your readerbase such that they know what it is you're trying to do.
Great advice. As always. You’re killing it Alyssa! Thank you!!
Chapter titles, epigraphs, can work. Frank Herbert's Dune is an example. Packs an emotional punch too when at the end of the book you find out why Irulan has written so many books.
I agree. I also think Pat Rothfus’s chapter titles are great and the same is true with Sanderson. Love them, and for me, looking forward to learning their full meaning by the end of the chapter often motivates that “just one more chapter” reading binge.
You made a good point but ruined it by referencing the worst author of all time
Epigraphs are not chapter titles. But yes, sometimes chapter titles can work. Usually, they don't.
William Gibson is another example; his chapter titles, especially in The Sprawl Trilogy, are very evocative and push the narrative forward.
I’m just glad Robert Eggers didn’t pay attn to the dialect tip when he wrote The VVitch and The Lighthouse. Like, I dunno, I feel like it’s like saying “don’t use charcoal, oil paints are best”
"not many people have striking blue eyes or meet an unrealistic standard of beauty," says the beautiful blue-eyed woman
Totally agree about phonetically writing out dialogues, it's rarely done well. It also forgets that actually we ALL have an accent, and yet correct spelling is common to us all.
Dialect vs Accent! Writing out an *accent* can be hard to understand, disrupt flow, alienate readers of that accent etc. BUT a *dialect* is a combination of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation - and writing out the words a character would use, and the grammar with which they would speak (e.g. word order, presence or absence of articles etc.) is, from my perspective, only correct - not everyone speaks in the same way and this is part of it - I wouldn't want all my characters to sound like a 1950s BBC broadcaster, and vocabulary and grammar thus have to differ to show a characters voice.
TLDR; it is definitely possible to write out *dialect* whilst still spelling words as they are spelled in standard English, and I would suggest that this is an important thing to have within a book for representation/accuracy purposes
Or do the opposite of a bowtie ending,
"And 52 years later, Jane died during hip replacement surgery."
this is actually so funny 🫣
All good tips to keep in mind. I do a little bit of dialect/accent writing (probably less than 100 words in the entire novel); a little bit of character looks description; I have a number of POVs, so my chanter headings just include the name of the new POV character, etc. The point you make (with which I agree) is any writing technique which overly draws attention to itself detracts from a reader's immersive experience, and you name some good potential pitfalls. I just tried experimenting with switching between past tense and present tense for a few paragraphs. Very difficult to do well, but I think it works for the little bit of the scene where I tried it. We'll see how beta readers respond.
It seems like you've put more than enough thought into your stylistic choices! Best of luck with the writing process!
As several below have said, and I agree, I like chapter titles, and think they add to the story, if well-chosen. That said, I have done it both ways. I typically write with chapter titles, sometimes change them as the story matures, and then, if at the end I don't feel they serve the purpose I want, I remove them in the final product. But I do very much like them, and generally feel they are desirable, if they work well with the final story.
That's a great way to write with chapter titles while still being flexible with not having them. Thank you for your comment!
I'm actually quite surprised at how many I disagree with! Everyone has their own opinion. I agree with the dialect it can be distracting and the sequel thing.
For chapter titles, I think it all depends on the effect you want to have and just, in general, the author's preference, no matter if you choose titles, just numbers, numbers spelled out, blank space... they each have a different effect that refects an author's style so it's also equally still important. Maybe its purpose is to disrupt your reading, maybe it's to leave an open-end, maybe a number has significants-- there are so many possibilities playing with the format of a novel to trick or cause the reader to feel a certain way, even if they just skim over it.
For unrealistic features, it really is significant especially in fantasy where characters really are supposed to be refect as superhuman and you want the readers to feel like they see this awesome human creature with wings, etc. It does have a place and time when it doesn't need to be used but again it's another effect. I think you can use it incorrectly but I do still think there is a specific way to help a reader understand if done properly and not overuse.
I also disagree with bowtie endings, it really is all about how you want your reader to feel after reading something. Like maybe the purpose is to make them feel sad and open-ended to get their message across. And despite what everyone says, nice happy endings can leave closure. It maybe clique but also it's something like a trope where some people like it and maybe drawn to stories with bowtie endings. I mean we can watch movies all the time that have happy endings and rewatch them so many times as well just for that satisfaction and feeling of comfort. Also, if it's a genre like the real-life coming of age then maybe not, but others may have the intent to make you feel like you are in another world where things will end perfect--such as fairy tales.
