# Your 'suddenly' count



## Quinn Richardson (Apr 20, 2012)

Working on the revision to a first draft, I tripped over a "suddenly" that I didn't remember putting there.  I've seen enough dire warnings to avoid the word, so I wondered if any others slipped through.

So I did a Word search.

Out of 70k words, there were 7 suddenlies.  Oof.  1 out of every 10,000 words I wrote is a suddenly.  (Sad, yes.  But that's not the worst of it.  Not terribly long ago, I expunged an "all hell broke loose...".)  To be fair, out of the 7, I will probably still keep one or two.  They just seem right.

So, just for fun, how many have you got in your first draft (pre-revision)?  Anybody wanna claim high-score?


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Ever wonder about these authors who just come out of nowhere and pen a book in their spare time, without any courses or workshops, and it just goes crazy up the charts?

Those authors never heard about all the things they weren't supposed to write.

And I envy them, because I get hung up so many times on "bad vs. good" writing.

In today's market, obvious choices win over subtle choices, and a lot of so-called good writing rules are about being subtle. But subtlety is dead.

ETA: In answer to your question, 3. And the weird thing is, I am not doing a search function to get this number. I actually KNOW THE QUANTITY off the top of my head, because I deliberated for several minutes over each one of them.


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## oooranje (Apr 20, 2013)

Dalya said:


> Ever wonder about these authors who just come out of nowhere and pen a book in their spare time, without any courses or workshops, and it just goes crazy up the charts?
> 
> Those authors never heard about all the things they weren't supposed to write.
> 
> ...


I agree and disagree; at the end of the day I think these days it's less about subtle plot or interesting plot twists and more about creating a world people want to live or play in (which seems like dumb/obvious writing initially because plots are not complicated or interesting, but the worlds may have something to them); at the same time I also think this whole subject of 'voice' can be underestimated. There are things I've written that have taken me weeks to write a first draft of, and then six months to polish (fairly quick in my book) and then there are things that have taken me years to work through that still aren't quite ready. I think it works the same way for some authors on certain topics: some people just have a clear idea of the vampire novel / detective / sci-fi world they want to create in their head, or they may have been nursing the idea for a while, and then the penny drops and it's off to the races. I agree that it seems unfair but I guarantee you that no matter how many times I tried to write something like Harry Potter or Twilight, it would never end up where either of those ended up, and it very likely wouldn't have been anywhere near as popular. Not because I'm a bad writer per se (although of course we can always improve), but because those are 'uphill' books for me, and they were (at least somewhat, I hope!) 'downhill' books for their authors...if that makes sense.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)




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## Greg Banks (May 2, 2009)

Most of the writing rules are there not so much because of thing you should "never" do, but because of things that often get "overly" done. If you are a good to great writer, then there is nothing wrong with a suddenly here or there, or a passive phrase here or there, or a bit of exposition sprinkled in here or there. The problem is that inexperienced or just bad writers lean on those things like crutches and they become quite visible. In the pen of a good writer, those things disappear on the page because their significance is greatly reduced.


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

I'll claim the current title with 11 in 75,000 words. As I looked through them, I think 5 or 6 of them will survive the first re-write.

For this manuscript, I did away with worrying about looking for the perfect word. I let things flow. That attitude helped me write the whole book in 31 days. I am in the midst of my first pass-through since then and I am pleasantly surprised so far.

Besides which, I know my editor will challenge most ever "suddenly" when I send it off to him.


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## Quinn Richardson (Apr 20, 2012)

Dalya said:


> Ever wonder about these authors who just come out of nowhere and pen a book in their spare time, without any courses or workshops, and it just goes crazy up the charts?


You're talking about me, right? Sweet. Can't wait.


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## Robert A Michael (Apr 30, 2012)

Five out of my 38,000 word novella in 2nd personal edit.  Yeah.  I need to expunge some of those.  Thanks for reminding me.  Now, if all the people in my novels would quit smiling and nodding.  That would be great.


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## Nathalie Hamidi (Jul 9, 2011)

As an act of rebellion, we should all write a book with "suddenly" in the title. That would show them!


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## Karen Mead (Jul 2, 2012)

Nathalie Hamidi said:


> As an act of rebellion, we should all write a book with "suddenly" in the title. That would show them!


"Suddenly Came The Stranger, Naked."


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## Nathalie Hamidi (Jul 9, 2011)

Karen Mead said:


> "Suddenly Came The Stranger, Naked."


*Nathalie dodges the creepy stranger* --- \\_)o)


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## Vivi_Anna (Feb 12, 2011)

Suddenly is not a word I use.

Now if we were searching for that or then...  well, those would be in the 100s I'm sure.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Removed a bunch. Thanks for the reminder. Great timing!

Now if I could only quit having people "glance" at each other, and look up or down, look over or toward, I'd be a happy camper.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

I have only 5 in 50k words.    Does anyone know a program that can go through a document and tell you which words and phrases you used the most? I think I had one on my old computer, but I can't remember its name.


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## zandermarks (May 20, 2013)

2 "suddenly"
2 "all of a sudden"

But I'm fine with them. The word "sudden" or "suddenly" is not a problem by itself. I think it's only a problem when "sudden" becomes a plot device.

In three of my cases, it's just conversational usage (either between characters or as part of an internal monologue). In the fourth case, it's because a character under observation from a distance suddenly stops in his tracks.

But there aren't any cases of "Suddenly it was the Spanish Inquisition" or "Suddenly they were under Martian attack" or "Suddenly he was furious" or anything like that.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Greg Banks said:


> Most of the writing rules are there not so much because of thing you should "never" do, but because of things that often get "overly" done. If you are a good to great writer, then there is nothing wrong with a suddenly here or there, or a passive phrase here or there, or a bit of exposition sprinkled in here or there. The problem is that inexperienced or just bad writers lean on those things like crutches and they become quite visible. In the pen of a good writer, those things disappear on the page because their significance is greatly reduced.


Agreed. There is some well-meaning but bad advice out there. "Be" verbs are another. Use them. Write however it sounds correct in your head, not how it looks according to the rules.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Hugh Howey said:


> "Be" verbs are another. Use them. Write however it sounds correct in your head, not how it looks according to the rules.


I think of "be" words like "he said". Used judiciously, this is language that just sort of disappears from the reader's view and allows them to sink into the story. Sometimes using a more complex work or fancy workaround can be jarring and achieve the opposite.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

I'm fine with "suddenly," but "little" and "haze" are my personal buggaboos.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

The problem with "suddenly" is that it is most often used to describe something that is self-evidently sudden, which leaves the question why the author is using it: because they don't trust their descriptive skills or they think their reader is too stupid to figure out that the gunshot (or whatever) was sudden. I have used the word once in about nine novels, because it was needed.

However, there is no "rule" against using "be" words. One is warned to be cautious about and generally avoid passive sentences and it is a nothing but a matter of grammatical misunderstanding that translates that into equating to "be" words.

ETA: I am fairly certain that the advice to completely eschew "suddenly" originated in Elmore Leonard's _10 Rules of Writing_. I consider all of his rules pretty good advice although all advice is only that.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

I just have to shake my head at all the nitpicky little writing rules I encounter out of nowhere like this. Ooo, 'suddenly' scary. Oooga-booga, 'Very'! Boo, 'to be'!

