My quirks - I abuse commas on purpose. I don't know why. But, I find myself having to work very hard not to abuse the little things... I also abuse trailing sentences and it's a bad habit I picked up from writing inane comments in forums for years... I frequently have to stumble around those situations and "fix" writing ideas that include trailing sentences and physically written dramatic pauses. I don't actually write them very often, but I have to work hard not to.... I work through my dialogue, often out loud. I also travel a lot. So, whether it's in the car or in some strange city, people may be taken aback by my constant muttering and somewhat strange facial expressions. I haven't been picked up by the guys in white jackets, yet. Yet. When I'm in the writing groove, I write rhythmically. My hands dance across the keyboard and my body moves to the beat as the words flow. It's not something I can control, it just "is." A couple of weeks ago I was in a Barnes & Nobles and sitting in the Starbuck's, pounding away at my laptop. "The Groove" overcame me and there I was, pumping out words as fast as the plastic keys would take them. My back picked up the beat and I was soon chair dancing in front of forty other people. Strangely enough, some of them understood what what was happening. But, enough didn't that it made me a bit self-conscious and I lost "The Groove." I'm grateful that it worked sufficiently well for me to get a good bit of work done on a short-story, though. I don't get "Writer's Block." Instead, I just start writing something else or I put on some instrumental "focus music" to put me back into "The Groove." When I encounter a troublesome bit of work, I step back and put it away until I'm ready to revisit it. Usually, I don't have to wait more than a day to come back to it with a solution. That solution doesn't always work and doesn't always help, but at least it's not a total stoppage situation. However, it is a bit worrying that one day, if I'm lucky, I may not have the luxury of ignoring a writing problem for a whole day. I'm a know-it-all, except when I don't think I know it. So, for every problem, I think I have a solution. That helps me put out a lot of text, but it doesn't always mean that text is appropriate. So, here I am, on a writing forum...
As was mentioned before I too talk to myself, expect I'm not playing out a scene. I'm world building... in-universe. I put on an accent because I like the narration better that way, with any luck the entirety of my neighbors do not think I am an insane Brit who talks nonsense whilst walking a puggle.
I make faces and talk to myself like many have mentioned, my most embarassing quirk is when I'm talking with a group of friends and I bring up something that happened to one of my characters like it really happened. Thankfully my friends usually just smiled real nice and say something like, "Lily isn't a real person, remember."
As I write, I see the scenes in my head as if I'm watching a movie - I see how it cuts and the camera zooming into the face or the shifting of the eyes. Unfortunately that means I have the bad habit of writing, "He looked away" or "He smiled" a lot Another thing? I have never spoken to my characters and I have never understood it when writers say they talk to their characters!
Hahaha.. This just made me laugh, because I can surely relate. I have trouble writing in places of silence, unless its outside in nature. I prefer the setting of a coffee shop, where conversation fills the air, the sounds of a cash register, or an expresso machine. For whatever reason, I work better with all kinds of sounds around. Especially when I'm writing dialogue, because I can sit back and listen to the beats and rhythms of the people around me, taking notice of their word choice, their fragments, mannerisms, etc. I wouldn't say I get into a groove, where I can feel the words as they flow, but I can relate to having moments where description seems to come easily, and before I know it, I'll look up to a few strange faces staring at me, wondering why I was banging away at my keyboard with such fierceness. Occasionally, I'll mouth out dialogue, or a facial expression, and the same thing will happen. I also stare off to the side, and tilt my head, when amidst a serious vision of creativity. (I have an extremely vivid mental picture.. not so much photographic memory, but if my juices are flowing, it's not hard for me to put myself in scenes.) During these moments, my present reality fades out, and my third eye engrosses my vision, until I eventually come back to Earth, and discover I've been staring at a stranger, intently, for minutes.