A lot of Black authors have written dialect well: Hurston, Walker, Hughes. If you know what you're doing, it's necessary to do.
Yes, an excellent clarification point! Thank you for sharing :)
@@AlyssaMatesic my focus area in grad school was 20th century African American lit, so I'm quite familiar :) thanks for the video!
Yep, I'm Black, and I can attest that sometimes it's absolutely necessary to write out dialects. That also makes our job infinitely harder (so, what else is new) when it comes to connecting with readers like Alyssa who tend to be in the majority of readers. But I have to be real and take my lumps.
Very helpful! Thanks. I see in the comments that several love chapter titles. I'm using them too as I write, but will be able to remove them easily from my finished draft. I guess after reading the comments about chapter titles, I'm ambivalent on keeping or getting rid of them. I liked all the tips. Especially the last one since this my be my one and only book. It will need to stand or fail on its own.
I'll have to revisit this video when I'm closer to the finish line.
There are some instances in which the ending of a story should communicate that an adventure will continue even if there is no actual sequel.
I'm guilty of two of your hated practices! My chapters are titled and I plant seeds and characters that will be further explored in the next volume!
Your videos are so clear and helpful - thank you! 🙏
I'm so glad you find them helpful! Thanks for commenting!
Your confidence helps me to be more confident. I agree with your dislikes and I appreciate your alternatives. I also try to use what I learn to help others who are worried about their writing.
For those who self-publish, chapter headings help sell the book when people do the look inside, say you start your first chapter with a dragon and later-after the free preview further down is a chapter with the title of the dragon it may help to sell the book. I assume it might help when an agent requests a full and it might lead them to read certain chapters they might not if they didn't like your opening?
I'm skeptical of this assertion. Maybe just a better blurb.
I'm another one here who will speak out in favor of chapter titles. You can have them, you don't have to. It's a matter of stylistic preference. I just submitted my novel to a publisher, it's a novel I first tried to write when I was 18 and then came back to as a middle-aged person with more life experience (am now 43). There are 30 chapters in my novel, and each of them has a title. One of them is the same title I used for the relevant chapter upon my first attempt all those years ago. These titles are meant in part to give the book a light poetic quality. To each their own. We'll see what the editor, if the book should be accepted for publication, will have to say on the matter.
Other than that, I think I pretty much agree with most of what you said.
Thanks for the tips! I appreciate your videos so much!
So glad you find them helpful! Thanks for commenting!
Tabitha King, finished another authors novel, "Candle's Burning." She used a broken southern dialect for a female character that was overkill. The story was great, so good I suffered a massive headache forcing myself to read on to the end.
Yikes! That's exactly the kind of reaction authors should want to avoid. Thanks for sharing!
I don't name the chapters for the readers, I name them for me. I like naming chapters and it helps me remember not only what parts of the story I've already covered but what I still need to add. no reader is going to complain about a chapter that has a name and if they are, they aren't my demographic.
You are describing your drafting process. That has nothing to do with what Alyssa is describing.
This is good info. Confirmed some things I was thinking
Love your content (been binging your channel since yesterday instead of Netflix) and I agree with all of these. Chapter titles are fun in children's fiction since it can serve to intrigue the reader (most of my literacy intervention students are 10-14 and skip the chapter titles, but I *did* read them as a kid and enjoyed them, especially in fantasy). In adult fiction, I prefer simple numbers. One pet peeve is chapter titles with no numbers because there is no clear order when flipping through.
I did a creative writing MA a few years ago, which steamrolled us with literary fiction (I'd never heard of it before then, and other students and I wished we were allowed to focus on YA, which was frowned upon). I might have been fine with all of the things you mentioned before that program, and even though I feel the literary fiction standards are restrictive, I now agree with many of them. That said, I wish literary fiction were less depressing / more exciting. Here's to non-distracting writing techniques AND fantastic stories! If anyone has recommendations for exciting, magical, whimsical literary fiction, especially YA, please suggest. Thank you for sharing your expertise with the community, Alyssa!
One of my top 5 favorite novels, Children of Time by Tchaikovsky, commits all of these peeves but for the unrealistic descriptions.
