We're all "glancing" around

[Bowler1]

The word 'overused' is key, CTG, and your example is 100% good to go no problems - nice example by the way.

However...

I pointed to the street sign above the husband and said, "You're standing on it."
The wife's face boiled over and she turned around and smacked the etc.

There's always more actions to draw on, words have little to do with it.

 

[Interversus]

I love a good glance, but I wish I had more ways to describe non-verbal communication between people; eg glances between two characters who have witnessed something stupid from a third etc.

I love a giggle too if used properly (if its not quite a laugh, what is it?). My latest story has an adult male, who is a bit immature giggling at someone being too serious, and I can't imagine another way of writing it.

I dislike reading words that are interpreted by the reader in a way the writer, or good sense, did not intend, and that could be anything, but more often is glancing and giggling.

Use 'em well.

 

[ctg]

I pointed to the street sign above the husband and said, "You're standing on it."
The wife's face boiled over and she turned around and smacked the etc.

I wrote it like it happened. There was no pointing out to the street sign as there's no such a things in that particular corner. And "face boiling out" reads like it started to melt and bubble, while steam came out from her ears.

And sorry, I couldn't keep silent.

 

[Montero]

I'm wondering if giggled means something slightly different to me.

There is the sort of little girl giggling - when it is high pitched and can get irritating to anyone around.
BUT

If I am say reading a Terry Pratchett I'd say I get the giggles from time to time. I'm not laughing (to me a laugh is louder than a giggle) but sitting there shaking with laughter, probably not making a lot of noise (bit hard to know from the inside of the experience) and I'd consider using the word giggle there, because a giggle can be a lot longer than a laugh.
Its also more compact than saying "shaking with laughter" or "laughing too hard to speak" or "laughing until tears came".


I don't exactly have a problem with "suddenly" - because trying to say suddenly without using the word suddenly can go on for a while - which then loses all suddeness.
But
Having recently re-watched the Little Shop of Horrors, I do have the link "Suddenly, Seymore" tending to pop up from time to time.

 

[Kylara]

haha It's not the "suddenly" that bothers me, it's the combination of "suddenly" and "noticed" - noticing is sudden, you can't really slowly notice something...it just seems a little overkill when used together :wink:

 

[Abernovo]

I don't have a problem with giggling. True, in European culture, it's not always considered masculine, but in some cultures, men do laugh in what I could only consider as a giggle. That they are manly types is not in question, either. I, myself, chuckle, and sometimes do so when closing the microwave door, Biskit. (Mad Scientists Union member 94687)

I have to say that 'suddenly' is one of my pet dislikes, as it's used too often as a filler word. In itself, it's not a bad word. Only when it's used as an unnecessary filler.

 

[Coragem]

Personally, I dislike:

1) Overt American English. If I'm reading a medieval fantasy (for example) something like "gotta" pulls me right out of the story. Hate it.

2) Cliche off the peg phrases. For example, "her heart skipped a beat" as used over and over and over again within Celia Friedman's magister trilogy.

Coragem.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

Decimated when used as annihilated. The Romans used decimation as a punishment for their soldiers and one in ten were killed. Nowadays people use it instead of annihilated and it gets on my wick.

 

[Abernovo]

Decimated when used as annihilated. The Romans used decimation as a punishment for their soldiers and one in ten were killed. Nowadays people use it instead of annihilated and it gets on my wick.

Funny you should mention that, crooksy. Jim Butcher made a very similar comment in Ghost Story, with his Dresden character noting how the usage had changed in modern times.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

I'm working my way through Malazan Books of the Fallen by Steven Erikson and he's used it in it's modern way on a few occasions. Suppose I'm going to have to put up with it

 

[Ursa major]

"I just realized I'm going to have to rethink my WIP, the mystery novel," said TDZ, giggling. "Glancing through this thread, I suddenly noticed that I use a delicious abundance of words that irritate the snot out of people on this forum. In fact, I have deduced that my book will be unanimously unpopular, and I am going to give it up and drive competently to the bar for a stiff drink." :~0# <---pukey faced smiley

Don't worry, TDZ. Your WiP has only received a glancing blow....

 

[Mouse]

...delicious...

:~0#

...

 

[alchemist]

It was only in one book, but it was "taciturn." Ooh, get you, Mr Writer, with the one big word in your book, used repeatedly to describe the same character over and over and over again.

(I'm cool with glancing. It's a specific action, and it saves longer description of it)

 

[Ursa major]

Lapis, in the two Hyperion books (by Dan Simmons) I've read. Used over and over again, mostly about the colour of the sky, if I recall correctly.

 

[HareBrain]

If we're getting to unusual words overused repeatedly by one only author, I'm going to play the easy Stephen Donaldson card and go with threnody, roynish and gibbous. (I'm quite impressed that Chrome's spellchecker recognises threnody, though I doubt there's a spellchecker in the universe that recognises roynish). If I saw either of the first two words, I'd have to suspect the writer was copying Donaldson.

Also, I was quite young when I first came across gibbous, and it's still stuck in my head that it has something to do with gibbons.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Hmm. I don't remember coming across those words in the Thomas Covenant novels. Maybe he saved them for the Gap series and Mirror of Her Dreams.



And why do I get the feeling this thread is going to go on for the next ten decades?

 

[Ursa major]

Damn: there was a good chance that the word, threnody, might appear in WiP4 (and I've never read any Stephen Donaldson, as far as I know).



* Ursa is so distraught that he's not sure whether to listen to Aux cyprès de la Villa d'Este I: Thrénodie or Aux cyprès de la Villa d'Este II: Thrénodie. *

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Oh, oh, oh! I've got one! The "decimated" thing reminded me. That one annoys me, too.

It's not a single word, but rather a phrasing, that I hate so much.

"Five times less than" -- or three, or fifty, or a thousand; the numbers don't matter. It's physically impossible. A thing can be five times greater than another thing, but it cannot be five times less than another thing. It's comparing in the wrong direction. Once you have reached "one time less than", you have nothing left. Properly, it is one-fifth as much as the other thing.

And don't get me started on "up to 50% off -- and more!" -- but that doesn't show up in books very often.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Athough I am tending to sympathise with CTG in this, I must admit that any overuse of a word pulls me out of the narrative. I love Michael McDowell's The Elementals but he does like to use the word 'illumined' too much. (I wonder what is wrong with 'illuminated', anyway)

pH

 

[HareBrain]

Hmm. I don't remember coming across those words in the Thomas Covenant novels. Maybe he saved them for the Gap series and Mirror of Her Dreams.

What?? Every time a moon appeared: gibbous. EVERY time ur-viles appeared: roynish.

I've just googled roynish and found there are quite a few online dictionaries that have it, but a few years ago googling it pretty much only got you references to ur-viles.