Comments on: The Perfect Enemy: How “Perfect” Destroys Perfectly Good Stories

By: robintvale (Jessica)

robintvale (Jessica) — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 17:56:14 +0000

Lol. I had the opposite problem making my character so messed up that you’d sware she was on a drunken rage spree fighting everyone she met and screaming the whole time. (In caps yet.) with lots of exclamation marks to really “show” the yelling. xD *cough*

Writing is therapy?

By: Description: Fiction Without the Fillers, Story Without the Stuffing

Description: Fiction Without the Fillers, Story Without the Stuffing — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 15:16:38 +0000

[…] know I’ve mentioned this particular bugaboo in a recent post. We are authors. Authors are artists. This means we should be able to do a better job at […]

By: Kelly Marshall

Kelly Marshall — Sat, 27 Oct 2018 15:40:53 +0000

I get busy and always bullet your blog. Eventually, I get back to it. Today was the day. Saturday morning: the animals are fed, my grandson is away hunting, dishes are partially done, one load of piled laundry is in the machine, the house is quiet, and I can think at last. Perhaps, you can understand why “perfect” seems appealing. So after reading your article, I am going back to the beginning and muss up my mc’s hair, give him a pimple or two, or maybe even a smaller (ahem. What’s appropriate here? Can I say dick or should I say male member?) I always read your blog, but not in order.

By: Why I hate blogging...but do it anyway - Kristen Lamb

Why I hate blogging...but do it anyway - Kristen Lamb — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 16:00:59 +0000

[…] actually isn’t quite as related to what Kristen was talking about in this post. I’m talking about my inner intellectual demon that MUST BE RIGHT AT ALL TIMES. If a blog […]

By: Top Picks Thursday! For Writers & Readers 10-11-2018 | The Author Chronicles

Thu, 11 Oct 2018 18:19:45 +0000

[…] is finished, there are many things to consider when sitting down to revise. Kristen Lamb explains how “perfect” destroys perfectly good stories, Jordan Peters encourages writers to avoid information overload like the plague, and Janice Hardy […]

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 18:09:10 +0000

I got caught up in the perfection bit too, trying to make every single chapter perfect, reduce the wird count, fix those commas, too many paragraphs, not enough paragraps, a speed up the pace, dlow it down, cross that t, dot that I.. Listen to every single critic and chane that first chapter 500 times while never listening to myself or god forbid what that story and characters needed!

I’m glad before making any big changes I saved the chapters I was revisiong in a word file, it’s saved me huge headakes. xP

It’s taken a while but finally learned that just because one or three people say one thing doesn’t mean it’s true. You know the saying : If several people agree on a problem then it’s probably true? Well, not always. In online critique/writing sites where critics can read past critiques can make this dangerous by falling into group think due to them ot bothering to come up with a fresh critique. They instead just take parts of an old critique and reword it.

So, for this, this has started to happen on wattpad in the past couple of years. Critique cricle us still good as cridics aren’t able to see past critiques until they finish theirs making the saying: If several people agree on a problem then it’s probably true? – still work.

Perfection and super powers, ha-ha I remember in my first few drafts how OP the main mc was she couldn’t be touched and that made the book grind to a halt as it caused a problem with moving getting towards the ending I had at the time. How could she cristalize her soul if she can’t get hurt? (Don’t ask, I git rid of that real quick, lol.)

Now I’m wondering if the main antoganist is too OP. Well, one more thing to fix.

I’ve read lots of books on wattpad and other writing sites and the only thing that annoys me more then reading a perfect teenager going to a perfect school where everyone has to comment on how pretty she or he is a damn alarm clock going off. GERR.

Just get on with the story already.

By: rachel Thompson

rachel Thompson — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 15:07:27 +0000

Perfectionism is a huge waste of time. The only time it pays is in line editing. Slight line errors do distract the reader. That pie chart was interesting but I don’t fit. Whatever we are good at takes less time. For me, I plot in a week, write the book in 8 weeks or less. I seldom need to rewrite other than add a cog or cut one (The plus side of plotting);that takes a week. I suck at line editing so that takes 4 weeks before I send it to a pro proof reader.Two days to fix the mistakes I could not see and I’m done. I leave the perfectionism of line editing to someone else because I’m not good at it but it needs to be right.

By: Phil Giunta

Phil Giunta — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 20:26:51 +0000

In reply to Kristen Lamb. Thanks for the compliment on my writing, Kristen! That truly means a lot to me. You made my day. :) Hope to see you at another conference in the near future...

By: Fritzie von Jessen

Fritzie von Jessen — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 21:32:58 +0000

Your blogs on loglines have helped me a lot and have kept me up at night as I struggle to come up with the logline for the novel I’m working on. I think I’ve got it by now and it’ll help me finish the book.
Thanks.

By: Kristen Lamb

Kristen Lamb — Sat, 06 Oct 2018 15:26:54 +0000

In reply to Phil Giunta.

I have no issue with emerald eyes. I have issue when that is the deepest we go regarding character description. It’s a challenge to go deeper than JUST the surface. Sure a character can have raven hair (I have one in a story) but the surface descriptors can only do so much and they’re something anyone literate could write. OTHER qualifiers are not so easy. “He stared into her cornflower blue eyes” is okay but “He stared into her cornflower blue eyes, a color so innocent and fathoms deep. Only someone who knew her, really knew her spotted the one thing missing from behind her childlike gaze. A soul.”

Granted I just riffed this off. But now the color of cornflower is used as a way of juxtaposing evil. We aren’t simply stopping at a police sketch artist description. There is inherent meaning in what adjectives we select.

What vexes me is when there is ONLY surface description: golden hair, honey skin, emerald eyes. Um, ok. So now what?

I’ve read your writing Phil (own two of your books) and your writing is AWESOME and I wouldn’t slot you into what makes my left eye twitch at all, LOL. Thanks for the lovely comment, though.