Once a craftsman understands a variety of techniques, and they choose the one that they think best enacts their intentions, then they can do whatever they want.
If a writer chooses to do all of these things when they could have chosen others, and they have a great story, then the story is going to be great; and it will be great because they chose those techniques.
When you end up using one technique because you don’t know any others, odds are you’re not using the best (or near best) for your intention.
Great video though!
People should write what they want to read. We all have different tastes. I absolutely love all the things mentioned as pet peeves. There are readers for every book. ❤
Thank you for this information. The last one is about foreshadowing sequels. If you go through a traditional publisher and they do not pick up the sequel, can you self-publish it? Is that something that would need to be covered in the contract? Thank you again.
I knew someone with turquoise eyes that impressed me to the core. He's shows up in my book and I describe how he looked, including his eyes. Is that wrong?
I don't think so. When I create my characters, I want them to seem as real to the reader as they become to me, so giving them distinctive features makes them stand out from the other characters. Perhaps it doesn't work all the time for all genres but I don't think it should ever be ruled out.
@@megorra I agree. This person had a unique spiritual quality that came through in his eyes. Not something I'd make a habit of but, in his case, worth describing.
Well I disagree with all of these. For one, I LOVE chapter titles, and titles of all kinds.
My favorite part was how you informed us that teasing sequels may come off as leaving readers unsatisfied, and that the stand-alone quality of a story cannot be understated. I'm writing a novella in the discovery writing format, and have thought about making it a series, and you prove a great point. I inversely have a question pertaining to sequels and if it's a decent idea to write them as much as possible as standalone pieces as well? It's an interesting thought that I might try regardless, and it would be interesting to have your thoughts.
Every book should stand alone for the most part. You never know, that sequel may never arrive.
So, I guess what you're saying is, you love Harry Potter.
I'm afraid I have to fall in with the others on chapter titles. I also disagree about teasing the next book. It's my very favourite thing when a book does that. Especially if the next book is already available.
I agree with all of your points! Especially writing out accents. It's way too distracting and I have put down multiple books because of it, it just makes the dialogue a chore to read.
Yeah I mostly agree. Although some chapter titles can be fun, like in Percy Jackson, lots of them can also be overdone and go into spoiler territory. In those cases, I'm a little surprised that nobody on the author's publishing team said anything about it.
I politely but very strongly disagree with the bit about chapter titles. I have always felt that *tasteful* chapter titles (some are not) give character to the book, look nice, show that the author thinks of each one as more than a number, and gives a nice page heading when a book takes that stylistic choice. Just my view though. Books without Chapter titles always just feel a bit more... flat. A movie in Book form.
That's an interesting way of looking at non-titled chapters! Thanks for sharing :)
Hi Alyssa - with regard to physical attributes, don't you think it's beneficial to highlight certain traits in a subjective third person narrative? If one character is in love with another, for instance, I think it behooves the writer to embody that POV by highlighting how beautiful they are, for example.
"normal English". Nothing to unpack in that statement.
Nothing really to unpack. "Accent" isn't captured in written language. Jargon and slang and phraseology is. But use too much of that and it becomes distracting.
When physical features such as blue eyes are simply stated as a 'stand alone'- they serve no function except to describe a person's features; I would agree with you. But, if the physical feature is integral to the plot, a sign of ancestral lineage - a genetic marker- would you still hold to your premise?
In The Locked Tomb series(Gideon the 9th, etc), eye color plays SUCH an important role in the world building and plot. To the point where it drives quite a few significant character motivations and causes major info revelations. Weird or over-the-top physical attributes do too.
Like, all of sci-fi and fantasy would be bland goop without unrealistic physical attributes.
Yeah, I use chapter names in my novel, too. I wrote song lyrics with the words I wanted and highlighted those words/phrases. Yes, I wrote the artists and asked permission.
I also wrote an epilogue that takes place one day to six months after the last chapter. But nothing turns out good for anyone. The reader will want to know what happened to them, and it was the best way.
I was going to give up the idea of writing then I found your channel thanks .
Glad I could help!
I love your work. Thanks.
This time however, I do not agree with the chapter titles. I like them. Personal taste.
