Will it hurt sales of a romance novel if the book has the following features that are undesirable in fiction generally?
- Frequent saidbookisms and enhancement of speech tags with adverbs.
- Verbs denoting bodily movement used as speech tags, like this:
"Welcome to our home," John smiled.
"I don't know," Maggie shrugged.
- Long descriptions of a character's looks that aren't relevant to the narrative at that point.
- Long, introspective reminiscences, presented as thoughts, in which an adult character recalls his or her childhood, usually pleasant scenes from it. These lack tension and don't move the story along. They seem to be there as a way of introducing the character.
- Lack of attention to POV; much headhopping.
- Much telling; little showing.
I ask because I need to advise someone about a book, and I'm not familiar enough with this genre.
- Frequent saidbookisms and enhancement of speech tags with adverbs.
- Verbs denoting bodily movement used as speech tags, like this:
"Welcome to our home," John smiled.
"I don't know," Maggie shrugged.
- Long descriptions of a character's looks that aren't relevant to the narrative at that point.
- Long, introspective reminiscences, presented as thoughts, in which an adult character recalls his or her childhood, usually pleasant scenes from it. These lack tension and don't move the story along. They seem to be there as a way of introducing the character.
- Lack of attention to POV; much headhopping.
- Much telling; little showing.
I ask because I need to advise someone about a book, and I'm not familiar enough with this genre.
