The most overused phrases in fiction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
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#books #writing #literature - บันเทิง
If I read "They saw it in their mind's eye..." one more time, my mind's eye is going to balloon into an elder god and eat the world.
Oh no...OH NO IT'S HAPPENING!
LOL
hi! hobby linguist here: "a shock of hair" comes from an old word meaning "an arrangement of sheaves for drying; a stook", and it's a variant of the noun "shag" (→ "matted material; rough massed hair, fibres etc"), so it's supposed to resemble a pile or bundle of straw usually, and has nothing to do with being surprising hahaa i hope that helped just a little bit
(and as a writer, i'm glad i've never used any of these words and phrases 😅)
Once i see someone "smirk" i begin counting. Rule of thumb - more than 3 smirks in a book, chances of a DNF go up exponentially
I also find that "visage" is always paired with a negative or at least less-than-happy adjective.
It's always a "brooding visage" or a "shadowy visage" and it is almost always used to describe men. Women are famously absent the capacity to express dark emotions through their face.
Hahahaha great point
The smile didn’t meet his eyes
omg YES. there’s gotta be a different way of expressing this for the love of god
Thank you for addressing this. I recently DNF'd Emily Henry's book "Book Lovers" because I just couldn't handle one more "her breath hitched in her throat." You know what's in my throat? My breakfast coming up, reading this tripe. Lol.
"She opened and closed her mouth a few times" when deciding whether to speak
Ugh yes
omg yes! or "she parted her lips" was mine.. yuck lol
Every time a character bites into a piece of fruit and juice runs down their chin. How can this possibly be a positive thing? It sounds like a nightmare
I'm allergic to the word "gingerly", it immediately makes me feel like I'm about to read some really bad fanfiction 🥴
The child "smacked his lips" to indicate anticipation among children.
A few years ago, it seemed that all cover blurbs described the author’s work as a “tour de force”
Oh yeah blurbs are a whole other sin, honestly. Not everything can be a triumph 🙄
I loved this list. As a writer, I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see if I use any of these. I only found one. But you know, this made me want to write you a book in which I use all these phrases in unexpected and hilarious ways. haha Mine are things involving eyes, like, "His eye fell upon the page." I just visualize eyeballs dropping onto things. He cast his eye across the room. And I'm like, How horrifying. Go get your eye back before someone steps on it.
You could start a new version of the "dark and stormy night" contest
Anytime anybody's "eyes dropped" or "eyes fell to the floor" or the eyes "popped out of their head" or "jaws fell on the floor," I lose my mind. Anytime that body parts just start leaving the body and landing on furniture, I'm done. :-) Shock, btw, is not used as a verb in these cases, it's used as a noun. I always imagine that it's a coarse bundle of hair, not that it's surprising. All the things you've mentioned are why I can't hardly read a straight up romance novel anymore! :-) I do sort of like raven-haired, though. It's a very gothic-sounding phrase.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. As a child I wanted "raven hair" after reading it in a book. I'm tired of people turning purple with rage. Purple like a grape!? I also have issues with "smirk" used as a synonym for talking instead of facial expression.
The way Emily Henry uses ‘My nipples pinched’ to communicate being a roused icks me out.
Eeeewwwwwwww. Yeah. As an ace enby with chest dysphoria I'm icked out just knowing about it.
I'm laughing just at thinking how does that even work.
Maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but it makes no sense whatsoever, both literally and language wise
How Stephen King in literally every story uses the phrase "full dark".
In an act of self-awareness, he even called one of his story collections Full Dark.
“His lips found hers “ you had me laughing so hard with this one. I agree
Yeah... Ayn Rand uses that one A LOT.
Maw can be so much more versatile than it usually sees in books. I particularly like:
Distended, twisted, corrupted, abyssal, or slavering.
Puts one in mind of a monster with a split lower jaw, or a creature so vast it consumes planets. Love that stuff!
That’s a very good point!
hilarious video! 😍
my peeve is not really a
phrase, but i hate authors
describing their characters
in too many physical details,
and how nowadays they tend
to name random celebrities
just to make things easier
(blond girls and muscular
guys most of the times):
unimaginative, boring
and deeply toxic. 😐
Oooooh yes, good one!
Yeah, I hate it when an author literally dumps a bunch of expository physical description in one single paragraph. That annoys me to no end. Save that for the screenplay format.