I'm in favor of using any and all of these techniques, as long as you do them the right way. To wit:
*1. Writing out dialects in dialogue:* True, I don't like writing out accents and mangled colloquial language quite the way Mark Twain did, but mostly only because replacing the "g" at the end of every gerund (and every other word ending with an "-ing" suffix) with an apostrophe to indicate e.g. a drawling Southern twang really drives my word processor's spell-checker crazy. Something I find works quite well in its place (and is much easier on the spell-checker) is using the grammatically improper Southern syntax, e.g. "since you was up" and "you shouldn't ought to do that" and "ya might could get some more of that" and so forth. Bizarre syntax and use of unfamiliar metaphors also works rather nicely when working with fictional extraterrestrial species: think of Yoda's odd way of speaking in the Star Wars movies, or the some of the bizarre ways various other humanoids and the like spoke in various Star Trek series, and how it immediately signaled how alien some of these characters and their cultures were even though it was still spoken in (or translated into) English for our benefit.
*2. Naming chapters:* That is a little old-fashioned as you say, but some readers and writers like things a little old-fashioned like that. Also, with one of my novels, I found the challenge of summarizing each of eleven chapters in one word for each chapter's title helped get my creative juices flowing. Using chapter titles to set the tone in this manner can work just fine as long as you really are just giving the reader some idea of what's coming and aren't trying to show off how smart you are by presenting the title as some kind of enigma you expect the reader to circle back and solve; J.J. Abrams' "mystery boxes" (which I blame for his being so talented at starting stories but so terrible at finishing them) are not welcome here.
*3. Unrealistic physical attributes:* Like odd dialects and alien syntax, rare and/or alien physical attributes can help establish a character as being a bit out of the ordinary as long as you don't feel compelled to rhapsodize about these traits for paragraphs or pages. While I generally prefer to leave most of my characters' physical traits (both common and rare) entirely up to the reader's imagination, I might have a character linger over something unusual about another character's physical appearance if that anomaly contributes something to the plot, e.g. the first clue a character gets about another character being an extraterrestrial in disguise is "Hey wait a minute: her eyes are purple! Is that a natural color human eyes can be? Is she maybe wearing special contact lenses? She doesn't look like she could afford those..."
*4. Bowtie endings or epilogues:* Sometimes, you have to make sure the end is truly at the end so you don't accidentally leave your readers hanging. One novel I wrote was originally going to be about 80,000 words long and end with the characters disembarking from the ship on which they'd been having some bizarre romantic adventures during their honeymoon cruise only to discover they had landed in a heretofore unknown nation because they were now on an alternate version of Earth in an alternate dimension. As I neared that ending, however, it occurred to me that was not the right place to end: contrary to being the ambiguous "the adventure continues" ending I intended, ending there would surely leave a lot of my readers expecting a sequel they were never going to be getting. So I ended up writing approximately another 20,000 words describing the characters settling in and adjusting to their new homeland (which it had to be since there was no way they or any of the other passengers on that ship were ever going to be able to get back to their own dimension) and gradually coming to accept this (actually rather pleasant) fate; which might seem a little too tidy for your tastes, but I'd say after reading so far, my readers deserved such complete closure to the story, wouldn't you?
*5. Teasing a sequel:* Speaking of sequels, a "sequel hook" (as this kind of ending is known) is perfectly fine-if, in fact, you definitely are going to write the promised sequel. If you have a tendency to procrastinate and/or put your intentions to write a sequel on hold indefinitely (as I often do), then no, you definitely shouldn't cheat your readers by ending with such an idle promise. If you were already writing the sequel even as you were working on the original book, however (a pretty good sign that you actually will manage to finish that sequel), then it's perfectly fine to end on a sequel hook like that.
I must say I wrapped both my books up in a bow at the end and I think it works in both cases. The first book started with a pregnancy announcement which started a string of events that was the story. With the bow ending, I was able to end the story with a pregnancy announcement. The second book was about a man with a rare gift. A genetic anomaly that no longer exists in the world except through him. That bow ending allowed me to show that the woman he fell in love with was a carrier of the rare gene so their child was born with his abilities.
