# A statistical analysis of common fantasy writing mistakes



## NOTACOP (Aug 27, 2014)

The 5 Most Common Writing Mistakes That Break Reader Immersion | Creativity Hacker


I really like when numbers and creativity come together to provide a greater understanding over all. I think this is a very insightful article and I was wondering what you guys think.


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## brokethepoint (Aug 27, 2014)

I found it an interesting article, I would like to see a comparison with books published the big names.


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## KC Trae Becker (Aug 27, 2014)

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


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## NOTACOP (Aug 27, 2014)

KC Trae Becker said:


> 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.


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## skip.knox (Aug 27, 2014)

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!


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## NOTACOP (Aug 27, 2014)

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.


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## psychotick (Aug 27, 2014)

Hi,

He reads on a treadmill? And he wonders why he isn't completely immersed?

In the end it's one person's opinion no matter how well graphed and analysed.

Cheers, Greg.


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## NOTACOP (Aug 27, 2014)

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.


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## brokethepoint (Aug 29, 2014)

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?


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## Incanus (Aug 29, 2014)

brokethepoint said:


> so the question is what writer would send his book to him to see if it could pass his test?



I don't know who this guy is, but the answer seems pretty evident:  those who value his opinion.


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## Mythopoet (Aug 31, 2014)

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.


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## Philip Overby (Aug 31, 2014)

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.


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## PaulineMRoss (Aug 31, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> 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.


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## Mythopoet (Aug 31, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> 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. 



PaulineMRoss said:


> 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. 



PaulineMRoss said:


> 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.


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## Jabrosky (Aug 31, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> 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.


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## Mythopoet (Sep 1, 2014)

Jabrosky said:


> 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.


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## Chilari (Sep 1, 2014)

Mythopoet said:


> 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.


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## Chessie (Sep 1, 2014)

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.


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## Philip Overby (Sep 1, 2014)

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.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Sep 1, 2014)

I'm with you on the graphs. As soon as you math it all up, I tune out.


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## deilaitha (Sep 1, 2014)

NOTACOP said:


> 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.


Yet, one of the best-selling traditionally published trilogies of the current market employs present tense narration: _The Hunger Games_.  I actually really like the way that Collins uses it.  I certainly imagine that it can be done poorly, but it isn't a given immersion-breaker for me.  I think a lot of this article comes down to the author's personal tastes. 

That being said, he also makes some very good points. Many of the things he mentions are problems, such as the dreaded 'expository clump.' On the other hand, he makes it seem as though these are problems which exist primarily in the indie book world--there are many books which are professionally published and/or hailed as classics that break these rules of immersion.  No book by Charles Dickens would stand up to this scrutiny.  I think that good storytelling is less dependent on the _rules_ and more dependent on choosing how or when to break them.  Conventions are a good thing, don't get me wrong, and when writers thoroughly ignore them, it's problematic.  But we have to remember that conventions change and shift, just like clothing fashions. 

Overall, this is a good article with sound advice, and I really appreciate how he points out these common issues.  But, as is the case with present tense storytelling, how much of this can be attributed to personal taste?


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## deilaitha (Sep 1, 2014)

NOTACOP said:


> 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.



I absolutely love Stephen R. Donaldson.  But in his _Gap_ books, he does tend to use the phrase, "the klaxons wailed like the damned" multiple times, to the point where it's really noticeable. I actually kind of like it, and it only broke the immersion slightly.  Sort of a "Oh, here's that phrase again.  He really likes that expression. Okay, what happens next?"


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## deilaitha (Sep 1, 2014)

Chesterama said:


> 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.