It all kind of makes me want to start a fake campaign to convince writers to stop using 'a' or 'an', just to see how many people buy into it.

For the record, I've never met a single meat-based human that isn't a writer that has a problem with things like this when not used idiotically. What people notice is when the writer becomes enamored with something they read off their word-a-day toilet paper like 'chagrined', or 'sanguine' and drives it into the ground.

So unless you're writing solely for other writers and English professors, I figure it's safe to over use the words normal people over use. Otherwise, I'm declaring a moratorium on 'and'.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

I counted 15 in my 78k current draft. The draft is exactly that though: not one edit so far, pure drafting. Subtlety to be edited in later.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> I just have to shake my head at all the nitpicky little writing rules I encounter out of nowhere like this. Ooo, 'suddenly' scary. Oooga-booga, 'Very'! Boo, 'to be'!
> 
> It all kind of makes me want to start a fake campaign to convince writers to stop using 'a' or 'an', just to see how many people buy into it.
> 
> ...


There are all kinds of things people don't notice. That doesn't mean they don't matter. How many people notice the script or cinematography in a movie? You think it doesn't matter just because people don't know what is eliciting the affect? A baker who sells cakes doesn't expect the person who eats it to know the chemistry that makes baking work.

Start all the fake campaigns you want to. That doesn't mean that the masters of writing like King, Bradbury, Kress, and Leonard aren't worth listening to.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Now, now, children, play nice.  Every one is entitled to his/her own opinion... no need for anyone to get snippy.


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## Bruce Blake (Feb 15, 2011)

JRTomlin said:


> There are all kinds of things people don't notice. That doesn't mean they don't matter. How many people notice the script or cinematography in a movie? You think it doesn't matter just because people don't know what is eliciting the affect? A baker who sells cakes doesn't expect the person who eats it to know the chemistry that makes baking work.
> 
> Start all the fake campaigns you want to. That doesn't mean that the masters of writing like King, Bradbury, Kress, and Leonard aren't worth listening to.


Agreed. I think the things that separate mediocre writing from good writing and good from great are things that the reader could never put their finger on. (Or things on which the readers could never put their finger, depending which sounds better)


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Dalya said:


> Ever wonder about these authors who just come out of nowhere and pen a book in their spare time, without any courses or workshops, and it just goes crazy up the charts?
> 
> Those authors never heard about all the things they weren't supposed to write.
> 
> And I envy them, because I get hung up so many times on "bad vs. good" writing.


Me, too.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

JRTomlin said:


> There are all kinds of things people don't notice. That doesn't mean they don't matter. How many people notice the script or cinematography in a movie? You think it doesn't matter just because people don't know what is eliciting the affect? A baker who sells cakes doesn't expect the person who eats it to know the chemistry that makes baking work.


I'm pretty sure you know what I actually mean: People have no adverse reaction to it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just something that starts tugging on your brain when you immerse yourself in the mechanics of writing instead of the experience of reading. Because you're looking at things from another perspective and with another motive, you notice things that don't matter to people who aren't.

And fear of repetition and forbidden words can lead to much, much worse problems, like the writers who start substituting increasingly less fitting words (eyes becoming 'orbs') or words that are almost, but not quite synonyms (cerulean orbs becoming azure, then indigo, then periwinkle).

We are, every one of us, wordsmiths. And as such, voluntarily shackling ourselves and denying each other tools via peer pressure does none of us any good service.

I like King. I own a copy of On Writing. Sometimes though, it's clear that he too is a victim of learned prejudices and perpetuating certain bits of advice that never had a good reason behind them in the first place. All teachers do and part of being a good student is recognizing this.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> I'm pretty sure you know what I actually mean: People have no adverse reaction to it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just something that starts tugging on your brain when you immerse yourself in the mechanics of writing instead of the experience of reading. Because you're looking at things from another perspective and with another motive, you notice things that don't matter to people who aren't.
> 
> And fear of repetition and forbidden words can lead to much, much worse problems, like the writers who start substituting increasingly less fitting words (eyes becoming 'orbs') or words that are almost, but not quite synonyms (cerulean orbs becoming azure, then indigo, then periwinkle).
> 
> ...


Just about any advice can lead to something negative if you don't use the advice sensibly. That doesn't mean that we should feel we need to totally re-invent the wheel. There is surely something between saying that because readers don't notice the mechanics of writing that writers shouldn't be aware of them and saying that writers should slavishly following every piece of advice ever given.

I don't always follow Leonard's _10 Rules of Writing _ although I think they are very much worth reading and considering, but I'll freely admit that I follow his advice about 90% of the time because it's good advice in my opinion. I would be less of a writer if I hadn't read and thought about King's advice, elementary though much of it is, even the advice I don't follow at all.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

We should be aware of them, yes. But we should not be paralyzed by them or encourage others to be paralyzed by them. Making 'suddenly' or said bookisms into boogiemen does no one any good.

Instead, we just just point out that some words and devices carry a certain load of stimulation that is reduced by implementing them in situations where they either aren't needed or inappropriate. That's much more useful and thoughtful than saying 'never' use something or even suggesting there's a limit on the times you can use it.

To steal your analogy, it is something like telling a baker that he or she should not bake more than two batches of delicious red velvet cupcakes per day no matter how much demand there is for them. Rather, it's more useful to point out that it makes the most of their ingredients to also make corn muffins and lemon chess squares.

And on that note, I'm really, really hungry now and there are no pastries in the house.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

This is why you guys are all better writers than I am.

I've never counted a word like "suddenly," or "out of nowhere," or any of that stuff.

I include prologues and epilogues in all my books.

I try to use *ANYTHING* but "he said," or "she said,".

It's no wonder I'll never win any awards.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

I'm with you, Joe. You write the way that feels best to you. If you can do that following the "rules", that's cool. But strict adherence being constantly pounded into the heads of developing writers can only lead to a stagnation of a language. And languages are meant to grow and change, for better or for worse.

For the record, there are 32 instances of the word "suddenly" in my about to be released book, out of 104,000 words.

Do I win?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> *We should be aware of them, yes. But we should not be paralyzed by them or encourage others to be paralyzed by them. * Making 'suddenly' or said bookisms into boogiemen does no one any good.
> 
> Instead, we just just point out that some words and devices carry a certain load of stimulation that is reduced by implementing them in situations where they either aren't needed or inappropriate. That's much more useful and thoughtful than saying 'never' use something or even suggesting there's a limit on the times you can use it.
> 
> ...


We're in closer agreement than one might think. I certainly think our own feel for what is right should always trump someone else's rules.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Rykymus said:


> I'm with you, Joe. You write the way that feels best to you. If you can do that following the "rules", that's cool. But strict adherence being constantly pounded into the heads of developing writers can only lead to a stagnation of a language. And languages are meant to grow and change, for better or for worse.
> 
> For the record, there are 32 instances of the word "suddenly" in my about to be released book, out of 104,000 words.
> 
> Do I win?