I have been doing a lot of research on African American Vernacular English and Māori slang, as two of my characters speak this way. The best advice that I saw was to use grammatical inconsistencies, but not spell in dialect. An example of this would be the habitual tenses of AAVE "he be cooking," or "he done cooked" without using the shortened spellings such as "God willin'," or "what 'bout" instead of "what about." The idiomatic grammar will automatically clue the reader into ascribing the accent you are going for. I have some characters (wolves) who speak untranslated Proto-Germanic phrases, which are not critical to comprehension, which I just put out there raw. They are supposed to be unintelligible and jarring.
These videos are exactly what a professional business writer who is just learning about creative writing needs - thank you Alyssa!
Glad it was helpful!
The time when teasing a sequel while still having a standalone novel is just fine is in the horror genre. There's a ton of stories I've found end like that, and it's often expected and even hoped for, as far as my experience has been.
I use misspellings and apostrophes to represent accent, but I do it sparingly, definitely ~5% of the words at most. It can be overdone. I do it because I enjoy it when reading. Also, 3:23, I'm afraid I can't take seriously an opinion base on "need". We could list 1000 things that didn't need to be in a book to make it enjoyable and even great, yet made it even better with a thing that didn't need to be there.
Your commentary hit on an instance where chapter titles are appropriate. I wrote a novel where the protagonists' story is tied to the US Civil War. The use of chapter titles helps to "age" the account, to add to the sense of reading something written in the 1860's, not the 2020's. Chapter titles should (key word>) hint at what's coming, without being a "spoiler". The title choice should also reflect the tone of the chapter. "Being Where Bolthan Meets His Doom" isn't likely to work with a chapter that is humorous. Unless, perhaps, it's humor based on hyperbole? What if Bolthan is a young lad whose doom is to be condemned to washing dishes for a week?
It’s amazing how most everything in life, including writing novels, comes down to common sense.
I suoer agree about the phonetic thing.
I grew up on chapter titles though lol
The only issue I have with chapter titles is if there’s a spoiler in the title. Otherwise, chapter titles aren’t disruptive or nor inherently problematic. If some readers skip over the chapter title, so what? That's not going to take away the meaning of the titles to the writer and the readers who do read them. I love the chapter titles of the Harry Potter books. Another book that did chapter titles brilliantly is Uglies, a book I consider perfect in every way and a must read. Shannon Hale's The Actor and the Housewife did brilliant, unique chapter titles where there's just the title not the chapter number and it has a 19th century style in a contemporary novel.
As a reader I love when characters have an unique attribute, even if it's deep see blue eyes or rainbow hair. It makes the character more memorable and when the book has many characters it's really helpful. And I love epilogues, but that might be because I'm reading romance and if there's not HEA or 2 years later... the story doesn't feel right.
I 100% agree about teasing sequels and dialects. Any weird spelling pulls me out of the story and then I can't stop thinking about how annoying I find it.
@@sharcon3891Anne Rice doesn't do what she describes. At least not that I ever recall. Mind you, many of her characters are supernatural beings, so there's that. Heh.
Here are techniques of writing I hate:
1) Filler
2) Undoing plot points set up (especially if it's meant to be suspense)
3) Stating the obvious
4) Not delivering on promises the premise introduced; telling another story within the story entirely
5) Having to "streamline" stories to fit a certain structure, and then repeating that structure for everything else.
*_Nnnnope!_* Not a one. While you do go into more detail on these items, your title implies that these things are bad and that they shouldn't be done. However, as with *any* creative technique, it's all about the skill of the artist, not the technique, itself. At the risk of inflating my own expertise:
*1.* Writing my MC's dialect is a critical part of the story: urban Black. If readers initially feel that his dialect stereotypical, that reveals something about themselves as they read the story and learn more about him. It's an intentional theme. It's also a *major* clue, the slap-the-side-of-your-own-head kind.
*2.* Most of my chapter names are major clues, collectively; whether the reader reads them or not, they're there. Also, the chapter names are important for association when discussing the book. Saying _"... in chapter #64..."_ creates a weaker association than _"... in 'Fan, Meet Shit'...."_ The latter creates an immediate visual for those who've read it.
*3.* Certain physical attributes are important for the story, such as eye color; some characters interpret the color differently, ultimately coloring their own impressions of the person, negative or positive.
*4.* My epilogues are critical for the understanding of the story, wrapping up some elements, but are not "bow-tie."
*5.* Yes, I tease a sequel at the end, but it's also a *major* reveal for the story; it's standalone, but the MC is left in a *very* unstable place.
