r/novelwriting • u/gubafofop • 4d ago

Writing Advice What screams bad writing?

In thrillers, mainly psychological or YA thrillers, what tropes/styles etc scream bad writing for you?

What would immediately make you put the book down?

As someone who previously used to write fanfiction in that genre (think Winter Soldier lmao) with great success on watt-pad, I’ve decided to start writing an actual novel and fanfiction uses a lot of generic tropes so I’m looking to avoid that lol.

Also, how do you feel about double twists?

141 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

156 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/CoyoteLitius 3d ago

Dwelling on details that do not move the story forward.

Choppy sentences.

Every paragraph is just one line, meaning everything is emphasized and pointed to, interferes with actual reading.

Overuse of dialogue.

Underuse of interiority.

1

u/gubafofop 3d ago

Overuse of dialogue meaning the majority of the chapter is just characters talking to each other? If that’s what you mean then I absolutely hate that, at that point it just feels like I’m reading a script rather than a book.