Amen to you, brother. Decades ago, long before e-books were even an idea and the only "authors" out there were the ones who had been accepted and recognized by the seemingly arbitrary god-like figure known as the Exalted Editor, I used to marvel at all the "shoulds" and "musts" in the Rules for Aspiring Authors. And then I'd read book after published book in which the authors at one time or another break every single one of those rules. "Yes," I was told by the Wise Ones On High who (supposedly) knew more than I, "but those authors have paid their dues. They are now Experienced Authors, and at that level they no longer need to follow the rules."

Even then, my response was, What utter crap!


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

I think I'll leave now and go find some pastries.


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## Simon Haynes (Mar 14, 2011)

katherinef said:


> I have only 5 in 50k words.  Does anyone know a program that can go through a document and tell you which words and phrases you used the most? I think I had one on my old computer, but I can't remember its name.


yWriter ;-)


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## Greg Banks (May 2, 2009)

JRTomlin said:


> Just about any advice can lead to something negative if you don't use the advice sensibly. That doesn't mean that we should feel we need to totally re-invent the wheel. There is surely something between saying that because readers don't notice the mechanics of writing that writers shouldn't be aware of them and saying that writers should slavishly following every piece of advice ever given.
> 
> I don't always follow Leonard's _10 Rules of Writing _ although I think they are very much worth reading and considering, but I'll freely admit that I follow his advice about 90% of the time because it's good advice in my opinion. I would be less of a writer if I hadn't read and thought about King's advice, elementary though much of it is, even the advice I don't follow at all.


I don't think anybody here suggested the advice be tossed aside, because as I said, they exist for a reason. But I guarantee you will find the word suddenly somewhere in Stephen King's novels, and I know for a fact that the unabridged version of King's The Stand had FIFTY PAGES of exposition on one character. I'm sure he's used a few "to be" verbs also. The point is to use them sparingly and well, and not have to obsessively count the number of occurrences or to fear them altogether. If your writing is good, those things won't be a problem because you will naturally keep those things to a minimum. If your writing isn't so good, those things can become a serious problem as bad writers will lean on those things like crutches.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

JRTomlin said:


> We're in closer agreement than one might think. I certainly think our own feel for what is right should always trump someone else's rules.


I agree.

My thing is, most of us will agree on that old adage that you need to learn the rules to break them. I go a step further and say that teachers need to be more thoughtful about how they present rules--otherwise they can instill neuroses in their students without meaning to.

I've actually discussed at length the rather weird things that happen when young, aspiring authors take the rules very literally. One of my favorites is the Perfectly Grammatical Fight Scene; a strange literary creature that is perfectly written, yet devoid of all energy and motion because of it.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

It still looks like I won. Where's my prize?


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

Speaking of teachers... One of my daughter's college professors (UC Davis) told his students to use Wikipedia to study for a test.  Wikipedia. Seriously. Is that what passes as educational resources these days?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Greg Banks said:


> I don't think anybody here suggested the advice be tossed aside, because as I said, they exist for a reason. But I guarantee you will find the word suddenly somewhere in Stephen King's novels, and I know for a fact that the unabridged version of King's The Stand had FIFTY PAGES of exposition on one character. I'm sure he's used a few "to be" verbs also. The point is to use them sparingly and well, and not have to obsessively count the number of occurrences or to fear them altogether. If your writing is good, those things won't be a problem because you will naturally keep those things to a minimum. If your writing isn't so good, those things can become a serious problem as bad writers will lean on those things like crutches.


In fact, NO serious writer ever said not to use "to be" verbs. King knows what Passive Voice is and wouldn't give such spurious advice. That is said by people who have no clue what Passive Voice is. As for 'suddenly', I don't know King's feelings on it since he has never mentioned it as far as I know. It was Elmore Leonard who said not to use that.

King never said not to use exposition. Who has ever given that advice? No serious writer I know of has, so what does there being exposition in a King novel indicate?

I wasn't responding to your comment but to Vaalingrade's.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

Simon Haynes said:


> yWriter ;-)


Thanks.  I just found out my characters smile almost as much as I do. 42 times


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Quinn Richardson said:


> Working on the revision to a first draft, I tripped over a "suddenly" that I didn't remember putting there. I've seen enough dire warnings to avoid the word, so I wondered if any others slipped through.
> 
> So I did a Word search.
> 
> ...


Well, let's see.

I once wrote a novel called "Suddenly." It was 101,010 words long, and used the word "suddenly" 101,008 times. (The last two words were, THE END.)

But I arranged them quite artfully on the page ... and did this just to "annoy" my best writer-pal, Victorine Lieske, who just LOVES the word.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Well, let's see.
> 
> I once wrote a novel called "Suddenly." It was 101,010 words long, and used the word "suddenly" 101,008 times. (The last two words were, THE END.)
> 
> But I arranged them quite artfully on the page ... and did this just to "annoy" my best writer-pal, Victorine Lieske, who just LOVES the word.


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## Victorine (Apr 23, 2010)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> Well, let's see.
> 
> I once wrote a novel called "Suddenly." It was 101,010 words long, and used the word "suddenly" 101,008 times. (The last two words were, THE END.)
> 
> But I arranged them quite artfully on the page ... and did this just to "annoy" my best writer-pal, Victorine Lieske, who just LOVES the word.


Yes, I give people a bad time about "Suddenly" when I beta read. I'll let you have one, if you don't start a sentence with it. (She suddenly felt stupid.) But I cringe when "Suddenly the door blew in" or something akin to that.


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## Diane Patterson (Jun 17, 2012)

My bete noire is "just." I once removed two pages of a manuscript by deleting unnecessary uses of "just." 

I see it all the time in my friends' work too. I think we don't even hear it past a certain point.


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> I'm pretty sure you know what I actually mean: People have no adverse reaction to it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just something that starts tugging on your brain when you immerse yourself in the mechanics of writing instead of the experience of reading. Because you're looking at things from another perspective and with another motive, you notice things that don't matter to people who aren't.
> 
> And fear of repetition and forbidden words can lead to much, much worse problems, like the writers who start substituting increasingly less fitting words (eyes becoming 'orbs') or words that are almost, but not quite synonyms (cerulean orbs becoming azure, then indigo, then periwinkle).
> 
> ...


I agree with you.

I use "suddenly" or any other word I d**n please, as often as I please, as long as it is needed in the sentence and in the flow of the language.

Any artificial limitations or restrictions are... well... *artificial*.

Vocabulary is not a quota. It is a tool to serve your theme, plot, and story.

Use everything fearlessly, but wisely.


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

I just went to check how many times the word "suddenly" appears in a trad-pubbed book I'm reading. The author uses it 25 times.  In another book I'm reading, it's used 56 times, but the author has an interesting writing style and breaks a lot of rules, so that might be the reason.  

Edit: Forget it. There are over 100 instances of the word "suddenly" in Stephen King's The Shining that I can find.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Greg Banks said:


> Most of the writing rules are there not so much because of thing you should "never" do, but because of things that often get "overly" done. If you are a good to great writer, then there is nothing wrong with a suddenly here or there, or a passive phrase here or there, or a bit of exposition sprinkled in here or there. The problem is that inexperienced or just bad writers lean on those things like crutches and they become quite visible. In the pen of a good writer, those things disappear on the page because their significance is greatly reduced.


Brilliant!


