Over the years, I’ve noticed that there are certain things most authors simply don’t know how to describe well. Even genius-level authors stumble when it comes to writing about these particular activities. In fact, I’ve come across this so often that I’m starting to think it’s impossible for anyone to pull them off properly.

If my hypothesis is correct, it means that the limits of written expression do not lie in dark matters of the human heart; instead, they lie in eating, dancing and sex.

Let’s break out the list, shall we?

1) EATING

I’d like you to do something for me. Pour yourself a bowl of cereal, with milk if necessary, and start eating it. Finished? Awesome. Now, would you describe what you just did as ‘taking a bite of cereal’?

Unless you were trying to dentally bisect your spoon, I’m guessing not.

For some unfathomable reason, the go-to phrase for written descriptions of eating is ‘He/she/I took a bite of food’, where ‘food’ may be substituted for eggs, lasagna, pasta, breakfast cereal or any other consumable imaginable except soup, and I’m guessing someone has even tried it with that one. Even in cases where it should be perfectly appropriate (like a burger, say) it still ends up sounding odd  - possibly because it’s just too overused at this point.

OM NOM NOM

My suggestion for remedying this pox on the face of writing is to avoid overt description of the eating process altogether. It usually adds nothing to a scene (if they’re sitting in front of plates of food, we can assume that they’re eating unless told otherwise), and you can do more with descriptions of things other than people shoveling lasagna into their mouths. Tell the reader where they’re looking, how they’re sitting, if they’re pushing their food around their plate rather than eating it (although that one also crops up a bit too often), but please, no more bites of cereal.

2) DANCING

It’s experiment time again!

Get up from your chair and attempt to dance in a manner which could aptly be described as ‘pulsing’. Don’t worry if you’ve never ‘pulsed’ before; it crops up so much in fiction, I figure it must be easy to do. I’m imagining a sort of full-body spasm, starting at the arms (raised over the head) and ending with a foot-flail that sends you crashing to the ground head first. Granted, this would make it rather difficult to pulse ‘in time with the music’, which is apparently how it’s usually done, but I”m guessing  that’s just a more advanced technique.

Other acceptable dance moves include gyrating, grinding (thankfully never described in detail) and the ultra-generic ‘moving’; as in, ‘she moved with the music’ – uh, good to know.

Simply dancing, without recourse to bizarre descriptions, will result in scorn being heaped upon you by the other patrons of whichever plot-riddled nightclub you happen to have found yourself in. Really, can you blame them? If they bothered to learn how to pulse, then you’d better make damn sure you do the same.

3) Sex

There is an annual award given for the worst sex scenes in literature. Here it is (NSFW). Here’s a sample (not NSFW):

She holds him tight and squeezes her body to his, sending delightful sailing boats tacking to and fro across the ocean of his back.

-Rhyming Life and Death by Amos Oz, who hopefully does not frequent marinas.

People, this one isn’t difficult. Don’t use metaphors. Don’t use analogies. Do not, under any circumstances, make torturous quasi-religious comparisons between certain body parts and places of worship, particularly if those places of worship are being ‘defiled’ by any kind of serpent. Avoid describing activities which are only physically possible for members of Cirque du Soleil.

In fact, don’t bother describing it at all unless it’s necessary to do so. (Are you sensing a pattern here?) There’s a reason why the fade to black has been so consistently popular for decades.

Did y’all know that May is Short Story month? Really? Well, I swear it is.

In an effort to share my love joy fest of the stories that affected me in the most profound way, I’m recommending a few to you now.

Go forth and read and read more and let me know your opinion of the following once you’ve done so.

• My first recommendation for you is not a solitary short, but what for me has been my go-to collection by He-That-I-Fangirl. Neil Gaiman’s Fragile Things encompasses courses of his finest works. There is humor, there is fear that borders horror and there is, of course, a snippet into the life of his American Gods’ protagonist, Shadow Moon. Gaiman has an ability that hints of the ‘not-of-this-world’ variety. He paints pictures with words that are in the best possible ways abstract unbelievability of psychedelic dreams. His is not a talent than can be ignored and his stories are not those that will be easily forgotten.