I wondered that too...perhaps it was just because he didn't have any other time in his day besides during his workout.  I can't read while exercising on stationary bikes or treadmills--and I've tried, because exercising in this fashion is boring (unless I have music). Maybe he can, but it's hard to get immersed while you're dripping sweat and your heart is pounding.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Sep 1, 2014)

I think ultimately the only really useful statistical advice is "I enjoyed it and would pay money for it." You can look for patterns in people's responses (Hmm, 80% of my beta readers hate chapter 4 because of what Joe does) if you want to try to figure out what to change, but ultimately no writing is ever objectively "good" or "bad." Every person's opinion of it is subjective, and assuming that you have the standard paired goals of "sell a lot of copies" and "feel good about my writing," all you can really do is write what _you_ think is good, and count how many people agree with you.

Articles like this one can give you ideas about things to watch out for, in the sense of "Here's some things that a lot of readers will probably dislike, so keep an eye out." But none of it's gospel. For almost any writing "mistake," you can find hundreds or thousands of readers who don't mind it at all.


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## Caged Maiden (Sep 1, 2014)

When I read the article, it resonated with me.  Perhaps it's the sheer number of critiques I've done for loads of people, but I typically have certain things that ruin the story for me.  I find myself commenting repeatedly on the same types of issues and I've done all I can to strike those issues from my own work.  BUT...who has ever developed a winning formula?  no one.  Books are successful despite glaring problems on virtually every page, and as we all know, many beautiful gems get passed by every day for what's "in" right now or what has marketable potential.

I think I agree with what he's doing.  I would come up with very similar results if I were to go back and look at all the crits I have saved on my computer.  I think his compiling the data is a service to those who want a little more insight into why books fail to pass the gatekeeper agents and publishers.

But I'm sure it isn't foolproof.  Even the books this one study found flawless, may suffer rejections because of lacking plot elements, weak antagonists, overall pacing issues, I mean the list can go on and on.  Forty minutes is a short amount of time to read, maybe a couple chapters.  BUT, that's the point of the study, isn't it?  I got rejected one time on the first page because an agent mistook the nature of my opening character.  Forget the awesome foreshadowing that scene held, forget the slew of MCs waiting on future pages, each with their own intricate development and surprises.  I didn't get the agent to read that far because she felt put off enough by the premise of the opening scene to reject the whole story.  

I think a study like this is more than a little valuable.

Not too long ago, a person asked, "What's wrong with the opening of my book?  I love the detail and some of my betas feel it's too long/ not interesting enough, but I think the events may just appeal to a more serious reader."  I read the opening and immediately located the problems.  Not only was the writing style tedious to read, in that it repeated itself over and over, hammering home every concept it mentioned, but it took itself so darn seriously, I had to wonder whether a story would ever unfold or whether it was merely a study of fantasy world scenery.  Fourteen paragraphs opened the work, detailing every bit of scrub and manifestation of weather or nature around the character.  I can honestly say that for me, it wasn't good.  But when you comment to the writer, trying to help and offer advice, it's helpful to have some data to back it up.  A study like this would be helpful in maybe showing that there's nothing wrong with the writer who likes repetition or belabored story-telling, but that when the work is in the hands of an agent or beta, who read a lot, it's actually a detracting style.

I don't believe there's a right and wrong way to craft a story, but there are ways that appeal to certain people and there are ways that don't.  I'm the same person, I crit the same most every time.  I think a lot of my comments are on the same things, over and over.  Moreover, i see the same sorts of comments coming back from other critiquers I respect, and the professionals always seem to pick on the same items, if a little more harshly.  That alone tells me there's merit to this sort of study.

I think it's less of a checklist than a compilation of common mistakes.  For me, as I sit down to crit, I don't go, "Oh, he used the same word twice in two sentences, time to pull out my red marker."  Instead, I do tend to say things like, "You mentioned he was an orphan in the opening paragraph, if it isn't immediately important to the reader why his parents died and how and how he felt about it, let us get into the story before we sit through the history of how and why."

I believe when a reader reads, they are more forgiving than I am, and that's okay.  But a lot of readers are discerning and too often, writers hammer points home that the reader simply doesn't need, or they force awkward openings across because they believe they are NECESSARY for the reader to know the situation.  Most books will be rejected based on the opening pages, maybe one, maybe five, but it's a good thing to remind people.  The opening two chapters will make or break you to a publisher, agent, or a person shopping and reading the "look inside".