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## Greg Banks (May 2, 2009)

JRTomlin said:


> In fact, NO serious writer ever said not to use "to be" verbs. King knows what Passive Voice is and wouldn't give such spurious advice. That is said by people who have no clue what Passive Voice is. As for 'suddenly', I don't know King's feelings on it since he has never mentioned it as far as I know. It was Elmore Leonard who said not to use that.
> 
> King never said not to use exposition. Who has ever given that advice? No serious writer I know of has, so what does there being exposition in a King novel indicate?
> 
> I wasn't responding to your comment but to Vaalingrade's.


Just to clarify, my point wasn't that King said to not do those things, but that someone as great as King does those things.

And exposition falls into the old adage of "show, don't tell". Exposition done poorly results in too much telling and slowing a story down.


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## brendajcarlton (Sep 29, 2012)

In my not always so humble opinion, the rules are like training wheels when you are learning to ride a bike.  The ultimate goal is not to need them anymore.


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## Quinn Richardson (Apr 20, 2012)

katherinef said:


> Edit: Forget it. There are over 100 instances of the word "suddenly" in Stephen King's The Shining that I can find.


Sorry Rykymus. There's no money for second place. Step it up.


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## Greer (Sep 24, 2011)

katherinef said:


> I have only 5 in 50k words.  Does anyone know a program that can go through a document and tell you which words and phrases you used the most? I think I had one on my old computer, but I can't remember its name.


Scrivener does that. Under Project > Text Statistics > Word Frequency


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

First let me say that I don't know what good writing is. For me it's like art, I like what I like. But...and isn't there always a but, new writers do need to at least skim those fiddly/diddly *rules*. There can be too many suddenlys. There can be too many qualifiers and adverbs. There can be too many exclamation points (particularly in dialogue!!!), and a general manuscript messiness can occur when a writer doesn't give a few moments of thought to the mechanics at work in their story engine.

No one should/can/will adhere to every writing _*rule*_, but good advice is always worth listening to. (Oh, and please do avoid cliches _like the plague_ )


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

Shayne said:


> Scrivener does that. Under Project > Text Statistics > Word Frequency


Awesome!! Had no idea this feature was there.

Thanx for posting.


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## draconian (Jun 7, 2013)

Somebody mentioned this webpage some time back, and I bookmarked it for future use.
Its very critical of everything you do.
Not just repetition, but finds mistakes in a million ways...

http://prowritingaid.com/Free-Editing-Software.aspx#


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## Zoe Cannon (Sep 2, 2012)

13 "suddenly"s for me, out of 93,000 words. But I deliberated over all of them. (The rule is ingrained in me now to the point where I can't write a word like "suddenly" without automatically thinking, "Hey, should that really be there?")

My "suddenly"s are usually part of a character's thoughts or perceptions, though, (like so:


Spoiler



How many days would she waste collecting names that were too _insignificant _before Internal found her out and suddenly she didn't have any days left?


), rather than part of an action description.


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## Guest (Jun 17, 2013)

I think there was a book titled Suddenly
Or, maybe it was a movie

And I have read books presenting a world I DO NOT want to live in, like the killing fields of Cambodia, etc.


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## AndreSanThomas (Jan 31, 2012)

When I did my first fiction work, I wrote 70,000 words.  Turned out several thousand of them were "as".  After I edited, I was down to maybe a dozen.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Showing 1 - 16 of 9,537 Results for title keyword 'suddenly':

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=suddenly+


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## Karen Mead (Jul 2, 2012)

Joe_Nobody said:


> I try to use *ANYTHING* but "he said," or "she said,".


Whoah! Really? I'm confused. What's wrong with he/she said? Do you prefer using a different verb in every instance, like "he opined," "she stammered," "she whispered," etc.? I think there's a limit to how much you can do that before it becomes annoying.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Karen Mead said:


> Whoah! Really? I'm confused. What's wrong with he/she said? Do you prefer using a different verb in every instance, like "he opined," "she stammered," "she whispered," etc.? I think there's a limit to how much you can do that before it becomes annoying.


Oh my, but there is a history lesson in this one.

You see, 'said' is the most basic of all dialogue tags, so basic that most people's brains literally (this has been measured) skip over it as a given while reading. For a very long time, it was pretty much universal.

But much like 'suddenly', writers and people who traded in books got bored with it, then annoyed with it because it was in _everything_. Unlike a casual reader, they had to notice the stupid thing and what they noticed was said, said, said all the way down; hundreds of them all the time. It filled them with the rage of a thousand suns.

And so they set out to replace said by roping other verbs into service: more descriptive tags like 'laughed, sighed, joked, screamed, exclaimed, sang, etc. Those were halcyon days of milk and honey where there was no sickness and joy was all mankind knew.

Those days did not last. For from the darkness of language emerged the Tom Swifty, a type of joke that used the 'verb is dialogue tag' model to make puns. Not only were these joke hidden all over many books, but accidental ones made things even worse, especially when some joker decided that 'ejaculated' was a valid dialogue tag.

The ancient beasts of language heard this and they were angered. Rising up from the deep pits and tall mounds, they shook off the dust of decades and roared out their demands: to kill the Tom Swifties, all dialogue tags must be expunged from serious works. And so dynamic, interesting tags were banished from serious (scholarly) works and things were good...

... Until the Great Wrongheaded, creatures cursed with hyper-literal minds learned of this decree and decided to bring it to non-serious work (fiction) as well so as to banish joy and good narration once and for all. Instead of understanding that saying someone 'laughed' a word meant that they said it in a laughing manner, they insisted that it meant the character barked it out in an insane, bleating laugh instead and so on for other of what would be called 'said bookisms'.

By the powers of the Great Wrongheaded, the poisoned well against said bookisms eventually grew to such sickening proportion that many publishers _refused to accept manuscripts that used them_, meaning that any writer who hoped to get published had to banish these wonderful, prose-expanding words forever.

Now, my friends, we stand at the dawn of a new era. Cracks have appeared in the walls of the Land of the Published that now allow folks to sneak in past the gatekeepers who have been so corrupted by the anti-language folly that sought to destroy said bookisms.

"Sally forth, my friends!" Vaal bellowed to be head over the din of many writer's boots, sneakers and slippers. "Bring forward your 'quaivereds', your 'sniffeds', your 'guffaweds' and your 'cougheds'. We shall march into the promised lands and deliver unto them a more diverse language and writing styles the likes of which have been suppressed since the dawn of pulp fiction. Onward to glory!"


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## Karen Mead (Jul 2, 2012)

So, uh...can we use "said" sometimes? Maybe? Please?


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## Lyle S Tanner (Apr 5, 2013)

"Suddenly" isn't my problem. My problem is "However." In every short story, approximately 5K each, there are at least 3 of them in the first draft. 

...

Okay, more like 6.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Karen Mead said:


> So, uh...can we use "said" sometimes? Maybe? Please?


You're *supposed* to use it all the time. Joe mentioned it as one of the 'rules' he breaks.


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## Maggie Dana (Oct 26, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> Oh my, but there is a history lesson in this one.
> 
> You see, 'said' is the most basic of all dialogue tags, so basic that most people's brains literally (this has been measured) skip over it as a given while reading. For a very long time, it was pretty much universal.
> 
> ...


