It's been a while since I made a post regarding writing or giving writing advice, so in my recent boredom, I thought I would do another post (especially since I'm thinking about it.) So let's just jump right into it! Here's a list of things that really peeve me in writing, and could even be considered bad writing, that I hope you can learn to avoid!

1. Dialogue Titles

If there's one thing I honestly can't stand that I see a lot of, it's titles that go on for nearly whole sentences or that sound more like a dialogue than a title. It drives me ballistic, if I'm being even more honest. It's rather juvenile, and I don't know that I've ever been tempted to read a story where the title is something like: "My Boss is My Husband???" It's just lazy and gives away too much of the story, and also doesn't lend itself to be taken seriously. Chances are, if your title sounds like the internal dialogue of your main character, it's not a good title. 

Personally, I prefer short titles (though I'm no stranger to titles longer than two-three words such as: EXO Planet: Tree of Life or Something Wicked This Way Comes). 

2. Lack of Capitalization in Titles

This one also drives me insane as a grammar-nut. There are very few words that should not be capitalized in titles, such as: 

• a
• is
• the
• for
• to

Do remember that if your title starts with any of these words listed above, then they do need to be capitalized, but within the middle of the title, should be lower case. Every other word should be capitalized, and unless you understand the rules and how to artistically break them, I advise you keep this in mind.

3. Over-revealing Forwards

This mostly pertains to this website, as it seems to be one of the only few that actually includes something like this. I find a lot of people rely too heavily on the forwards to describe the characters and world for them, which is lazy writing. If I have to read your forward to know what everyone looks like or what they're interests are? Chances are you're not writing your characters or world very well. Forwards in published writing mostly exist to give background information as to why the story was written, what the inspriation was and to give special thanks. You aren't writing comic strips with fancy character bios at the beginning to remind readers every new volume who is who. Character descriptions are not necessary in a Forward. Not at all. 

4. Too Much Telling, Not Enough Showing

Even I, honestly, am guilty of doing this in writing and it's something every writer really needs to look out for. I've seen it a lot around here when people ask me to review their work; telling a story without showing a story. If I have to rely on the characters or the narrator to tell me it happened rather than describing it happening, it keeps me from really getting immersed in the story. People will understand more than you (or even I) will give them credit for. People can tell when a character is feeling awkward through body-language, they can tell if the character is angry through body-language. Your readers will catch things like this much more easily than writers realize. We all want to be sure our story is understood to the fullest, but if you just tell people it happened, the world feels 2-dimensional. 

You can also keep this in mind for character backstories. You shouldn't have to have the narrator explain a character's entire backstory. It's stiff and boring. You can drop hints through description of the surroundings or through character dialogue. The narrator shouldn't do all of this, let the characters show it themselves. The more you treat your characters like real people and less like puppets for your artistic expression, the more real they become (and honestly, sometimes they take the story in a different direction than you ever meant to!). 

5. Updates in the Middle of the Story

I don't see this as often, and this again pertains mostly to this website and how it fuctions, but I thought I would talk about it anyways. I've seen authors post an update in the middle of their story where the next chapter was supposed to be. It's really, really... really not okay. Don't do this, just don't. If you need to do an update, there is a little bar at the side that will alert your followers that you've made an announcement. Do not use up a chapter space to say you're on hiatus or that you might change the title or something. That really pulls the reader out of the story and it's really messy and unorganized and I really, really, really don't like it (if you couldn't tell). Just don't do it. Don't even think about it. 

Do you have your own pet peeves in writing? Tell me what they are below!