Morkonan's quirks made me giggle, but I'm not sure about everyone else but I can definitely relate to NeedMoreRage's:
I don't know if this a quirk, but I've also begun to dislike using "and" and "the" as repetitivly as some writers do. It seems almost monotonus to me. "He grabbed the can and proceeded to open the lid, cutting himself in the process. He flung the can down and stormed off." I count (4) "the's" and (3) "and's". Its irritating as hell when you start to notice how overused those two words are, especially when you're writing and look over what you've written, and notice that 1 in ten words is either a "the" or an "and".
Stay away from Hemingway, or Fitzgerald then. For me, that kind of stuff becomes white noise. In the same fashion as the 'he said, she saids.' Personally, and this is my opinion, I would find sentences that are consciously avoiding the conjunction, unless when writing action, more repitive than the reptition of the words themselves, for the sentences become choppy and clunky, especially if it's the same pace throughout the book. It's one thing to forgo them, when writing a climactic scene, or an action scene, because the events are flying left and right. You want short sentences. You want quick actions. Speed up the pace. But what can you do? When everything just ends abruptly? One after another. There's no flow. There's no transition. Just quick little quips. Suddenly, you've lost your impact. Look at the composition of music. Which is also based on beat, meter, and rhythm. Sometimes, notes need to ring, for more than one beat, in order to carry the right amount of impact to listening ears, yet there's also a beautiful time and place for staccato.
I write best when I really should be doing something else. So when I'm at work, cooking dinner or when I should be tidying the house my inspiration flows, but when I'm sitting around with nothing to do but write I can't do it for love nor money
I can't think of any actual writing quirks... oh except for those dots. Damn them. Though before I write anything I will have tried to have gone through the entire short story in my head. For longer projects just key scenes and random scenes. I will go over the same dialogue over and over again in my head. Sometimes I will change it up and see how that plays out. I do have one quirk about most of my short stories. Most of them at least from the ones I can remember are mostly just small glimpses into a characters life. No real plot. In one of them I had a character trying to find something and was digging only she wasn't aware she was digging into her own flesh. Another one of mine that I have yet to finish is about 2 high schoolers who are going to graduate school and return to their elementary school playground and reflect on how things have changed and reminisce. Very basic plots with little begging with the ending left open. A small glimpse into that characters life. Oh and I have noticed that someone will almost always get naked. I actually had a character strip down to distract some guards because she... yeah... was worried they might recognize her. Why did I write that? Well in my defense... well I have none.
When I'm thinking of different scenes I'll abruptly get out of my seat and pace about, usually mumbling incoherently. If it's a fighting scene I...start acting it out, with the full on movements of what the character is doing. As you can imagine, it's a little awkward and amusing (in some way) when someone comes along and finds me like this. "Whatcha doin'?" "Nothing! I'm not crazy! I'M NORMAL!" "Riiight..."
I start out strong, with an original style, interesting word choices, detailed imagery, but by page 10 or so, it falls flat on its face back into the depths of mediocrity.
This is completely a mirror of me xD Everything is like a movie to me when I imagine it. In manga style though lol. I've never got that either? Characters are not real >_> can you really, literally 'speak' to them?
But of course you can speak to them. It's fairly simple. Whether they talk back is between the writer and their psychiatrist.
Haha, that's awesome! I sometimes get a full story too, but mostly very simple ones. When i'm awake i get more of the better detailed plot lines.
This is how I write as well. I'll be doing something and out of nowhere these entire scenes pop into my head full of dialog and vivid imagery. Sort of like I'm watching a movie in my mind. It's great for writing though.
I find that I have an extremely hard time hashing out a scene in my head unless I have the previous scene on paper. Like my memory can only hold one scene at a time lol. Also, I'm an obsessive rewriter. I normally rewrite a scene about 10 times before moving on.
I talk to myself and have conversations with myself as if I was my characters when I'm trying to write dialogue. If they hurt then I feel their pain too. For instance, one of my characters took an arrow to the... chest! And I felt like I was on the ground in pain and gasping for air from a punctured lung too. I'm very empathetic. I even hurt when they have a broken heart or when they feel guilt. I feel ecstatic when good things happen and I feel anxious when they're on the brink of death.