Elmore Leonard touched on that very idea, where he said to keep character description sparse, if at all. I myself try to drop a physical detail sparsely throughout a story only when it feels organic or natural to bring up.
Edit: as for the back half of what you said, I noticed Bret Easton Ellis does that A LOT, though I think that might be more intentionally tongue-in-cheek.
Re: 'to the core', the phrase 'to the bone/to their bones' absolutely needs a 100 year moratorium
lol the smells! “She smelled wild and sharp like Jasmine”, “she inhaled his smell of cedar and sea foam”, “His sweet and spicy musk drove her mad”
Like…does anyone really smell like this?! Haha!
Lol
Unless I'm given a very specific, everyday common smell I'm unable to picture anything.
Like, I'm not the guy from "The Perfume",
The only way I managed to make it through Fifty Shades of Gray was to begin counting/annotating every time "her inner goddess" was used. Literally it sometimes occurred multiple times on a page.
"He rubbed/stroked his chin." sigh. Yeah, he's thinking/considering/pondering... When I read a "shock of hair," I see a person whose hair is standing on end or gelled {up and out} to within an inch of its life. LOL. Some pretty interesting images depending on the period the book is set.
Oh god, I can't stand the 'his lips found hers' one. I always get this vision of a baby trying to latch on, and if any part of the scene had been potentially hot, it never is after that line! Also, when a character is padding about or padded down the stairs or hall, as if they're wearing giant cat paw slippers or something!
I loved this video so so much! honest to god, it gave me such a strong sense of community as I was nodding all through this list! 👏🏼💜💜💜
the phrase that offends my sensibilities (🤪🤭) is "touch her, and you die". uuuggghh. coincidentally, it is a trope as well, and I abhor it just as much. make it stop -- to both the phrase and the trope ☺
Stephen King uses "fish-belly white" to emphasize how pale some ghosts are in Duma Key, which is also where I first came across that phrase. Can't remember which other authors have used it though. 😅
I agree that some of these phrases are overused, especially "his lips found hers" and "she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding" lol
The “she let out a breath….” Is my pet peeve. It makes me want to stop reading the book and I sometimes do because it’s so irritating.
As a Spanish speaker, acrid (acre) is a pretty tame word. It just basically means of acid or bitter taste or something adjacent. I have heard people use it, in Spanish of course. Sometimes it's so shocking to me what words English native speakers find too complicated or weird or "high brow" when it's a pretty common or just normal word in the equivalent root to us 😅 You guys are so used to simple words of a simple language.
Growing up, I read more than I was ever spoken to, which means my spoken word choice developed into something a bit 'strange'. "Fuckin' acrid" is a phrase I often use 🤠 Besides that bit of personal lore....if I have to read phrasing such as: ample chested, supple chest, heaving breasts etc following a character action that has ~nothing~ to do with titties ONE MORE TIME. "She crossed her arms beneath her full, heaving chest." "Her laughter rounded her cheeks and spilled out over her supple chest." "She was gifted with the arcane and ample chested."
Hahaha graduates of the Haruki Murakami School of Creative Writing. That bit of personal lore is very relatable! 💜
This is such a fun and useful video. Thank you so much for doing this prompt.
I think it started with these old ones in stories. English classes in the Seventh grade in my school's syllabus books on a sheet of paper is given by a teacher whose instructor stated this is your lack of knowledge. Am so glad thee women created a movement for a non - ...
You really have great video ideas Willow, thank you!
Xxx
Ever since Twilight I now can't cope whenever a male love interest 'chuckles'. And once you've noticed it a happens a lot.
FFor some reason. they think a person growling a sentence is sexy somehow. But you know, I have seen a word 'ejactulated' in a sentence. When characters are talking
I don’t think this is a phrase, but I can’t stand when the first person narrators describe themselves like: My dark curls were blowing in the wind, my blue eyes stared back at me in the mirror. PLEASE DON’T. STOP IT.
YES! I totally agree!
“Munched” the food.
These ones seem to haunt me: ”His jaw worked.” ”His eyes turned liquid.” ”He raised a brow.” Why oh why is it always one eyebrow? Do they all have a unibrow?
