• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

A statistical analysis of common fantasy writing mistakes

NOTACOP

Dreamer
A very interesting post. I'm looking forward to his explanation of why present tense seems silly to him.

I also wondered about that. Then I started just writing anything I could think of in the present tense and it does seem very table top rpg like and a little corny over all.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I was disappointed with "echoing". To me, it's a stylistic choice and one I'm fond of, especially for fantasy writing. Unfortunately for me, I've had others notice this in my writing. I may have to put this on my kill list, my list of personal writing tics that need purging upon edit. *sigh*

Other than that, I found the list far more interesting than the numbers. I have officially stolen that list, to fold into my current editing checklist. Thanks for the reference!
 

NOTACOP

Dreamer
I don't think there is anything wrong with being stylistically repetitive as long as it doesn't break immersion which is how he defines "echoing."

I know if I notice a single word or type of sentence over and over I'll actually go back and count the instances which is a pretty huge immersion break.
 

NOTACOP

Dreamer
Sure but that doesn't mean there's nothing to be learned here. I'm not touting it as infallible but there is insight to be gained.
 

brokethepoint

Troubadour
When I think of the self pub world I think about how large it is so I wondered, how does he choose his books. When you look at the page it seems like the books he reads are those that authors submit, so the question is what writer would send his book to him to see if it could pass his test?
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Statistically, his analysis is irrelevant. He is one man giving one highly personal opinion in an extremely flawed format.

Just the fact that he is timing when he comes across immersion breaking elements (nevermind the reality that immersion is ridiculously subjective) means that he is looking for them which means he is much more likely to find them compared to a regular reader just reading for pleasure.

This kind of analysis is a huge slippery slope for less experienced writers who are just looking for some kind of parameters for knowing whether or not their writing is good. But this subjective, flawed, highly personal type of analysis being used to judge story in general is one of the biggest faults of the publishing industry.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I think a post like his could be useful the same way a beta reader or a review can be useful: it shares how one person might view your work. I believe it's pretty common that readers of all kinds say anything with lots of errors in it breaks immersion, so that's a common point to make. The other points seem to be his personal preference, but may be reflective of what a lot of other people may also feel.

Any kind of analysis can be useful in several ways. One can be that it may highlight some issues you already think you may be having that you might need to pay attention to more. On the other hand, it could hammer home your own opinion that such analyses aren't reflective of the public as a whole.
 

PaulineMRoss

Inkling
But this subjective, flawed, highly personal type of analysis being used to judge story in general is one of the biggest faults of the publishing industry.

But personal analysis is all we have, isn't it? If you submit to agents and publishers, you're allowing individuals to make a subjective analysis of your work. An editor will do the same thing. Critique groups, ditto. Readers, ditto. Everyone who reads your work is making a subjective and personal analysis of it. [General you, not you personally]

All this blogger is doing is quantifying his responses, and compiling them into statistics applicable to him and his methods. I've read some of his posts, and he always explains why he lost immersion. I find it very interesting, and many of his trip points are things that would bug me, too.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
But personal analysis is all we have, isn't it? If you submit to agents and publishers, you're allowing individuals to make a subjective analysis of your work. An editor will do the same thing.

That was my point. That this is what agents and editors do, decide what deserves publication based on their personal taste, and that thus traditional publishing is fundamentally flawed.

Critique groups, ditto. Readers, ditto. Everyone who reads your work is making a subjective and personal analysis of it. [General you, not you personally]

Critique groups are also flawed, in my opinion. Readers are entitled to judge your work because they are the ones the work is intended for and because they are the ones who pay for it. But the opinion of a lone reader or a lone critiquer is not statistically or analytically useful.

All this blogger is doing is quantifying his responses, and compiling them into statistics applicable to him and his methods. I've read some of his posts, and he always explains why he lost immersion. I find it very interesting, and many of his trip points are things that would bug me, too.

That's the point. This blogger's methods are applicable to his own writing. Everyone should write books that they would want to read. But this one person's opinions and tastes are not useful to anyone who does not have the same opinions and tastes. At BEST his analysis is also useful to a writer who feels exactly the same way. But it is not representative of any group larger than himself under any circumstances.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
Critique groups are also flawed, in my opinion. Readers are entitled to judge your work because they are the ones the work is intended for and because they are the ones who pay for it. But the opinion of a lone reader or a lone critiquer is not statistically or analytically useful.
But then how would you know when your work is good enough to sell if you don't have betas looking over it before you sell it? I don't mean that entirely as a rhetorical counterpoint. I'm genuinely curious as to how you propose revising and perfecting your work without other people's preliminary feedback.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
But then how would you know when your work is good enough to sell if you don't have betas looking over it before you sell it? I don't mean that entirely as a rhetorical counterpoint. I'm genuinely curious as to how you propose revising and perfecting your work without other people's preliminary feedback.

I do intend to have betas. A critique group and beta readers are very different things.
 

Chilari

Staff
Moderator
That's the point. This blogger's methods are applicable to his own writing. Everyone should write books that they would want to read. But this one person's opinions and tastes are not useful to anyone who does not have the same opinions and tastes. At BEST his analysis is also useful to a writer who feels exactly the same way. But it is not representative of any group larger than himself under any circumstances.

I agree that the data only reflects the blogger's opinions and isn't necessarily representative, but that doesn't mean it can't be useful. If nothing else, the list he's produced of reasons immersion broke for him are a good starting point to consider focusing on when editing, or at least the top five are. The one-offs are unlikely to be big concerns for a lot of writers and are in some cases definitely very subjective indeed (like present tense). But his conclusions being subjective doesn't mean they're not subjectively applicable to a wide range of readers; after all, reading a book is a subjective experience. I've seen a lot of people voicing agreement with at the very least his top five list, if not the rest of it, which suggests that those top five immersion breakers tend to be important factors. And yes, they might come in a different order for another test reader, or it might be the OP's number 7 is one of another reader's top 5 and number 3 is not, or whatever, but it does give a good starting point for writers - even if they dismiss one or two of them as not being applicable to their own writing fairly easily.

In short, the fact that this study is subjective doesn't mean its conclusions cannot be useful to anyone not intending to take this guy's 40 minute treadmill challenge.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
I found this man's article difficult to read. Then again, I'm not into graphs. I do agree with the 5 top reasons he gave on immersion breaking, as those happen to me as well. Other than that, I did not find this article helpful at all. Sorry to say but it came across as a rather condescending rampage on self-publishers. I could have perceived this the wrong way though. And he could have said all those things without confusing graphs.

Final note, yeah...why does he read on a treadmill? Is he really expecting to not break immersion that way? There's too many people these days trying to jump on the "self-publishers need to do a better job" bandwagon.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
From what I understand (I may be wrong), but he's a self-published author as well. I see his posts in some of the communities I'm in on Google+. I think it's an interesting experiment for sure, but of course some people may get more from it than others.

I don't do well with graphs or numbers either, so I kind of glaze over those, but I think overall it might be interesting for individual people to try. Maybe even try with a handful of traditional published books and self-published books to see if there is any true difference in breaking immersion.
 
Last edited:
Top