GRRM vs. Frank Herbert: the Bad Writing Test

0:00 Intro 6:00 Beginning with protagonist in bed 8:03 Adjectives 12:27 Start novel before important events 17:51 Tenses 18:12 Not using "Said" 19:53 Eye on the market 21:31 Misuse apostrophe’s 24:51 Unlikely love interests 32:10 Mix metaphors 39:06 Orphans 43:29 Everything sudden 47:54 Present your research as dialogue 54:23 Genre 58:24 Fail to contextualise dialogue 1:04:36 The wrong hero 1:17:14 Semicolons 1:21:27 Explain the plot all at once 1:25:04 Multiple POVs in one scene 1:29:47 Formatting 1:32:01 Characters based on real people 1:37:39 Sex 1:44:19 Dramatic … ellipses … 1:48:41 Self-aggrandising autobiography 1:51:53 Matter-of-fact tone 1:57:08 Thesaurus 2:01:47 Bully one character 2:08:39 Signpost twists 2:11:15 Refuse to resolve mysteries 2:15:13 Genuinely evil villain 2:21:31 Outside comfort zone 2:28:25 Characters explain themselves 2:32:01 Unexpected moral 2:35:21 Exclaim! 2:36:11 Recap previous book 2:38:07 Onomatopoeia 2:40:45 Fate as a plot device 2:44:54 Burn through your plot 2:47:42 Hard to distinguish characters 2:49:35 Keywords for online visibility 2:51:10 Write yourself into a corner 2:52:44 Write yourself out of a corner 2:56:04 Quotation marks 2:56:40 Describe wrong things 3:00:12 Censorship 3:02:22 Drop in and out of dialogue 3:03:40 Specific reference points 3:05:17 Radio dialogue 3:05:45 Romanticise places 3:08:54 Missing during editing 3:10:28 Conclusion