No, my problem was clearly with the pretension of those who have barely seen the outside of their own house, but with delusions of worldiness because they once heard of a haiku.
We've got a little thing called the internet now. It opens us to the world. Pretty handy if you can't afford to travel; bring the world to your computer screen. But true, five minutes on the internet doesn't exactly make you a grand sage of wisdom and learning.
Ok, back to the OP and strings to our bow. I have travelled a shit load, I have experienced many countries. I have worked in many of them. I don't write haiku's.
No. Back in the UK I have those irritating friends who will spit words out in a ridiculous accent while at the restaurant (very Anglicised version) of a country I have spent time in. And it inexplicably infuriates me. The pretence of it, the pretension. I know the fault is with me, but it is such a ridiculous situation, the silly crap pretence people put on to appear a little worldly while sitting within their safe little bubble. aargh!!
No. But, if someone has a reasonable education and breadth of experience, five minutes on the internet can allow them to learn a fair amount about a particular topic.
You can just ignore it, y'know. There's shit that irritates me, but I get by somehow. Problems on you, man. :/
Excessive word counts and world-building depth in the face of are apparently my hallmarks - though apparently I do not describe enough to give necessary context. This is one of those mixed things for me, since it clearly means a doubling or even tripling of word counts for the sake of context. And even then...
Voice and description are probably my strong suits. I like finding new ways to describe things - it's rather like a word scavenger hunt. Fortunately I've managed over the years ( with the exception of a couple of novels ) not to be too excessive with the descriptions. I've come full circle - I started off rather brisk, got very florid and I'm now brisk but colorful. A couple of writers helped me see that less doesn't always mean less.
The only thing I'd say I'm consistently good at is getting into my character's head and soaking the narrative with bias and POV. Beyond that, some things come out good, some things come out less than good, and some things just need to get scrapped. I've learned I'm good at writing excess dialog that needs to get pared down substantially. That's a new one
Huh. That's an odd one. I don't think I've ever seen/heard a complaint about too much dialogue in a book. Too much description? Yes. Too much introspection? Yes. By 'excess' do you mean characters having small talk that doesn't progress the plot?
Yup. Some of my conversations go on way too long or contain information that really doesn't matter to anyone. Or both. Usually both.
I'm good a plot twists. I learned that art when telling horror stories 'round the campfire. I always found it amusing how easy it was to lead them down one path only to have the "grab-me-gotcha's" come from an entirely unexpected angle.
I'm good at creating atmosphere and making readers "see" the scenes as if they're watching a movie (at least, that's what I was told).
I'm not satisfied with any aspect of my writing yet. I'm working on all of it. But at the moment, I think I'm good at damning the torpedoes and keeping going.
Really! I mean, my experience is limited to reading Amazon reviews and the workshop on here, but it's not a complaint I've ever seen. << Wishes she had more people off the net to discuss books with. My mum is the only reader I know and she won't deviate from crime/polite procedurals. Plus, her most common rant is "I had to delete it off my Kindle because there was too much swearing!" There's a "you mad cunt" in my book so pretty sure she would give it 1*.
Too much dialogue is a very common complaint actually but it is rarely phrased like that. It is often referred to as: 1. Lack of description(since dialogue is taking all the space) 2. Talking Head Syndrome (Because it begins to feel less like a scene from a movie and more like a radio program) 3. Show vs Tell (Since dialogue giving away critical details will often be in a telling way.)
Hm, others have said I'm good at writing dialogue (and it's something I really love) and that the language flows nicely. I'm not sure the last one is a good thing though? I have a feeling there should be more... friction in language, and I actually want it to be more surprising, so I don't really take that as a positive, but they said it like a compliment.
@Tesoro as the wonderful @jannert put it, my goal as an author is to disappear. I want people to be so lost in the story that they forget it's a book that's been written by somebody - while they're reading, it all flows so smoothly and reads so easily that they're fully immersed in that world. Others have a different style, which is fine. I can't read Oscar Wilde because even when the characters are supposedly talking in their own voices, all I can hear is "Look how clever I, Oscar Wilde, am!"
