Common phrases that bug me. I don't know where to ask.

Since you ask about other similar irritations, I am always pulled up by referring to beverages as “the brown liquid” or “the hot liquid” or “the clear liquid” or whatever. As in, “She poured herself a cup of coffee, and sipped the black, hot, liquid.” I suppose some writers do this because they don’t want to say the word “coffee” too many times, or because of a general desire to be wordier and more descriptive. But it drives me bonkers. Trust your readers know that coffee is hot and brown.

As for furrowed brows — I’m clearing stuff like this out of my manuscript too. In my case it tends to be beats to light cigarettes, drag on them, or sip martinis (not “clear liquid”). What I am finding is one of two things:

* I can replace them with a more meaningful beat, such as a relevant thought, or some kind of interaction with the outside world that helps set the scene. That lets me save the lighting of cigarettes and downing of drinks for where they can actually perform a function. I mean, they are marginally useful for reminding the reader that the story is not set in the present, but even then, they still must be used judiciously. For example, when a pregnant character sorts down her bourbon to light a cigarette - perhaps that has some impact.

* I can eliminate them entirely. I’m finding that I need fewer beats in dialogue than I thought. I recommend picking up some of your favorite scenes from your favorite books and examining how the authors handle dialogue. How often to they use dialog tags? How often do they use action beats to indicate who is speaking or to break up a block of dialogue? And when they do use beats, what do the beats consist of? What are their characters doing besides furrowing their brows and lighting cigarettes?

I just did this yesterday, with one particular scene in the book that started me off on this whole attempt at writing one of my own, and I found that the POV character has few action beats - her beats are almost always thoughts. Not exclusively - there’s one interesting beat where she rubs her finger against the serrated blade of her dinner knife. The man she’s talking to “wriggles in his seat” and leans forward, and later “squirms” again - he’s both uncomfortable and aggressive in the conversation. He lights a cigarette “distastefully, throwing the match on the floor.” You learn a lot about his attitude from his beats. But over all, most of the scene is just the conversation. It’s nearly all dialogue. The scene carries so much about the two characters’ attitudes, but with an economy of stuff apart from their words to get in the way.

And there is also this: “Richard frowned and drew on his cigarette.” So perhaps both of us are safe.