: Re: How do you avoid smiling, head-bobbing characters? Posting on a question about word frequency data, I read an excellent answer from @DPT about avoiding words that become so frequent, they're problematic.

I'm a little wary of purely data-driven writing changes. Without reading your book, I can't say if 62 smiles is 3 smiles too many or 5 smiles too few. But in terms of a warning sign of possible deeper issues, the question I would ask is whether your characters are too agreeable.

Although having someone smile and nod when someone else hits on their husband might be realistic, we generally want characters in fiction to be more active and demonstrative than those in real life. In this situation, even if she doesn't take the (more entertaining, but probably overdramatic) route of causing a scene, I'd at least expect a grimace, or a "forced" smile, or her hand to tighten momentarily on her purse.

It's okay for her to fool the people at the party, but if she's really not OK with this --and why would she be? --then I feel we the audience should know that. Even if being passive and overly agreeable is a key part of her character, we should get at least a hint of the effort it takes. Ishiguro's Remains of the Day is basically an entire novel about someone whose job description includes smiling and nodding, and what it costs him inside.

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: Re: How do you avoid smiling, head-bobbing characters? Posting on a question about word frequency data, I read an excellent answer from @DPT about avoiding words that become so frequent, they're problematic.

More posts by @Sarah872

: How can I make the fight between 3 big cat moms believable? I am rewriting my story about big cat friendship for the greater good. I have taken into consideration the fact that friendships

: It may or may not be true that every crisis in the real world is an opportunity, but it is true that every writing challenge is a writing opportunity. The challenge of multiple language

: How to write a character who recently gained emotions I have an android character who, ever since the near-death experience of his very young childhood, he has lacked emotions of any kind.

: How do I program a game for an ereader? I have a question that relates to this one: I want to write a Choose Your Own Adventure styled e-book, what's a good approach? I have made CYOA

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