My favorite author, Brandon Sanderson, alwayyysss has our boys growling 😂
I see slicked (with) and pooled a lot, especially in horror, which deals with fluids in abundance. Also have noticed the phrase "blood issued from" a lot, again almost exclusively in horror. Also in horror and gothic fiction is the phrase "throw shadows on [insert setting here]" which I think was likely inspired by Poe's line from the raven "and the lamp light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor" but I like "blood issued" and "throws one's shadow" they feel very visual and do a good job of sucking you into the narrative.
as a semi-reformed pretentious jackass, i used to go out of my way to use 'literary words'. which as a 10yr old, were any long word i read in a book LOL god i cringe at how smug i would say it too XD
This was fun! 😁
Might only be me, but chains of synonyms make me question an author's professionality: "They were sad, morose and grieved." Do your job and choose one! And yes, it is overused, mainly in award-winning literary fiction. Of course, the other end of that spectrum (constantly using the same word) is just as annoying. Yes, Mrs. Meyer, we by now know that that vampire dude has "smoldering eyes", no need to tell us twice per page.
One that drove me nuts and it may be particular to Sarah J Maas and the Throne of Glass series of which I read a few books (unfortunately) was "she sighed out of her nose" lol
Ew. Like, I know exactly what she’s describing and it’s something I personally do. And yet, it just feels ew lol
i love your videos so much, my fingers found the subscribe button to your channel
Hahaha thank you
In Spanish the equivalent of "Raven hair" is "Cabello azabache"
Apparently it is a kind of mineral, called jet in english. Which makes sense because I've also read "Jet black hair"
But my point is WHO ON EARTH KNOWS WHAT THAT IS, I never cared to google it because I gathered the color from the context. At least raven is more common, but come on.
As said, many of these phrases are "the norm" but that doesn't make them make sense
Watching behind lowered lashes... Impossible. I tried it in a mirror, really doesn't work. 😂
I swear if the men aren't growling, then they're smirking because somehow smirking is no longer a facial expression it's a type of speech
An example of the opposite of this, a phrase I LOVE which I heard in a CoC podcast was "gooseflesh" (instead of goosebumps) and I've never moved past it
"Their temples throbbed"
This one is R.L. Stein specific. It bugged me back when I first really got into reading through his Goosebumps and Fear Street series.
Love this - none of these bother me as a reader, but I enjoy learning about other folks’ pet peeves.
My biggest pet peeve isn’t really a language one. It’s when a POV character ambiguously alludes to “that thing that happened” in the first chapter, just to plant a little mystery that makes you keep reading on….it totally works - I *do* keep reading when I see that-but it takes me out of the narrative because it feels too much like the author showing their hand. And then, 3-8 chapters later when the secret is revealed, I’m usually like “that’s it? That’s the event that was so dramatic you couldn’t bear to think about it even in your own narration?” 🤷♀️
But it does work, I get sucked in by it every time. So I can’t really fault authors for pulling out all the stops to keep the reader reading.
I now want to get all my writing people together to do 2 books or a short story, one with all of these over done words and phrases and one where we go hard making them more, more awkward, more wtf! As a dark haired human and a bit gothy i love raven haired. It gives, mystery, power, the night! As well as someone who likely had a good library and music collection. As well as cats and quality drinks and snacks. For one must have good drink and snackrifices while reading in ones favorite nook or hidden library.
Idk how it exacly is worder in English but I've seen it in traslated YA: "X cleared invisible dust of their shoulder" 😅
Ohhhhh sure, the sweep-dust-off-the-shoulder move to look cool and badass 😎
“Man” & “cave” makes me feel physically sick!!!!
Hard to avoid that in my novel because it's literally about cavemen lol!
"My fingers found the subscribe button"
"Raven-haired" irks me a lot too, but for me it's because I often feel it's a nod to white Western beauty standards (it's so often a white character, isn't it? Or a character assumed to be white or pale-skin), when in fact, very few white people have naturally blue-black hair so it always feels the author wants you to see that character as other worldly but to me it feel fake-y and forced.
I had never seen that "shock of hair" expression, that's... that's weird! In Spanish we have "una mata de pelo" which means something like "a bush of hair" and that makes more sense! It is used when somebody has a lot of hair and it's curly or with a lot of volume.
It's not an expression. A shock is a thick or unkempt mass of hair, and the term has been around for ages.
@@starmantheta2028 Ok :) Just for reference - I am Catalan, and not living in an English speaking country.
Julio Cortázar mentions that "we do not write the same way as we speak" aspect in Hopscotch, which I highly recommend to you.
