Sometimes it’s lonely knowing English grammar.

*round of applause*

Great post diana and lots of great comments. I know as a reader I tend to throw down a book for stylistic reasons. Sometimes nothing I can directly pinpoint, but lazy writing is definitely a culprit (for a variety of reasons not just adverbs or passive writing etc.).

Personally, though I don’t switch POVs because that’s not myw riting style, I don’t notice it when people do. I don’t notice it, I don’t care, I’d be hard pressed to point out writers who do it because it’s not even a blip on my radar screen. I DO notice it when I’m judging a contest entry and I can’t tell what head I’m in. But until I heard the phrase headhopping and heard it was a problem, I would just have called it crappy POV. BUt that’s something that I as a reader don’t care about or notice. As a reader I do notice adverbs. Some people notice neither. My mother, who isn’t a writer and has no intentions on being one,d oes notice POV.

Weird, huh?

She finished her ice cream thoughtfully.

Or

She reflected on that little bit of information while finishing her ice cream.

She chewed on that while finishing her ice cream;-)

She mulled that over while finishing her ice cream.

Wait do young adults mull? LOL

And I completely agree that LY words should be used sparingly.
Hee.

I’ve been posting to the FidoNet WRITING echo (which is now syndicated onto the Internet) over the past few YEARS about these “rules” and how they are wrongheaded. Authors Pamela Dean, Patricia C. Wrede, and Raphael Carter all agreed with me, which is why I kept believing. But recently people have been telling me about these “rules” again. More power to you for debunking them.

I have actually had occasion to argue on a long thread that “The tire was flat” is NOT passive voice. And that there’s not really another way to phrase it without getting into contortions. It’s natural to say it that way. Sometimes it’s idiomatic in English to say, “It was raining,” or “There was one ticket left,” even though there’s this “official proscription” against “There is” and “It was” in all the Sekrit Squirrel How-To-Write grimoires.

Mark Twain may have said adverbs do/don’t this or that, but he also said you’ve gotta find the precise word. It’s the diff between lightning and a lightning bug. If that word is an adverb, then so be it. In fact, were we to erase all adverbs, we could not indicate time. “Yesterday” and “Soon” are . . . yes . . . adverbs. (*GRIN*)

I say: long live the semicolon, the subjunctive mood (as if it were even an issue *grin*), and the adverbial tag–used sparingly and only when the dialogue would seem to imply the wrong attitude. (“I hate you,” she said sweetly. “Now, pass the salt.”) Although I venture to say that it has simply gone out of style, and that it’s sometimes pretty tough to “show” what the character is thinking or feeling through the action tags. Sometimes it’s just CLEARER to write, {She paused. “Maybe you’re right,” she said thoughtfully.} We all understand it, can picture the “thoughtful look on her face” in our own fashion or hear the tone of musing in her voice. It’s shorthand. A shortcut that writers of the past used. It could come back into style. But right now, it’s out of style, and that’s why we don’t want to do it. It’s not that it’s some kind of venial sin. Just a different way of doing things.

-ING words are our friends. You’re right: sometimes she’s turning, or he’s cranking furiously. It’s happening in the “now” of the story, not quite finished yet. Later, you can tell them when he finishes cranking and sits up, wiping his brow. GRIN

I think it’s simplistic to say that it’s any one “thing” that matters. Some writers are indeed on the NYT because their characters are so unforgettable. Others made it on their powerful prose. I think that all writers have their own sets of strengths and weaknesses. For some, it’s plot, for others, characterization, and for others, prose. Some lucky bastards are triple threats. Frickin’ Nabokov.

I tend to thinkt aht some of these guidelines came about as a means to help writers pinpoint the cause of problems in their story, and then evolved from there into “this is a problem.” Like headhopping. Headhopping qua headhopping isn’t a problem. But if it’s tough to identify with the characters, maybe it’s because the writer isn’t spending enough time in their POV, etc.

Maybe “It isn’t a problem unless it’s a problem.”

Just as the path to being on the NTY bestseller list is paved with characterisation so weak it’s almost negative.

But both cases just prove that the STORY is what’s important. Which was Jo’s point with the tree/forest analogy, which I loved.