Why avoid smiles?

I have never heard of this advice. Where did you find this?

Hapax Legomenon said:

I have never heard of this advice. Where did you find this?

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http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102594

Seems like a reader's interpretation forced into writing advice. I don't agree with it.

Like anything, it's bad when OVERUSED, I think.

And you can totally smile sadly?! If someone is talking about how happy they are about their new relationship when I just had a horrible breakup, I'm going to smile sadly and say how happy I am for them whilst dying on the inside

Because smiles, shrugs and the like are often overused by the beginner. You're often better off trying to find a better beat (or action), one less blah and more unique to your characters, that helps to show that character. Any fool can smile after all She smiled is boring an actually tells me very littel other than her mouth moved in a set way. Show me how she is happy (or pretending to be). That showing can include a smile or laugh (she laughed like a drunken donkey...) but it should bring something new.

So it's not that your characters can't be happy, or smile, but don't use it as a crutch, or it's just bland meh writing that tells/shows the readers nothing

Smiling, sighing, shrugging, etc. are throw-away actions that you see regularly and don't mean much. I use them occasionally, but they are easily overused.

I am reading a book right now in which the author spends an excessive amount of time describing little actions and half the time I just want to throw it against the wall...

Mr Flibble said:

Because smiles, shrugs and the like are often overused by the beginner. You're often better off trying to find a better beat (or action), one less blah and more unique to your characters, that helps to show that character. Any fool can smile after all

So it's not that your characters can't be happy, or smile, but don't use it as a crutch

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Ok, so it's not that characters ca NEVER smile, grin, sigh or shrug. It's just that you don't want them doing any of the above frequently or starts to sound weird or be distracting, is that correct?

E.F.B. said:

Ok, so it's not that characters ca NEVER smile, grin, sigh or shrug. It's just that you don't want them doing any of the above frequently or starts to sound weird or be distracting, is that correct?

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Correct. I don't think they're saying to never have your character smile. The original quote says "a lot," not "at all." It's easy to rely too much on facial expressions and gestures and overdo them, and smiling is a common offender.

Yes, and boring too.

If you want to show a character is happy show me what they do. Not how their lips move (well, OK, it can be included!)

Using "she smiled" etc is, in a lot of cases, a lazy way of writing. Not all cases -- in can be used to great effect, especially say in a scene where you do not expect her to smile. Sometimes you've got lots of great showing around it and she smiled would be right for flow - context is everything here

But most often, it's not bringing anything useful to the scene. So why use it?

That reminds me, I;ve got a load of glares to purge from the WIP (No one said you can;t have them in first drafts as placeholders while you think of something better!)

I like to write a character smile not when they're plainly happy, but when they're trying to appear happy because the situation they're in is awful for whatever reason.

Mr Flibble said:

Because smiles, shrugs and the like are often overused by the beginner. You're often better off trying to find a better beat (or action), one less blah and more unique to your characters, that helps to show that character. Any fool can smile after all She smiled is boring an actually tells me very littel other than her mouth moved in a set way. Show me how she is happy (or pretending to be). That showing can include a smile or laugh (she laughed like a drunken donkey...) but it should bring something new.

So it's not that your characters can't be happy, or smile, but don't use it as a crutch, or it's just bland meh writing that tells/shows the readers nothing

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You're better off with realistic characters do do things as and when a real person would. If this means smiling, then the character should smile. Period.

And what's with all the "beats" writers suddenly seem to be using. Forget "beats". They have nothing to do with writing good characters, or good dialogue.

This is precisely why new writers need to avoid all writing advice until after they start selling, and they're the ones dishing it out to unsuspecting new writers who should also avoid it.

I'm not experienced as a writer, so I can only speak to my feelings as a reader:

When I read something that's poorly written, smiles, shrugs, and sighs annoy the living heck out of me.

When I read something that's well written, smiles, shrugs, and sighs don't "stick out". They're either invisible, or their inclusion enhances the story or the characters.