(Excuse my own translation)
"I'm revising a story that I want the least literary as possible. Upon revising, those unbearable phrases come quick [...] I stop revising and wonder about my repulsion towards the 'literary' language [...] The regular language is the same but somewhat raw, prosaic (a mere vehicle for information), whereas the other language combines useful and pleasant. What I'm repelled by is the decorative use for a verb and a noun we use almost ever in regular speech. I'm repelled by the literary language."
It's somewhat funny and ironic considering the overall writing in this novel.
I find it interesting because we mostly read "literary language", and when reading it we are fine, but when someone actually speaks those words it's kinda weird.
I think it also reflects how judgemental and attached we, as a society, are towards traditional writing structures and how we dismiss colloquial writing and don't deem it as valuable.
Off questions. I'm in need of a couple super easy reads, but that are absolute page turners. Originally I found you when looking for Frankenstein reviews. I will still read it, but I found it to be a little too much in its wording right now. (I'm having a bit of overwhelm in my personal life. HARD times!) So then I picked up Where the Crawdads sings (I think that's the title) but I didn't finish it. 😞 I will though....I really liked it.... Anyway, to give you an idea of my favorite books: Moby Dick, which obviously would be too much for me now. Also I loved Life of Pi (not the movie), and Water for Elephants was a page turner (for me), As a kid, I loved Indian in the cubbard😂 and Lion Witch and wardrobe. I'm rambling. Anyway, I HATE winter (I'm in CT) and sadly I hate holidays. I don't have family. SO, I was thinking of reading fiction to get through Thanksgiving and Christmas as a tradition now. Wow I'm being personal. I've never read a romance before, maybe there's one I'd actually like? Also, I enjoy hauntings 😂. I'm wondering what sick thrilling horror book that's an absolute page turner I can read during Christmas time. Anyone can answer 🙏 please. Thank you!
With the expression "to the core" all I can think of is that Rotten tk the core song from Disney Descendants so I can't take it seriously anymore 😂😂 (No shade to the Descendants franchise is actually quite fun and an interesting twist about fairy tales)
Sheesh, I think I need to read more if these don't bother me...
Two things though; firstly, shock is an actual actual noun referring to hair. Specifically unkempt or a mass of hair, so there's nothing actually wrong with that. If it's used only for one hair color though then that's weird.
Secondly, growling being animalistic... Well you're gonna hate reading furry fiction lol. Then again the characters are anthropomorphic animals so making them animalistic is the point. Not sure why it's a thing in romance but I don't read that genre so what do I know.
I’d like to add that Merriam-Webster says that shock has been used since 1819 for hair
At least I had fun making the video, I guess
@@WillowTalksBooks Yeah. Sorry if that came off as accusatory; it doesn't change the fact that if something is annoying and overused it's, well, annoying and overused. Though that does actually make me wonder, how do people usually write character hairstyles? There's actually a lot of character in how someone wears their hair irl so that would be something neat to explore, albeit probably difficult compared to a visual medium.
I was actually just referring to the dictionary comment lol
Yes, I was coming to say that. I feel like that use for a thick bunch of (messy?) hair may have migrated from another meaning of a shock, which is : a pile of sheaves of grain or stalks of corn set up in a field with the butt ends down. Either way, this noun usage really has nothing to do with the verb.
I also don't seem to have this feeling that it's always used with blonde hair. If I google 'shock of hair' for examples, it comes up with "a shock of hair, prematurely white" and "he had an unruly shock of black hair".
countenance
Ugh. Romance. Eeeww. I recently did a Horror Reader Reads Romance vlog. Let's just say I was so happy to get back to horror! Great video.
"she parted her lips" ... I don't know WHY this appears so much or why it bothers me so much, but it seems like such an umecessary description on what the character is doing... I do not need that visual.. it adds nothing and it grosses me out for some reason.
happy pride
The word ‘insofar’ makes me see red. Austen’s overuse to more modern literature, it’s feels so unnecessary…can we choose another word or write better? It’s not a practical word, it’s lazy & pretentious. Plus those who use it in their writing it’s typically out of place & disrupts the flow. (Yes I’m aware that it’s a bit of a over reaction & no one probably has given it a thought lol)
A shrill sound is a high-pitched sound. By nature, the average woman has a higher-pitched voice than the average man. If a woman and a man both scream, her scream is probably going to be shrillier than his. It’s not sexist to say this. It sounds to me that you’re reading uncreative authors who overuse shrill when shriek or screech or squeal could be used.
And it sounds to me like you have a shallow view of how sexism can be expressed