Bravo.


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## Sarah M (Apr 6, 2013)

Vaalingrade said:


> Oh my, but there is a history lesson in this one.
> 
> You see, 'said' is the most basic of all dialogue tags, so basic that most people's brains literally (this has been measured) skip over it as a given while reading. For a very long time, it was pretty much universal.
> 
> ...


I love this post so much I want to take it out for dinner and break open the fancy wine.


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

Vaalingrade said:


> Oh my, but there is a history lesson in this one.
> 
> You see, 'said' is the most basic of all dialogue tags, so basic that most people's brains literally (this has been measured) skip over it as a given while reading. For a very long time, it was pretty much universal.
> 
> ...


*slow clap* Well done, sir. Very well done. Here are your internets. May you have a good day.


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> Oh my, but there is a history lesson in this one.
> 
> ... Until the Great Wrongheaded, creatures cursed with hyper-literal minds learned of this decree and decided to bring it to non-serious work (fiction) as well so as to banish joy and good narration once and for all. Instead of understanding that saying someone 'laughed' a word meant that they said it in a laughing manner, they insisted that it meant the character barked it out in an insane, bleating laugh instead and so on for other of what would be called 'said bookisms'.


Wonderful post.

Just one minor tweak.

There really _*is*_ a wrong way to use "laughed" to modify dialogue.

Example of incorrect usage:

"That's perfect," he laughed, eating the pie.

Example of correct usage:

"That's perfect." He laughed, eating the pie.

Carry on!


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

I want the word "the" stricken from the English language!

TRANSLATION:

I want word stricken from English language! 

(Translation would make Scrivener users happy!)

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD


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## Al Dente (Sep 3, 2012)

Dalya said:


> Ever wonder about these authors who just come out of nowhere and pen a book in their spare time, without any courses or workshops, and it just goes crazy up the charts?
> 
> Those authors never heard about all the things they weren't supposed to write.
> 
> ...


This. A thousand times, this. My "suddenly" count in my current project is 3 in 25,000 words so far. If it gets in there and I like it, it stays. My story. My rules. If I'm happy and folks buy it, I'm double happy.


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## Zoe Cannon (Sep 2, 2012)

Vera Nazarian said:


> Wonderful post.
> 
> Just one minor tweak.
> 
> ...


I would disagree with this, actually. Those two sentences evoke totally different things for me. The first one is someone speaking in a laughing tone; the second one is someone speaking and then giving an actual laugh.

But either way, I wouldn't want to be sitting next to this guy - whether he's speaking while eating the pie or laughing while eating the pie, he's going to be spewing crumbs all over the place!


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## sarahdalton (Mar 15, 2011)

Hugh Howey said:


> Agreed. There is some well-meaning but bad advice out there. "Be" verbs are another. Use them. Write however it sounds correct in your head, not how it looks according to the rules.


Yep! I always think that if you strip the writing of all the words you're told to strip your writing of it leaves it threadbare and devoid of any character voice. However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't check for overused words. I'd used the word 'turn' about 200 times in a 90k document! Arghh!

With a bit of rewriting it was much better.

My 'suddenly' count is 3 in 90k which is pretty good for me. I do have a tendency to reach for the adverb.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

Karen Mead said:


> Whoah! Really? I'm confused. What's wrong with he/she said? Do you prefer using a different verb in every instance, like "he opined," "she stammered," "she whispered," etc.? I think there's a limit to how much you can do that before it becomes annoying.


I've generated much debate on this very forum with my thoughts on the subject and I know I'm in the minority.

I try to make my dialog so obvious nothing is required, but yes, ANYTHING but "he said," or "she said,".

I'll tell you what got me started on this - listening to audio books. When we were doing analysis to create our first audio book, I listened to several examples. Nothing is more annoying... nothing turned me off faster than a narrator repeating "he said," or "she said," over and over and over again.

I had a book that had sold 16,000 copies at the time and was doing well. When I heard the audiobook version, I did an edit to get rid of the "saids".


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

There is an artful way to get rid of "said."

All one needs to do is remember that people DO things while talking. So use a break in dialogue to show what they are doing, rather than filling that space with a said.

EXAMPLES:

"I don't know." Nancy shrugged as enthusiastically as a Dr. Kevorkian patient. "I could go either way."

"For you." Janelle pressed a piece of paper into my hand, then turned and rushed away. It was my birth certificate. "Enjoy it."

"Stop!" I aimed at the man fleeing down the street, but couldn't draw a bead on him. I sighed. "They never stop."



"So basically I was talking to my best friend Sharon and she was saying that Billy and Ronald were totally worthless and I'm like how can you say that they are totally cuties and besides the both ride motorcycles and they're not even seniors so I mean how hot is that and of course Sharon agreed that's totally hot but Billy and Ronald were still anything but totes trending because they once dumped a glass of water on her head during lunch back in seventh grade and I was like that's so four years ago I know right?" Jill finally paused to take a breath, but I was already drifting off to sleep and so she continued on. "So anyway like I was saying..."


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## Karen Mead (Jul 2, 2012)

Joe_Nobody said:


> I've generated much debate on this very forum with my thoughts on the subject and I know I'm in the minority.
> 
> I try to make my dialog so obvious nothing is required, but yes, ANYTHING but "he said," or "she said,".
> 
> ...


It's interesting how the reader won't even notice "said" in a print book, but will in an audiobook. I kind of feel like you should prioritize the quality of the print book first, but I guess people who have visual impairments feel otherwise, so it's hard to say. The more I think about it the more it seems like a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> There is an artful way to get rid of "said."
> 
> All one needs to do is remember that people DO things while talking. So use a break in dialogue to show what they are doing, rather than filling that space with a said.
> 
> ...


Interesting. From the examples you give, it looks as if you generally have dialogue at both front and back ends: "Comment." Action sentence. "Comment." (Just an observation.)

I too pair comments with an action statement, not all the time, obviously, but I do it. Except I just realized I tend to do mine the other way around: action, and then comment. My examples:

She smiled and patted his hand. "Isn't that sweet. Like you have a choice in the matter."

His brows rose. "You made this? You created this article, this description?"


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

Joe_Nobody said:


> I did an edit to get rid of the "saids".


I've done this. I have certain words (suddenly being one of them) on my final list of things to find and replace.

That being said, as others have mentioned, if a word fits (even a verboten overused one like 'suddenly' or 'however' (my own personal bane)) then it stays.

As for 'said', my books tend to be dialogue heavy so I'll leave it in whenever I personally a reminder is needed of who is actually speaking especially if there's more than two people in the room.

And with that, I'm suddenly outta here again.


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## oooranje (Apr 20, 2013)

Karen Mead said:


> It's interesting how the reader won't even notice "said" in a print book, but will in an audiobook. I kind of feel like you should prioritize the quality of the print book first, but I guess people who have visual impairments feel otherwise, so it's hard to say. The more I think about it the more it seems like a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation


Completely agree. I haven't yet dabbled in audiobooks as an author but the first time I listened to an audiobook (ha, "books on tape"!) I was shocked by how many times "said" came up. Never once noticed it in print.


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## RM Prioleau (Mar 18, 2011)

My bad habits include the over-usages of 'suddenly' and 'however' >.> Thank God for editors....