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## Steerpike (Sep 1, 2014)

deilaitha said:


> Yet, one of the best-selling traditionally published trilogies of the current market employs present tense narration: _The Hunger Games_.  I actually really like the way that Collins uses it.



A lot of YA/Teen uses present tense. I think it works just fine. And if you don't think present tense can ever work well, you can take it up with Faulkner, Joyce, and John Updike


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## Caged Maiden (Sep 1, 2014)

Present tense is a difficult situation.  While i'm not adverse to any particular narrative style, I can say I don't appreciate present tense as I've seen it for the most part.  Now, having said that, let me explain.

Present tense offers a feeling of immediacy that it's harder to achieve with past tense, but it isn't by any means necessary to tell a gripping tale.  The problem comes in with execution.  When done poorly, present tense comes off as pretentious, taking itself too seriously, and limiting in scope.  However, to me, that just says you have to work harder at it to get it right, and once you're comfortable in that particular skill, add it to your repertoire.  

I've critted some present tense and hated it immediately.  I think first person present tense can very easily turn off the reader because it can feel like a choose your own adventure book, where you don't have control but are taken for a ride, sometimes one you want to get off before it really begins rolling.  That being said, I also disliked a fair amount of first person I read in critting, but then I looked back at my favorite novel of all time and was ASTOUNDED to find it was first person.  Now, I write more than half my short stories in first person and feel rather confident doing so.  

Present tense is a skill, like any other writing skill, and it takes time to get comfortable, decide what works and what doesn't, and get GOOD at it.  Unfortunately, for those who love to use the style, practice is a lonely business because most publications I check for short story submissions, say up front, "Present tense, need not apply."

I was never drawn to it enough to really give it a try, but I think for those who enjoy the style and in certain genres where immediacy and close narrative is key, it offers what past tense does not.

You may have a kill to climb, but just work harder to climb it, right?  I mean, I'm trying to sell a fantasy/ romance hybrid that is written in a gritty world and lacks all the elements of fantasy people enjoy most (dragons, magic, elves, etc.).  We each have obstacles to overcome, so do what you need to, to stand out.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Sep 2, 2014)

I think the issue here is that present tense is harder to pull off than past tense, so it's one of those things that we see new authors overuse, and so then it shows up on lists like this. There's nothing wrong with present tense if you know how to do it right.

It's sort of like saying that using Dutch angles is bad, or voiceover narration in a movie. It's not inherently bad, it's just hard to use well, and maybe something that inexperienced authors should be wary of diving into.


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## Steerpike (Sep 2, 2014)

One of my current stories, I wrote in both present and past tense just to see which I liked better. Honestly, the only difference between them was that for the present tense version I went in and switched all the tenses. I think they both worked just fine.


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## Philip Overby (Sep 2, 2014)

I wrote a story in present tense a while back and it was one of my most well-regarded stories I've written in a while. To be honest, I don't think present tense bothers me at all if the core elements are clicking (plot, characters, setting, etc.)


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## wordwalker (Sep 3, 2014)

I put this under the same label as I give anyone other writing advice, especially about specifics: I think of it as a sample from a poll. It's not that any one person is "right" or "wrong" since there will always been other voters/readers who might disagree, but it's a starting point on places to improve it.

And if reading on a treadmill makes him more likely to break immersion... true, but the measurements are less of how much it breaks than of _which_ things might cause it. If his methods (or his background as a writer himself, and someone researching rather than just reading) change anything it's to give him more of a hair-trigger for smaller problems, so the list might make minor points seem too much like the equal of major ones. His analysis at the end still shows that that isn't what he found.


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## *LiLi* (Sep 10, 2014)

Fascinating! I'm not all too surprised with the results/findings.


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