Dialect. So hard to do well. And even the masters sing do this well sometimes. Example. I find Twain's _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ nearly unreadable since dialect is so heavy throughout. Another approach is simply to drop in small bits. Example, if you character is from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, have them say "yinz" and not "y'all." And refer to rubber bands as gumbands. Small things like that.
Chapter titles: genre matters
I use chapter numbers, titles and POV character names as my chapter titles lol
"Strikingly beautiful characters are just unrealistic," says strikingly beautiful person. Seriously though, it bothers you when beautiful people have fairy tale endings? I get if it's over-the-top or comes without some sort of satisfying struggle, but in a lot of fantasy (though maybe not all), I think the element of escapism almost necessitates some measure of idealization. I read fiction to experience a world where everything's better than my own depressing life; if I wanted to see tragically flawed individuals achieving a sort of reasonably stable end point, I'd just look at myself in the mirror. Totally agree with you about dialects though.
I do struggle with writing convincing accents. But some of my characters are aliens, so it's ok to otherize them.
Im writing a book with a small subplot underneath the main plot and this subplot does not get resolved by the end of the book 1. It will continue on in the sequel and turn into the main plot for book 2 and book 3. If i just didn't mention it at the end of book 1 and left the readers thinking i forgot about it, they would be like, "what about this huge mystery you've been spoon feeding us??" So I think in some cases foreshadowing the sequel is necessary.
I agree with points about endings. I think "accents" and "distinct physical attributes" can be often be taken too far, but hating those tropes is creating an expectation of taking them out entirely is "whitewashing". I'm from a mixed race family and offended whenever this is treated so harshly (saying you hate is harsh). It also is depriving people of sprinkles on their Sunday just because a few people complained about them. I think it can (and should) be done well and done with nuance.
She's being hyperbolic, I'm sure.
The only time I used chapter titles was for a MG magic realism book I wrote.
What if you have to write sequel because your whole stories isn’t fit in just one but. Eve thought it best to stay write standalone until editor give you green light to continues. What should you do?
I don't think that naming chapters is bad. I use it as working titles so I know what the chapter is about so I can easily pinpoint stuff in my story for if I need to change or edit them for example when I suddenly get a hunch for a specific scene, it's really easy to find the scene rapidly within just minutes of the entire work. (Going through 60.000 words without it can be a real doozy) I do plan to get rid of the working titles in my final draft for a better flow and a more immersive experience. Kind of ruins the chapter if you already expose what it is about in 2 to 5 words.
You are describing about your drafting process. She's talking about your published work.
I have many main characters which have big important role of themselves as result too many chapter which have their own POV and some time because of that I run out idea for write their stories. Should I continues like that, or eliminate number of characters and their POV so I won’t have too much chapter and lose sight of story.
I do this all the time, I know how you feel. My solution is to cut and set them aside, and maybe they'll become their own side-story. This works really well if the lesser MC is actually interesting, or if you have an arc in mind for them. Works especially well if the MC has few interactions with the main MC's of the current story.
I agree chapter names are fluff and half agree with not having characters with too striking of features. I say half because I only agree if those striking features are delivered as statements of fact to build that character up in the eye of the reader. I disagree if those "striking features" are the opinion of another character because that shows who they are and what they notice and want and what bias or blind spots they possess.
I disagree with not writing out accents or unusual speech patters IF the reason is fear of perceived stereotyping or of offending. Self-censoring out of fear of a negative opinion from a future reader is the same sin as writing with the primary purpose of selling your book to that same faceless reader. Damn the torpedo-readers. Tell your story how you want to tell it and do so full steam ahead.
Lastly, I'm going to split hairs on sequels ( Harry Potter) vs continuations (Lord of the Rings). If you're writing a more episodic type series like Harry Potter you should end each book cleanly and neatly. The Basilisk is killed, Ginny is saved, Dumbldore has returned so we can all go be happy in the Great Hall. The end. But when the Ring remains undestroyed, and the fellowship has broken up, and Merry and Pip have been captured you have to tell the reader more is coming.
I'm glad you made that last point, as I was struggling to put it to words. There is certainly a case to be made for writing a multi-novel story which by necessity does not wrap up the main arc in book 1. Specifically in adult fantasy trilogies are the norm - I know I seldom want to invest my time into a one and done novel.