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## Robert A Michael (Apr 30, 2012)

katherinef said:


> Thanks.  I just found out my characters smile almost as much as I do. 42 times


Mine smile a bunch as well. 

I have said on these boards before that writing, music, and other forms of artistic impression in a public forum should contain elements of both artistry and craft.

The thing about the craft of writing is that as artists, we do not want the constraints of "rules" binding or constricting our creative output. I like to think of the fine honing we do in our writing--eliminating needless or unsightly repetition, grammatical snafus, unintended ironies, poor dialogue attribution, excessive use of adverbs, and the lot--as using "best practices."

Much of this we need to accomplish while wearing a different hat than the one we used to create the story in the first place. We have to use the hats of editor, publisher, and marketer. We also have to access our reader hat. Because, ultimately, that is our goal: to reach readers. To tell them a story. Hundreds of elements go into the success of our achieving that goal. Some of those elements need to follow best practices--things that readers expect, but do not always understand why.

The truth is that our audience, the ultimate judge of whether our story is "good" or "bad," is a diverse group. Some have literary backgrounds and hold high standards of grammar, word usage, vocabulary, and elements of a story. Others could care less about whether you have 40 "suddenly"s in your work or your characters nod more than a bobble head doll. They just want a good story, plain and simple. Don't cheat them with an end-of-the-book dream or kill off your main character or hook the MC up with the wrong guy and you have a chance of inspiring or entertaining them.

You have to know your audience. You should use the best practices required to reach that audience with your story. You should care enough about the craft of writing to ignore the feeling of constraint you might feel at following "rules." Am I saying some rules aren't stupid? Of course they are. But, throwing out or ignoring adherence to the elements of story telling and acceptable writing practices is a more dangerous road to walk than the relenting to the alternative. Remember, you still have control. You can bend a rule, break a rule, keep your tight, descriptive, flowing fight scene, keep your "suddenly" if you feel it is necessary. Our responsibility to the craft of writing is to remember that our creative decisions can have consequences with our readers.


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## Greg Banks (May 2, 2009)

I think I remember reading once that you were supposed to use "said" instead of other verbs because said is less distracting. I always try to minimize said and either used other verbs where warranted, or try to set up sections of dialogue so that I don't need to add tags to every line. If you establish a good rhythm between two characters, you can skip the "he saids" and "she saids" in some places.


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## EGranfors (Mar 18, 2011)

Many traditionally published authors commit the "big" errors. I try to incorporate my own rules, remembering what annoys me when I read.


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## RoseInTheTardis (Feb 2, 2013)

My overused words are looks, seems, and just. 

Just searched my YA Draft and "Suddenly" appears 13 times in 67K words. 

I'm with everyone who says anything can work--even the use of words like suddenly--as long as it's done well.


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## Rykymus (Dec 3, 2011)

Using "said" to much bothers me. Substituting it to much bothers me. I try to use substitutes where they fit. I avoid using substitutes that convey the speakers emotion, as that should be conveyed in either dialog or body language. I have a lot of scenes where there are multiple speakers and a lot of dialog tags are needed. To use "said" many times over becomes greatly annoying, so I'll use words like "explained", "argued", "reported", "answered", "announced", etc...  Right or wrong, I like it. In the end, the reader is buying the books because they like the stories and the way that I write, regardless of whether or not I'm following the rules.

My problem is with starting a sentence with "And" or "But." Every editor/proofreader is so dead set against it, but sometimes, for dramatic timing, it just works.


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## Robert A Michael (Apr 30, 2012)

Dramatic timing. I need to use that with my editor next time.  One of my editors noted that I use that convention quite a bit. I claim to use it a transitional phraseology, I guess, to avoid sentences feeling too much like S/V/O all the time.  I have a ton of other excuses.  Usually, I get rid of all of them except for the ones in dialogue.  The argument is that if the "And" or "But" is removed, it does not change the meaning.

I had the same discussion with my editors about the use of contractions. I had to emphasize that this was FICTION, not an essay. In the end (a phrase I detest, btw), I compromise and check each contraction on a case-by-case basis.  Sometimes, it just feels better to have the contraction, sometimes writing "cannot" or "would not" actually helps emphasize the negative aspect of the statement.

Like many aspects of the craft of writing, it is a balance.  The goal is to convey a message clearly. To that end, any massaging of a manuscript should have that in mind.


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

I'm happy for anyone to use "suddenly" as much as they want. But the OP prompted a question. Suppose we want to search in Word for everything ending in "ly"

Or maybe we want everything beginning with "tr"

Any way to do that?


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## jabeard (Apr 22, 2011)

In Word,

Find, Advanced Find, More Options, Use Wildcards

This lets you use pattern strings (sort of a weak-sauce version of regular expressions if you know what those are).

It's not something I can easily explain on the forum, so just google "word wildcards" and "word regular expressions".

You can do some extremely sophisticated searches using this option.


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

I have a few simple "rules" that I try to follow:

1. I write a story like I'm telling it to a group of friends sitting around a campfire, not reading aloud in front of a Harvard English class.
2. The writing must be readable to me. That means I'm not reminded that I'm actually reading something.
3. The writing must sound good when read out loud by someone other than me.
4. Too much of any style, word usage, phrasing or structure is bad. Moderation in everything.

Otherwise, I think of the "rules" simply as guidelines. The critical part... the part that sells books is the story. A suck story, that no one wants to read, isn't going to sell many books regardless of how few times "suddenly," or any word is used. No one will care if the dialog is perfect or how many times "said" is repeated - or not.

A good story, chalk full of "suddenly" can sell.

I don't write for those who possess an elite taste in language. I write for average, everyday, common folks who buy the vast majority of books. I'm one of them, and if I try to be anything else, I'm going to look _stupid-er_.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

Vivi_Anna said:


> Suddenly is not a word I use.
> 
> Now if we were searching for that or then... well, those would be in the 100s I'm sure.


Yeah, "suddenly" just isn't a word I use. "Just" is. I'm constantly having to remove those.

We all have our crutch words, and I'm sure they vary from author to author.


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## Jonathan C. Gillespie (Aug 9, 2012)

Joe_Nobody said:


> 1. I write a story like I'm telling it to a group of friends sitting around a campfire, not reading aloud in front of a Harvard English class.


Seconded.

You can literally edit the soul right out of a story. I saw this as someone self-publishing and as someone that's sold a dozen short stories to various mags and podcasts. The thou-shalt-nots of editors and slush readers are about ten-fold more anal than the average reader's.

The reader is there for a story, period, provided your audience doesn't consist solely of academics.

I've found, as I've matured in this craft, that everyone starts out learning what to edit out. It's when you learn to let things stay that, I think, your work crosses the line from passable to good.

Everyone talks about killing their darlings, but it's just as important to give them a stay of execution now and then. That's called flavor.


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## brendajcarlton (Sep 29, 2012)

> 1. I write a story like I'm telling it to a group of friends sitting around a campfire, not reading aloud in front of a Harvard English class.


