Writers' Pet Weaknesses

I overuse parenthetical expressions.

I still have to think about it's and its almost every time I use it.

There are certain words that I just can't spell. Embarrassed. Mozzarella. Words with double consonants. I used to struggle with restaurant, but I finally learned that one.

I find myself using British spellings sometimes although I'm an American. I blame this on reading too many British authored books. When I was in gradeschool, I got marked off on a spelling test for spelling color as colour.

*Drools*

Semicolons...

Mmmmmm.

Noah Body said:

I outgrew that and started a torrid affair with Our Friend the Semicolon.

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Rolling Thunder said:

*Drools*

Semicolons...

Mmmmmm.

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I sense I'm being two-timed by my favorite punctuation mark.

Fickle things. One day they're all "I will shower your every independent clause with love and affection", and then next day they're sneaking off with some other writer for a weekend...


It's just too much to take.

Ha! Eureka! I was reading this thread earlier because I was curious as to what some writers consider to be their pet weakness and for the life of me, I couldn't think of one of my own right off the bat. I figured, meh, in time it'd come to me...eventually.

So I was commenting in a Grammer for Grasshoppers thread when I meant to type the word 'though'. Well, sometimes my fingers seem to have a mind of their own because I wrote 'thought' instead. So I pause in the middle of the next word after realizing the last word wasn't what I wanted and correct it right away...

Getting distracted by typos as minute as this can be SO distracting and unfortunately, as a result I wind up losing my train of thought.

So there's mine. But I'm sure there are many other things I do that make me wanna !!!!!

James81 said:

I'm noticing that I use a passive version of past tense (not sure the technical name for it) a lot in my first drafts.

For example, instead of saying:

Krum went to the store to get some chips.

I would write:

Krum had gone to the store to get some chips.

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This is not the passive voice, it is the past perfect tense. The past perfect is used when writing in the past tense, but you want to refer to something that happened *before* the current narration. For example:

Sonia threw the chicken and a few onions into some water and put the pot on the stove. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to pluck the chicken, and the result was inedible.

"Had forgotten" is the past perfect, because she forgot to pluck the chicken prior to the actions of the previous sentence. It's not wrong to use the past perfect if you use it to say what you mean.

Palmfrond said:

This is not the passive voice, it is the past perfect tense. The past perfect is used when writing in the past tense, but you want to refer to something that happened *before* the current narration. For example:

Sonia threw the chicken and a few onions into some water and put the pot on the stove. Unfortunately, she had forgotten to pluck the chicken, and the result was inedible.

"Had forgotten" is the past perfect, because she forgot to pluck the chicken prior to the actions of the previous sentence. It's not wrong to use the past perfect if you use it to say what you mean.

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I was just studying Passive Verb Tenses. Here's the site I'm referring to if anyone is interested...pretty helpful stuff.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/601/02/

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/601/01/

I can run the grammar check through to find the sentences I managed to type without captalizing first letter. (I will never name another hero Martin since martin is a real word and cap - cap - cap invisibility problem.) On the edit I can pick up my favorite word for this particular mss, each mss it's a different one, the one I use about 1000 times. I can edit out the doubles - had been - verbs.

But affect - effect, passed - past --- no, that will never be good. Sitting with my dictionary I usually manage to straighten out passed and past, (no, I don't know why it's a problem), but the first set, no. I try to avoid using them. Yes, it's that bad.

I am making progress on using shorter sentences, and I absolutely never use parenthesis in mss, never, ever, really.

I have a weakness for the em dash--really, can any page be complete without at least one?

rxvenomqueen said:

I was just studying Passive Verb Tenses. Here's the site I'm referring to if anyone is interested...pretty helpful stuff.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/601/02/

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/601/01/

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The chart on this site is badly labeled. Verb tenses are not passive or active. Verb tenses are present, present perfect, past, past perfect, future, future perfect. The chart demonstrates using the active and passive voice in each tense. The point is: "passive voice" means that the subject of the sentence is having something done to it, "active voice" means means that the subject of the sentence is actively doing something. It has nothing to do with verb tense.

The passive/active explantion above is basically the same as the answer for affect and effect (for Stlight up the thread). Affect is an action; effect is the result of the action. My careless driving affected other drivers. The accident demonstated the effects of my carelessness. You can also think of effect as the results. Puma

I am having a hard time figuring out if I am writing in UK, US or Canadian English because I have trained under all three systems in various points in my life. I have to rely on my beta to make it all Canadian.

KTC said:

Tell. I am a victim of TELL. I can see that I've used it...but it doesn't stop me from using it. I have to wear protective equipment when I'm rewriting...there is so much falling TELL. I have to blast it with dynamite.

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Same.

Also, I hate my dialog. Always. I have to re-write everything over and over.

Gin, strippers and Cuban cigars.

But maybe I misunderstood the question.

In my MS Vindicated I kept typing "goldcart" instead of "golfcart"... could not tell you why. My epic mistake is the "twins". I will use a word in one sentence, then bring it up in the next sentence.

Ex: The horse spooked wildly, rearing and running away. The plastic bag blew wildly across the pasture, as if chasing the poor beast.

Oh! and for some reason I keep attempting to use the word its' what the heck is that??

willietheshakes said:

Gin, strippers and Cuban cigars.

But maybe I misunderstood the question.

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Gin-soaked cigars and Cuban strippers...life was good in Havana in 1954...

I usually use too many commas. I, hate, commas.

X

I get hooked on a word and overuse it. In my edits, I have to use the thesaurus to fix the problem.

Kate Thornton said:

Gin-soaked cigars and Cuban strippers...life was good in Havana in 1954...

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1954? I thought you were describing last Tuesday...

Misery loves company! Joy loves it even more. That's why I'm here.

CaoPaux said:

*snerk* I invariably mistype form/from, regardless of which word I'm trying for (case in point, I intended to type from/form!). And stuff like "to the" comes out "tot eh" (thank ghod for autocorrect).

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Same with me. I also use the ellipsis too much... way too much...
Oh and exclamation points!!

emc07 said:

Same with me. I also use the ellipsis too much... way too much...

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...yea....

My editor likes to constantly complain about my use of "since" instead of "because." I told him "because" is an ugly word and I hate it, but he just told me to stop being a poet.

Brutal.

(oh, and one word sentences...)

... and I use () way too much. (>,<)

As far back as grade school I was told I'm comma-happy. But aside from my own share of chronic typos, my strangest problem has been introducing subject-verb disagreements during revisions. For instance, I'll draft something like "My cat goes..." and change it to "My cats goes..." and not catch that until a later revision.

Kate Thornton said:

Gin-soaked cigars and Cuban strippers...life was good in Havana in 1954...

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I have a weakness for Gin soaked strippers who smoke cigars too. Small world.