Lord of the Rings is a bad example. It was written as a single book.
I've seen chapter titles done well (especially with comedic narratives), but yeah, they usually make the text seem amateurish. George RR Martin in _The Song of Ice and Fire_ named his with the first name or the PoV character for that chapter. This was a good and useful use of it. Normally though, yeah ... amateurish.
I'm so glad that this otherwise spot on vlogger titled this installment "I actually hate" - with the emphasis on "I." Because listing her pet peeves is fine as long as she doesn't pretend all readers, agents, and publishers agree with her on each and every one. They emphatically don't.
What is your opinion on naming chapters or act breaks if there are multiple threads in different time periods? Still no naming, and focus on making the first paragraph clear enough to orientate the reader? What if some scenes are epistolary?
Didn’t J.K. Rowling have an epilogue to her Harry Potter series, which showed what happened to the characters in the future. I could be wrong (it’s been many years since I read those books), but I recall something like that.
Have you made a video about writing memoir/autobiography?
I kind of disagree with the last one. Not all stories can be finished in a single novel. Harry Potter, Star Wars and Game of Thrones all being very good examples where the story unfolds over many years and books.
I like the accented dialog. I think it's fun. I don't really see it that much, maybe in Stephen King? I'm a sucker for different fonts, lol. I don't think an exciting prologue makes up for a boring beginning in chapter one. Or a bunch of characters that only get interesting when they finally meet each other. Actually, I skip villian pov chapters in thriller novels like C J Box. I don't like too much description that slows things down, but I guess that's subjective. Or a bunch of flashbacks. People are too good looking in movies and tv. We need more realistic looking actors, lol. Does everyone have to have perfect abs and no body hair? Books (or comics) and tv/movies are different things. This is a little specific, but I don't like fantasy books that are just 99% history.
#1 isn't bad as long as it isn't done in a negative manner.
I'm totally with you with #2. Silly chapter titles are very much unneeded.
I'm totally with you with #3. It distracts from the personality and growth of the character.
#4 is totally cheesy. I don't like them either because they have nothing to do with what you spent time reading.
#5 isn't bad, hah. As long as the main plot and problems are resolved, there's nothing wrong with introducing a slight tease.
Yeah dialects drive me nuts. Few authors can pull it off without it being grating to read. Unrealistic physical attributes seem to be pretty generally distributed in mainstream literature.
My protagonist does have blue eyes and (later in the story) a scar on his cheek. (lol) I don't describe him as if he is th most perfect man though.
I actually hate that in novels as well. In "Cinder" by Meyer, the love interest is described over and over and over again as "so hot" and "attractive" and "desirable" and "Don´t you like him as well? How can you not fall for him?" and we never actually get more of a description than what his hair looks like. None of his actions made him any more attractive either and it just felt very forced and unrealistic.
Thanks a lot. My character actually had a big facial scar and was missing an arm, but it’s based on a real guy that actually had one circa 1875
I don't think that is what she is describing. She is describing characters superficially given random striking features which is common in more sophomoric works.
@@t0dd000 I mean she literally said a face scar
@@BudsCartoon Yes. But there has to be me meaning behind it. Not just a decoration. I am pretty sure that's what she is getting at.
I find title headings in Science fiction are helpful as you move to locations in space.
Well, I'm good; I don't do any of those things. (Except for epilogues; I like epilogues.)
I need to say first that i enjoy your videos. I also need to say i disagree with almost every point you made. I also need to say im not an publisher/editor, so I'll take your opinions to heart.
The worst kind of Bowtie Ending is in Deception Point by Dan Brown. Despite the intense journey, the book ends in a sex scene in the president house and none of these characters developed relationship within 24 hours! I call the tropes " Love Puzzle ", characters share something in common, like a lack of partner, to bypass relationship building.
😬 Ooh, yikes! That is definitely a poorly executed bowtie ending!
Hi is there any tips on how to email your submissions?
The worst I ever read for bad accents/dialects was "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets."
Thanks!
The talk about attractive characters as if they're not realistic reminded me of an episode of Workaholics. A very attractive woman is around the guys and they get mad at it, saying "You're not real. You're an angel."
awkward watching this as someone with green eyes and a scar on my eyebrow lol