You're still allowed to have campfires? Our township manager is determined to personally save the polar bears, meaning no weenie roasts with the grandkids for us any more.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

I have discovered in my various manuscripts (one published, others unpublished) an overuse of the following type sentence:
"How long she sat there, she didn't know."
"How long he stood there, he didn't know."
"How long she stared out the window, she didn't know." etc.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

brendajcarlton said:


> You're still allowed to have campfires? Our township manager is determined to personally save the polar bears, meaning no weenie roasts with the grandkids for us any more.


But campfires don't contribute to...

Are people in your town roasting marshmallows with jet fuel?


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

humblenations said:


> I have a search and replace of all my 'Suddenly' before I go to publish.
> 
> I replace with:
> 
> ...












      Whenever I see "and then", I can't help but think about this movie.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Jena H said:


> Interesting. From the examples you give, it looks as if you generally have dialogue at both front and back ends: "Comment." Action sentence. "Comment." (Just an observation.)
> 
> I too pair comments with an action statement, not all the time, obviously, but I do it. Except I just realized I tend to do mine the other way around: action, and then comment. My examples:
> 
> ...


Yes, in those examples I was trying to show how one could avoid "he/she said" to break up dialogue, so there was dialogue on both ends.

Of course, once could similarly lead with action and then have dialogue, or lead with dialogue and then have action, in order to indicate the speaker without using "Donna said..." or "...blah blah blah," said Donna.


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## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

katherinef said:


> Whenever I see "and then", I can't help but think about this movie.


  That scene is a running joke with my husband and me.

But I will raise my hand as an abuser of "just." There's some serious "just" flaying going on during my revision process.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

ChristinePope said:


> That scene is a running joke with my husband and me.
> 
> But I will raise my hand as an abuser of "just." There's some serious "just" flaying going on during my revision process.


"Suddenly," she said, nearly speechless, "I mean, that's just..."


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

If you want to read a book that breaks every "rule" known to man, read Tom Piccirilli's novella _Every Shallow Cut_. Tons of backstory up front, little if any dialogue &#8230; I could go on. In fact, I did go on, in great detail, in a review I wrote of this book here:

http://mikedennisnoir.com/review-every-shallow-cut/2709/

It's a very short book. You can read it in an eyeblink. But I defy anyone to read this gripping tale and then preach about "rules".


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## Karen Mead (Jul 2, 2012)

I think I just figured out what bothers me about these "rules" of writing: they're really cynical. It's like someone telling you, "You're obviously not smart enough to be able to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis, taking context into account, so just follow these ground rules so what you write will at least be slightly less horrible than if you had no guidelines at all."

I don't know, I can definitely appreciate the idea that you have to know the rules before you can break them, but something about the cynicism of it bugs me.


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## DCBourone (Sep 10, 2012)

Dalya said:

"Ever wonder about these authors who just come out of nowhere and pen a book in their spare time, without any courses or workshops, and it just goes crazy up the charts?

Those authors never heard about all the things they weren't supposed to write.

And I envy them, because I get hung up so many times on "bad vs. good" writing.

In today's market, obvious choices win over subtle choices, and a lot of so-called good writing rules are about being subtle. But subtlety is dead."

-----Go read samples of the top 20 romances, with the knowledge that romances are 50 percent plus of the top 500.  There is more shrugging, winking, sighing, looking in mirrors, heart-pounding, pulse-pounding cliche than you can possibly imagine.  You will swear they were written for The Onion.  They were not.

Yes, subtle is dead.  

There is a residue of old-school writing at the top.  But not much.  And less every day.


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## Robert A Michael (Apr 30, 2012)

I do not think that rules in and of themselves carry any cynical weight. It is often those who either _make_ the rules or from some lofty position try to _impose_ the rules that make them seem cynical, didactic, and condescending. Rules govern behavior. In writing, they generally encompass ideas of what "works" in terms of the behavior of a published work of literature that has a mass public appeal. Any author can choose to follow or ignore these "best practices" guidelines and tips. However, there will always be an element of the writing community who deem rules of more import than the spinning of a tale.

I think that we all can agree that regardless of our writing journey, it behooves us all to try to get better at what we do. Some writers still need the milk and some need the meat in regards to the sustenance needed to continue their journey and to improve their writing. That is why we are here on these boards. To get better. If someone suggests a technique to tighten their prose, we should not see that as an attack on those who do not deem that technique necessary. We all have different backgrounds, goals, audiences, and genres. Someone who writes cookbooks will follow a different set of rules than someone who is writing a how-to software manual or a YA Paranormal novel. And, frankly, some of us just write to the beat of a different drummer. And that is OK too. (SEE? I used And at the beginning--looks like dramatic timing, doesn't it?)


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Karen Mead said:


> I think I just figured out what bothers me about these "rules" of writing: they're really cynical. It's like someone telling you, "You're obviously not smart enough to be able to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis, taking context into account, so just follow these ground rules so what you write will at least be slightly less horrible than if you had no guidelines at all."
> 
> I don't know, I can definitely appreciate the idea that you have to know the rules before you can break them, but something about the cynicism of it bugs me.


However, the "rules" under discussion in this thread are not the highbrow grammatical rules of, well, grammarians. No, these are shortcut rules made up by editors and teachers who were too lazy to teach, so they made up rules that work most of the time, but have far too many exceptions to really be rules at all.

And yes, even the highbrow grammatical rules of grammarians can and often should be broken in fiction. I know.


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

Ha Elmore Leonard. My husband has read all of the writing books. He has shared some of the basics with me. But while he was reading those books, I wrote my first book and sent it to the editor today! 

Not that mine will be some great literary work, my goal is to be entertaining. That having been said, my suddenly count is 0. Whenever I would start to write one, I would suddenly get a surge of electricity run through me. My husband is an electrician so it made me wonder if my chair was rigged


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## Kay Bratt (Dec 28, 2011)

Oops.

18 _Suddenly_ occurrences in a WIP of 67k words. I will be removing at least half of those but I can defend myself with the thought that this is only my first rough draft. I would've caught them on the first review. This reminds me of when my developmental editor wrote the following comment in one of our passes. _"Your characters sure do a lot of stomping."_

Stomping was never a problem again after that.


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## Pearson Moore (Mar 14, 2011)

I was surprised to see 34 instances of 'suddenly' in my novel--but they're spread out over the 289,315 words of the epic, so that comes out to one 'suddenly' every 8509 words, or about once in every two chapters.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

3 instances in 58,000 words.


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## Karen Mead (Jul 2, 2012)

humblenations said:


> I think the word you're looking for is patronising ... not cynical. For them to be cynical somewhat implies that people trying to help would want to read what you have written. The irony here being I can't tell you that you are using a word wrongly without coming across condescending myself.


Hah, I think it's cynical not in the sense that they want to read what you've written- it's that, if they HAVE to read what you've written, they don't want it to be littered with a bunch of repetitive tics that they hate. Does that make sense? I will agree though that patronizing is probably a better way of describing what I was talking about.

Robert A. Michael is right though, it's less that the rules themselves are inherently cynical and more that they often seem to be imposed by those with a cynical view of what most writers are capable of.


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## George Applegate (Jan 23, 2013)

To me, regardless of rules, if the reader is noticing the words, they aren't in the story. If the story if full of "suddenly"s and adverbs but is engrossing and successful, no one will notice the rule violations until someone trots it out as "an exception that proves the rule." Reducing my "suddenly" count for its own sake, won't make the story any more compelling.