Sometimes I think 97% of the "writing rules" questions could be circumvented if people would just stop conflating "avoid" with "never use, evah!"

Avoid overusing smiling for two big reasons:

1. You probably don't want your characters to seem like grinning dolts. If you do want them to seem that way, keep on with the constant smiling!

2. Your characters don't have to pull a face in response to everything that happens. Excessive smiling indicates excessive facemaking and can quickly result in your prose reading like a tedious game of charades. It's not a TV show. You have a lot more at your disposal than facemaking to convey meaning.

ETA a tip: go through a few scenes and replace every smile, frown, lip bite, furrowed brow, grin and eyeroll with "made a face." You will quickly diagnose whether you're overdoing it.

Jamesaritchie said:

You're better off with realistic characters do do things as and when a real person would. If this means smiling, then the character should smile. Period.

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Which is why I said it wasn't a total no no? But a smile can be rendered less boring and actually show me something about the person or situation. "She smiled" is most often lazy writing, and gives me nothing. It is normally pretty bloody useless in fact so why use it? Why not use something better?

And what's with all the "beats" writers suddenly seem to be using. Forget "beats". They have nothing to do with writing good characters, or good dialogue.

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No, but it helps discuss writing those things in a manner where people know what you're talking about. Rather than saying "that bit, you know, just after the thing"

Darkranger85 said:

Hey all,

I was just reading the stickies at the top of the page and I'm curious about this one.

"29: Characters who smile and grin a lot come across as deranged fools. Sighing and shrugging are also actions to avoid. Eliminating smiles, sighs and shrugs is almost always an improvement. Smiling sadly is a capital offence."

So, my characters can never be happy?

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That's not what the quote is saying. First, it doesn't say "never". It talks about characters who smile and grin "a lot". Some smiling is okay.

Secondly, this is not about how your characters feel, it is about how you describe their feelings. Smiling, grinning and shrugging can be overused. They have become semi clichés. So the quote isn't saying don't ever use them. It is saying that your writing will read better if you avoid them.

This normally crops up with dialogue. You write an exchange between two people. Say something like this:

"Will you marry me?" said Fred.

"Not if you snore," said Jane.

"You will be too exhausted from the hot sex to hear me snore," said Fred.

"I can't get exhausted in thirty seconds," said Jane.

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Okay, okay, ignore the dialogue. It's not the greatest, but it's there to illustrate a point. Let's imagine that you write something like this and look down at it.

Hmm. Saying "said Fred" and "said Jane" every line is pretty boring. You remember the advice about not replacing "said" with other words. So how can we liven this piece up?

And that's where you might be tempted to reach for the bottle marked "sighs and smiles". Version 2 could look like this:

Fred smiled. "Will you marry me?" he said.

"Not if you snore," said Jane, sighing.

"You will be too exhausted from the hot sex to hear me snore," said Fred, grinning.

"I can't get exhausted in thirty seconds," said Jane with a shrug.

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Admittedly, this feels a bit more lively because we are getting sight as well as sound. But the reader can quickly get fed up with characters flopping around like gurning fools, smiling, sighing and staring moodily out of the window. Some novels have page after page of this stuff.

Solutions? One technique is to describe your characters actions in more detail, and more unique detail, which goes beyond sighing, smiling and shrugging.

The other approach is to prune it back and let your dialogue do the work. If the actual dialogue is zingy enough (technical term), your reader will damn well know that Fred is smiling or Jane is sighing.

Third attempt:

"Will you marry me?" said Fred. He was wearing his helpless puppy dog expression - the one he always wore when he wanted something that Jane was going to find unpleasant, painful or both.

"Will you snore?"

"You will be too exhausted from the hot sex to hear me snore." He must have spent ages dreaming up that cheap line.

"I can't get exhausted in thirty seconds."

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Most writing rules can be mixed together and summed up in one simple statement: everything in moderation. When it feels natural in that moment to say so and so smiled, then fine. Just don't then use it again in the same conversation. Or least not right away.

