Ooh, one more I hate "Said is dead" No, I refuse to put "retorted," "inquired," and "ejaculated" everywhere because that would really ruin the flow of dialog
Never done the lip quiver, but I've been guilty of overdoing the latter. Though one time I went all out with a crying scene. I described the snot coming out of their nose and everything. Kind of proud of that. Now I just be like 'they wept'.
And it gets taken to ridiculous extremes. Because everybody emotes the same and you can't say that you feel someone is sad as you sometimes do in real life in a subtle way, but everybody's lips have to quiver and tears need to run down their cheeks
Yeah, that was a big thing on an old writing forum I was on for a bit. Everyone had their own way of writing they treated like fact. I think the 'show don't tell' deal kinda stuck with a lot of people from school during writing assignments.
As for writers influencing you, for me that was Murakami. I loved his unique way of perceiving the world, the brilliant first person narration with all of it's amazing digressions and speed, and everything. He's been a big influence on my more recent things.
Oh yeah, a lot of advice on the Internet is completely subjective and yet some people latch on to it like its the Bible. Show don't tell shouldn't be the priority. Sometimes you have to tell or it's weird.
My doubts don't usually come until I realize I have to rewrite something completely from scratch, and that's something I'm trying not to dwell on too much. Right now it's just a matter of finishing the book and then I want to go over it all at least once myself and fix any mistakes there might be before asking for feedback. I already have a friend who's willing to help with editing for free. Though reading George RR Martin's book has really helped me not only improve as a writer, but feel more comfortable with my writing style. His prose does a lot of things I've always been afraid to do. Short sentences. Somewhat vague (not too much, though) descriptions. Telling instead of showing. I mean, he wrote a sentence that said 'Arya made a face at him'. I would've agonized over describing the exact details of the face and finding the right words to describe it, but he just writes 'made a face' and he's good.
Oh yeah, the speed really depends on many things. The two chapters I wrote, I wrote in about a day each. Still no progress beyond that but hey! It's possible. Honestly, I've been kinda doubting my skills again lately, as I'm struggling to even finish a short, but I still hope to have it up soon!
lol, that sounds awesome. I'm glad they're fluid. I finally found a process that works for me. I work so much better when I have an end goal. This isn't the first book I've written, but it's likely to become the first I've ever finished. I just can't believe I wrote so much in such a short amount of time. And to think I once thought I couldn't do NaNoWriMo.
Yeah, chapter length is really fluid, I think. There are books of 90k that have seven chapters and books of the same length that have 100 chapters, so it really depends how you want to space it out. Mendoza once wrote a book that was just one chapter in its entirety. He didn't divide it into chapters at all at first, but then his editor said chapters would be nice, so he said okay and made one. Just one.