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## Jonathan C. Gillespie (Aug 9, 2012)

Pearson Moore said:


> I was surprised to see 34 instances of 'suddenly' in my novel--but they're spread out over the *289,315 words* of the epic, so that comes out to one 'suddenly' every 8509 words, or about once in every two chapters.


Holy crap, Stephen King. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be off somewhere claiming you're writing your last novel again?


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## Greer (Sep 24, 2011)

Zoe Cannon said:


> I would disagree with this, actually. Those two sentences evoke totally different things for me. The first one is someone speaking in a laughing tone; the second one is someone speaking and then giving an actual laugh.
> 
> But either way, I wouldn't want to be sitting next to this guy - whether he's speaking while eating the pie or laughing while eating the pie, he's going to be spewing crumbs all over the place!


Technically, a person can't really laugh dialogue, so I'm pretty sure that means it's incorrect to use it as a dialogue tag.


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## Dan Fiorella (Oct 14, 2012)

Well, I thought I was just about finished proofing my manuscript when suddenly I realized I needed to do a word search...


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

DCBourone said:


> Dalya said:
> 
> "Ever wonder about these authors who just come out of nowhere and pen a book in their spare time, without any courses or workshops, and it just goes crazy up the charts?
> 
> ...


Not all novels are romances, thank God. And what is sometimes acceptable in romances (not all, by any means since it depends on the subcategory) is not necessarily acceptable in other genres.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Zoe Cannon said:


> I would disagree with this, actually. Those two sentences evoke totally different things for me. The first one is someone speaking in a laughing tone; the second one is someone speaking and then giving an actual laugh.
> 
> But either way, I wouldn't want to be sitting next to this guy - whether he's speaking while eating the pie or laughing while eating the pie, he's going to be spewing crumbs all over the place!


Then I would suggest saying that he used a laughing tone because it is not possible to "laugh" dialogue.

ETA: Unlike some, I am not horrified at ever using anything but "said" as a dialogue tag but strongly dislike when a writer uses a verb that simply cannot have anything to do with speech. "Said" is a good verb and should only be replaced with another verb when it actually works as speech. Want me to put down your sample and go to another book? Do that. It is guaranteed. Someone not a writer may only think it seems "off" though without knowing quite why.


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## Julianna Blake (Jun 18, 2013)

Five pages over three days on the glories and the horrors of "suddenly"?

Suddenly, I feel like backing away from this thread, before there is bloodshed.


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## Greg Banks (May 2, 2009)

Julianna Blake said:


> Five pages over three days on the glories and the horrors of "suddenly"?
> 
> Suddenly, I feel like backing away from this thread, before there is bloodshed.


Don't you, before "suddenly", there is bloodshed?


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

humblenations said:


> I think the word you're looking for is patronising ... not cynical. For them to be cynical somewhat implies that people trying to help would want to read what you have written. The irony here being I can't tell you that you are using a word wrongly without coming across condescending myself.


Why one earth SHOULD new authors be forced to figure out for themselves things other writers figured out decades ago, sometimes a lot longer ago than that? If the new author wants to ignore what other authors have learned of course that's up to them, but saying that it is cynical or patronizing for authors to say, "this is what has worked for me" is ... just unbelievably cynical, not to mention belittling.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Shayne said:


> Technically, a person can't really laugh dialogue, so I'm pretty sure that means it's incorrect to use it as a dialogue tag.


Technically a person can't bark an order either, yet it's accepted usage of the verb. Words can have many meanings depending on context. That's language for you.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Andrew Ashling said:


> Technically a person can't bark an order either, yet it's accepted usage of the verb. Words can have many meanings depending on context. That's language for you.


Technically one _can_ bark an order since that is an accepted definition in every dictionary I have: "to utter in a curt loud usually angry tone <an officer barking orders> " in Webster for example. However, I don't know of any definition of laugh that involves speaking. I will occasionally use "whisper" and frequently "shout" or "yell". Even "whine" gets a pass. But it is seriously difficult, although not totally impossible, to hiss speech for example.


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## BellaRoccaforte (May 26, 2013)

We had suddenly salad for dinner - it was delicious.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Good gracious, this discussion has devolved for sure.  No "suddenly" about it.


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## Sapphire (Apr 24, 2012)

I, suddenly, decided to throw a pizza in the oven for dinner tonight. (Believe it or not, it was a sudden decision.)


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

JRTomlin said:


> Technically one _can_ bark an order since that is an accepted definition in every dictionary I have: "to utter in a curt loud usually angry tone <an officer barking orders> " in Webster for example. However, I don't know of any definition of laugh that involves speaking. I will occasionally use "whisper" and frequently "shout" or "yell". Even "whine" gets a pass. But it is seriously difficult, although not totally impossible, to hiss speech for example.


"To utter in a curt loud usually angry tone" may be "a" definition now, but it clearly derives from "speaking in a tone similar to or reminiscent of the barking of an animal."

A lot of writers innovate creatively, and you can't innovate without going against some previous usage.

As always, it is up to writers to decide what they can get away with.


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

Even though I don't like using silly substitutes for 'to say', I checked three online dictionaries, and they were all happy with using 'laugh' in a sense similar to the one we disapprove of. "To utter with a laugh." 

Classic advice on the subject of 'hiss' is: "Make sure you have at least one word, and preferably more, with an 's' in them."

Remember, dictionaries group words by their type. You'll generally find the intransitive verb definitions first, and then the transitive verb definitions--and those are the ones you're looking for, when you're talking about speech.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Tolkien's elves "laugh" their dialogue nonstop.


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## MsTee (Jul 30, 2012)

Jena H said:


> Good gracious, this discussion has devolved for sure. No "suddenly" about it.


No, Jena. You're doing it wrong. It's: 'This discussion escalated devolved quickly suddenly.'


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

MsTee said:


> No, Jena. You're doing it wrong. It's: 'This discussion escalated devolved quickly suddenly.'


"You're right," Jena chortled.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Tolkien's elves "laugh" their dialogue nonstop.


A special elven ability, unique to their race.

And they need to roll a natural 20 to pull it off.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

CraigInTwinCities said:


> A special elven ability, unique to their race.
> 
> And they need to roll a natural 20 to pull it off.


+1


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

I've read in several places that say you can't laugh and talk at the same time, and yet people do it all the time.  Try it, it's not that difficult. 

For dialogue, I'm not a fan of putting the said first, as in:

"I'm leaving," said Bob.

It sounds awkward to me, which is emphasized by replacing the name with a pronoun:

"I'm leaving," said he.


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## Ryan Sullivan (Jul 9, 2011)

I do -- I use "said Eoin". It was used in several books I read when I was younger, so it just has a more natural flow to me.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

So are we still looking for a winner of the most suddenly's? I have 40 in a 85k novel. *hangs head* In all fairness, it's a rough, rough draft, so I'm sure they wouldn't all have made it through to the final edit. Hopefully.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

Hmmmm.  I really don't care if someone "laughs" or "hisses" his/her words in dialog once in awhile...but I DO care if a writer's dialog is boring. That is what will make me put a book down.


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