We've all seen lots of TV shows and movies where a tiny glance, or a smile by the character can say so much. Naturally we want to have those moments in our stories too. But they are different mediums. So saying "He smiled" on the page doesn't pack the same punch as seeing someone actually smiling. What an actor can subtly convey in half a second using only their eyes might take us a half a page and be as subtle as a sledgehammer. Those moments can't translate directly into text. We have to find other ways to produce a similar effect. We default to smiles and glances, but it's all a kind of stage direction that's not always suitable for prose. Of course characters can smile and you can tell the reader they are smiling. But it should always be at a point it's meaningful.

Becky Black said:

But it should always be at a point it's meaningful.

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I think this is a key point. In a situation where it's expected the character would be smiling, there isn't really any point in saying it, for instance:

"Yes, I will marry you!" she said, smiling.

But if it's incongruous, the simple existence of a smile can be revealing about character and/or emotions and/or motivations.

"I never want to see you again!" she said, throwing the ring in his face.
He smiled.

Of course there are various ways you can express that kind of disconnect. In the latter example, maybe you could write, "He added another spoon of sugar to his tea," or whatever. You should consider your smiles for maximum effect. But there isn't any tool of writing you should toss out completely.

This was a good topic. Now I need to go do a Find/Replace for those smiles, grins, shrugs and furrowed brows, lol.

As long as you don't overuse it, it doesn't bother me. As a reader, I find things like smiles and shrugs often function just like dialogue tags. For me at least, they're practically invisible.

Mine tend to frown too much in early drafts.

Something similar came up in another recent thread. The problem comes, I think, when a writer overuses common behaviors like smiling, shrugging, nodding etc. to tag dialog. Nothing wrong with characters doing these things occasionally, but if it's happening several times in each scene, then it can become distracting, because it makes the characters look like they're twitching, jerking, grinning, and nodding constantly.

In real life, these little actions often become something we only register subconsciously, so calling attention to them over and over in dialog becomes repetitive.

A couple of ways to avoid the issue. If your character grins or smiles at the beginning of the conversation, we tend to assume he or she will continue to do so, unless its described as a quick, fleeting expression. If you want to emphasize that they're still grinning later on, you could:

He smiled (say in line 3 of conversation)

Then in line ten, his smile widened

or

His smile disappeared, as if he'd just discovered a fly floating in his wine.

Another thing to think about is to describe said expression in more detail, if it's needed to convey something about the observed/described character or the pov character's perception of that character. In other words, if it's really important that the character smiled, write it like you mean it.

She smiled, but it was a quick, nervous twitch of the lips, as if she didn't mean it.

A smile, slow as a cat stalking its prey, spread across his face.

When he smiled, the years fell away, until the boy he'd once been stood in the room with me again.

Roxxsmom said:

Mine tend to frown too much in early drafts.

Something similar came up in another recent thread. The problem comes, I think, when a writer uses common behaviors like smiling, shrugging, nodding etc. to tag dialog. Nothing wrong with characters doing these things occasionally, but if it's happening several times in each scene, then it can become distracting, because it makes the characters look like they're twitching, jerking, grinning, and nodding constantly.

In real life, these little actions often become something we only register subconsciously, so calling attention to them over and over in dialog becomes repetitive.

A couple of ways to avoid the issue. If your character grins or smiles at the beginning of the conversation, we tend to assume he or she will continue to do so, unless its described as a quick, fleeting expression. If you want to emphasize that they're still grinning later on, you could:

He smiled (say in line 3 of conversation)

Then in line ten, his smile widened

or

His smile disappeared, as if he'd just discovered a fly floating in his wine.

Another thing to think about is to describe said expression in more detail, if it's needed to convey something about the observed/described character or the pov character's perception of that character. In other words, if it's really important that the character smiled, write it like you mean it.

She smiled, but it was a quick, nervous twitch of the lips, as if she didn't mean it.

A smile, slow as a cat stalking its prey, spread across his face.

When he smiled, the years fell away, until the boy he'd once been stood in the room with her again.

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Nifty examples. Thanks! Not my post, but I found that helpful info.