Dumb Writer Tricks

Dumb, how? In a manuscript?

Yesterday I used the word 'head' four times in about 90 words. That was pretty dumb.

I once saved a manuscript on a flash drive and nothing else. Flash Drive overheated and ate the file.

I've also changed a minor character's name halfway through a book and never realized it.

I've had a few of these. My favorite to this day remains the mysterious case of the magically appearing/disappearing pants.

I once told a client I could deliver a manuscript in two weeks even though I'd never written anything on that topic before.

My mouth wrote a check that my ass did indeed cash, but it was close, and towards the end I was awake for 34 straight hours. I'm afraid to go back and look at the document again, lest I find "can't sleep, the clowns will eat me" buried in the middle of the footnotes.

I gave the same character three different last names in the course of a manuscript once. Granted, they sorta sounded the same, but that was pretty silly once I'd figured it out.

Adam said:

Yesterday I used the word 'head' four times in about 90 words. That was pretty dumb.

Click to expand...

Sounds like SEO writing to me.

My favorite "dumb writer" trick is to say I've attached a file to e-mail and then forget to attach the thing.

i love getting those e-mails from editors that say: "Gee, that's great, but you didn't send the file."

*facepalm*

I used to use the word "gently" a lot in some early erotica/pr0n I'd written. I never knew how bad it was until the day somebody editing a manuscript took out a highlighter and marked it each time it appeared.

No, I've never done anything silly, ever.

*walks away, whistling suspiciously*

When I first started writing on the computer, I was a kid and had some vague idea that I needed to conserve disk space. I also had a habit of starting stories, getting stuck and then abandoning them. So, of course, whenever I started a new story, I'd overwrite an older one. *headdesk*

I know they were probably pretty terrible, but I wish I still had them.

I accidentally deleted my entire writing file...with no backup. I'm pretty sure I accidentally got my queries switched between publications, once. I'm sure I've done more than that involving skipping proofreading, editing and tracking contacts.

Pretty much stopped reading for 2 months, recently. Was in a write-only rut, churning out pieces for Cracked.com. There are worse ruts to be in, it's true, but for a writer, that is a fatal rut. No New York Times, no anything. The Japanese tsunami whooshed right over my head. I believe the three most important things that a writer must do, in order to succeed, is to 1. Write. 2. Read. 3. Submit. Not necessarily in that order, I suppose, but I'm going to work on never letting number 2 slip away from me again.

Hm... I accidentally killed a character off and then talked about her as though she was alive and well. And in fact, she walked right onto a scene about four chapters later.

I also remembered once that I, for fun, decided to find & replace a word, phrase, or letter with another word, phrase or letter. Read scene, enter hilarity. I had changed the letters "ur" to "feed". To be honest, it was rather funny. But somehow, only one word stayed altered even though I did not save the file. Must've auto-saved at some point and I used that file. "Occurred" turned into "occfeedred" which I altered into a name later on (Ocfeedrid).

I have occassionaly, usually when really tired or distracted, written things I was hearing on TV or the radio, or sometimes conversations I was having while writing.

When I wrote my first book, I read a lot of articles offering advice--which I completely disregarded and wrote the way I wanted too. Once I was finished, I realized a lot of the advice would have made my job a hell of a lot easier had I paid attemtion to it.

I once sent a query with a different spelling of the MC's name than appeared in the synopsis and writing sample. I believe that one got me a speedy-quick rejection.

how much time do you have?

Once I sent a query to a small press for a manuscript that wasn't even halfway written -- and when they said, "Send us the whole thing!", I said, "Okay, I'll have it to you in two weeks."

I did it, and they took it. But it was really dumb. And I don't recommend it.

Yesterday I sent off an email query ... and used a different agent's name in the salutation.

I verify everything before hitting "send", but I'm muddle-headed from a bad head cold. I am SO embarrassed and ticked off at myself.

kaitie said:

I gave the same character three different last names in the course of a manuscript once. Granted, they sorta sounded the same, but that was pretty silly once I'd figured it out.

Click to expand...

I've done that before.

I also gave one character three different eye colors--in the course of a six-page chapter!

I think the dumbest thing I've done, from a writing standpoint, was neglecting to make a note of the name of the brother of one of the MCs in my Reality Shift series. I mention him briefly in book 4, then needed his name again for book 8 and had to spend a few hours looking for it because I couldn't remember which book he'd been mentioned in first. Lesson learned: Make notes of EVERYTHING when you're writing a series!

I've done some character name changing myself...usually for my secondary characters. But then I usually go back to the first name and say "What the hell was I thinking? She is not a Cathy!"

Two of my seconary characters kept changing names throughout my novel. My beta reader hit me.

I also forgot to write half the words in the very first sentance and didn't notice, even after eight re-reads.