Writing, just like any form of communication, is deeply colour (or flavoured, I suppose) by style of the writer. Just like you might be the kind of person who waves your hands around a lot when you talk, or make a lot of strange facial expressions, I believe every writer to have a unique signature to how they translate their thoughts into letters on the page.
But, enough prose, let's talk about quirks! Do you have any special "things" you do (or don't do) in your writing?
For instance, I don't like using first person when I write. I could do it, but I prefer not to. Just how I like to write in past tense, rather than present. But more than that, my most deeply ingrained quirk, is how I write dialogue. It's like this, for some reason I feel it is wrong to begin a section with a description and then go into dialogue:
Example 1) Melly decided on writing a blog-post about writing quirks. As she finished her post, she thought, "It's nice to share ideas!"
Instead, I always use the dialogue-description, or perhaps the dialogue-description-dialogue model.
Example 2) "I think I'll write something today!" Melly sat down by her laptop, and decided on writing a blog-post about writing quirks.
Example 3) "I think I'll write something today!" Melly sat down by her laptop, and decided on writing a blog-post about writing quirks. As she finished her post, she thought, "It's nice to share ideas!"
In addition, I don't feel it is right to extend that further into a dialogue-description-dialogue-description, or even further yet into a dialogue-description-dialogue-description-dialogue. I have no idea why, though. It's just one of those... quirks.
Do you have any writing quirks that you sometimes feel you have to write around?
Hugs,
- Melange
Comments
The quirks I've deliberately
The quirks I've deliberately cultivated are also about dialogue.
*I never insert dialogue into a section of prose. I feel that what's actually said is important enough to merit a line of its own.
*If the dialogue has to be interrupted, I try to keep the break as short as possible.
*I tend not to present internal dialogue inside speech marks.
I walked along the path with a spring in my step. It was good to be home.
Shame I couldn't stay longer.
Deliberate quirks are eccentricities!
While it's not an intentional quirk of mine, I do spend a lot of time considering the impact of a line. Or, rather, how MUCH impact I want a line to have. Do I want to write a naturally flowing conversation, where not everything that is being said is important, but in character? Or, do I want to paint a distilled, prophetic sentence that will foreshadow pivotal events?
I guess I get caught up thinking about the weight of words, sometimes :)
my quirks
include writing minimalist descriptions, and I'm sure I have others that my readers are painfully aware of ...
Quirkeen!
There's a lot to be said for minimalism. It puts more of the responsibility of creating the scene in the minds of the reader, which can be engaging.
To me, it's like visiting a gallery and looking at two paintings. One is a very precise and beautifully measured painting of a forest lake with swans swimming in it. The other is a series of muted slashes of colour across a stark background. The first shows in clear detail what it is trying to illustrate. The other is much more interpretative. Which one is the better artform? That's for the viewer to decide. One might even feel better to someone on certain days, while the other becomes more preferable on others.
Reading a highly descriptive novel can be exhausting, where you are constantly inundated with minutiae.
Well, at least those are my feelings :)
Newbie writer
I'm still too new at creative writing to really have quirks.
One of my pet pee-wees to never mix dialogue with description, only dialogue and action.
Snowdrop looked at the cluttered desk. The deserted room was quiet, only the faint hiss of a computer fan could be heard. The white walls tainted slightly rosy from the early morning sun. should I try to reply? She thought. Would anyone care? A post could be a kind of message in a bottle, connecting writers and readers, like castaways, each on their island.
She reached for her battered keyboard, "Yes, I think I just might do that."
Snowdrop frowned, had she made her message clear? Would everyone see the sentences were in temporal order? She knew all she could do was hope.
I can see your island from here!
I'm very much a hatchling wordpainter myself, Snowy! Go team newbies!
One part of being new at something, however, is that you tend to pay a lot of attention to how your doing something, rather than what you're doing. I guess. In a sense. I constantly ask myself "is this... legible? Will this be misunderstood? Am I repeating myself too much?"
I can totally see the value of keeping the line clean, so to speak, using only dialogue-words and actions, keeping descriptions separate. Food for thought!
Also: I love your post-in-a-bottle metaphor :)
Hmm...
Hmm ... dialog has to have some exposition in my opinion. Some writers put in very long conversations with no indicators, and I sometimes get confused and have to go back and try to follow the volley in order to figure out who's speaking.
When I'm writing ... I want markers for what's going on in the world, what's it like? What aspect of the scene catches the senses? What will make the scene feel true for the reader, without stifling the reader's own imagination?
(Mind you, I'm not necessarily very good at doing that, but it's something I always try to be aware of).
This isn't really the best example but ...
As for quirks ... I use waaaaaaaay too many ...
(wait for it ...)
... ellipses.
Although I suppose I interject those into my non-fiction writing more, since that tends to be more how I think. Comment, then a pause, comment, then a pause.
Wait for it!
Oh, I completely know what you mean about "non-indicated speakers" in dialogue. When I write my raw dialogue, before it goes into the final version, it's often without indicators on any line. That, of course, makes it terribly hard to read for anyone other than myself, so as a part of the editing process I make sure that no more than one or two lines go by without a clear indicator of who is speaking.
On that note, I also find how I have two or three "alternative names" for characters that I keep rotating to avoid typing the same thing over and over. Maybe that just serves to confuse people? Still, I feel it looks a little repetitive to keep using the same "indicator" all the time. Oh well :)