Does anyone else have bad habits when writing that they just can't help repeating? I've got several, but there are two that always seem to slip past my editing process. After a big chapter that ends at night time I can't seem to avoid starting the next chapter with ' The next Morning, XYZ woke up and...' It's okay to use that here and there, but I seem to use it every damn time! My other bad habit is ellipses...I just...can't...help...myself! And for the life of me I can't spell jealous correctly, I always forget the 'a' and spell check picks it up for me, it's like a tick in my brian that just won't let me spell it correctly first time round.
I had the same problem with my characters "waking up" all the time, so I had to make it a point to start their day while they were doing something. I don't always succeed at that, sometimes I need to describe something that happens right when they wake up (they realize they're somewhere other than where they fell asleep, they're in bed with their wife's sister, whatever) but it's still a struggle. The ellipses? That's just...y'know...me trying to match the halting cadence of, like...someone who's confused or unsure of themselves. You'll pry it out of my cold, dead hands My current problem is that I will get a little fixated on a particular descriptor and catch myself using it two or three times in a chapter. Edit: Not my biggest problem, not sure what I was thinking there. I have way bigger problems.
Yeah, I repeat words in the same paragraph a lot, but I don't let it stop my flow when I'm writing, I just go with it and then change it up on the editing. Invariably when I edit I shorten most sentances anyway, my first drafts are always very wordy.
I like to think of them as familiar hallmarks that readers appreciate. Except for when I get tired and a bunch of typos slip through. Probably my most egregious issue is that different branches sort of end up following similar paths.
For the longest time, I had a ton of trouble letting go of the need to describe Every. Fucking. Moment. Obviously my protagonist sleeps. How was his night, though? Any dreams? What did he have for breakfast? Any menial chores that need doing in between saving the world and all? No event too inconsequential! Describe it all! Something else I still need to work on, though, is writing bad guys. I just can't do it. I can't even play them in video games. No matter how perverted they might be, all my characters are goody two shoes at heart. The same is true of serious conflict. Since all my characters are basically nice, they can't hold grudges, and any disagreement they might have tends to resolve within a single chapter. It makes for some pretty uninteresting reading at times.
I have the same problem writing bad guys! It's like a mental block, before I know it they morph into a good guy right there on the page in front of me! The other thing that I struggle with is the slow burner. Twice now I've written a story with the slow burn in mind but it's quickly turned into a fuckfest.
This is interesting, because I find it easier to write villains, especially unrepentant or uncomplicated ones. Maybe I'm telling on myself. I sometimes put on different music to change my headspace when I am writing for different characters, so if music is a part of your writing routine maybe try that? That said, not every story needs a "bad" guy, just an antagonist with goals that conflict with the hero(ine).
I also find myself accidentally writing the villainy out of my villains if I'm not careful. It seems every one I write, in my quest to make them complex, ends up falling into one of a few categories: they become morally grey, or they're some minor grunt or monster that evades the need for characterisation, or the role they play in the story ends up being more a basic force of evil than an actual character, or they have a manipulative facade as a major component of their evilness and I can safely avoid actually writing them like villains. The characters I've written in the last case, at least, have all received comments demanding they get what they deserve, so at least I know that's an effective trope. I think an effective way to write a reasonably complex but unsympathetic villain is to give them a normal, understandable motive that incidentally comes into conflict with the protagonist, then give them a mean or otherwise unlikeable personality. For example, a ruthless, arrogant general on the opposite side of a war often makes a strong villain - neither the reader nor the protagonist will easily find them likeable, and their reasoning for regularly coming into conflict with the protagonist is airtight, but their antagonistic actions are ultimately just fighting for their country, and can't quite be watered down to "causing problems on purpose". Maybe they're even a hero from the perspective of the other side, but they're still a bad person.