• Sometimes you find a writer without ever looking. Sometimes, when this happens, you are pleasantly surprised by the discovery. While purveying several online journals, I came across the work of Cat Rambo. In the three years since stalking her on Twitter (in my never-ending attempt to learn from the pros), there have two of Rambo’s stories that have left indelible impressions on me. The first, is the beautifully written story about a brother who attempts the impossible to make his sick sister smile. Magnificent Pigs, first published in Strange Horizons in 2006, breathes life into the importance of sibling companionship and demonstrates the strength of family and how that strength, like faith, can make the impossible real. The steampunker in me fell in love with Rambo’s Clockwork Fairies, published by Tor in October of 2010. This story draws an uncharacteristic view of a woman discovering herself, asserting herself and branching out into new worlds while shedding the dead weight of the man who would see her conform. Feminist, fantastic and surreal, Clockwork Fairies will leaving you smiling and possibly, cheering by its end.

• Because I’m an emerging writer and because I know talent when I see it (and this is in no way biased), I’m directing you to Pedestal and my friend Adrienne Crezo‘s brilliant new short Husband-Shaped. It is all thing literary and heartbreaking. Beautifully written and an expression of what some of you may have experienced = art imitating life in the most profound way.

• Jeremy C. Shipp is the strangest writer I’ve read in a very long time. Trust me, that’s a huge compliment. His brilliant ‘zombie’ short- which ain’t your mama’s zombie story- is evocative, thrilling and heartbreaking. Go check out Those Below.

Yes, we’re all special snowflakes, we should strive to create something new and not be the next JK Rowling or Stephen King. But, let’s face it, there are writers who seem to have it all. Even if, from their point of view, things aren’t as rosy as they look from the outside. (As the saying goes, the grass is always greener…)

So who has the writer’s life that you want? Whether it’s NYTimes Bestselling status, a teaching gig at a prestigious college, multiple book-to-film options, or just an enviable work-life balance, what writer’s career do you most wish to emulate?

For me, it’s Lauren Oliver. Her debut, Before I Fall, was my favorite YA book of 2010. It was such a spot on depiction of bitchy high school cliques. Smart, funny, well-written, entertaining. I loved it. And though I found her follow-up, Delirium, pretty lackluster, I still think she’s an incredibly skilled writer who manages to write beautifully and create engaging plots.

I also envy her business side. As the co-founder of Paper Lantern Lit, she’s steered newbie writers toward several six-figure deals and has proven that she’s got her finger on the pulse of what the YA audience wants. Regardless of how you feel about the book packaging business model, you have to admire her biz savvy. With multiple six figure deals herself and both books options for movies, she’s financially comfortable enough to make writing her full time gig.

Okay, now it’s your turn. What writer’s life do you want one day?

Bad books.

We all know they exist. We’ve read them, even if we’d like to forget about them. Sloppy books, books with such clumsy construction and awkward writing that you only ever finish them despite the words on the page, and not because of them.

If you’re a writer–or if you just appreciate clear communication–the existence of these books probably makes you cringe, tear your hair, and rend your garments (whatever that means). News that a poorly-written book has been well-received by the public or the publishing world can be painful. Word of six-, and seven-figure advances despite clumsy stylistics can feel vaguely nausea-inducing.

All those dramatics over ineffective writing hide a shameful truth, of course: at some point, we all write something terrible.

I mean it. I’m sure that every writer on Earth has produced at least one draft chock-full of Said Bookisms, unnecessary adverbs, clumsy descriptions of action, and awkward phrasing. But the key word here is “draft”–when it comes down to the wire, there’s really no excuse for these kinds of amateur writing mistakes.

Why? Because as a writer, you have ample opportunities to revise. Pre-publication/beta readers are great for cluing you in to where you’ve gone wrong. I can’t submit a draft to the other Interrobangs without having it come back to me covered in comments (which is just the way I like it!). And with the help of the Internet, it’s easy to find dedicated readers who will tear your prose to pieces (the AbsoluteWrite forums are a good place for that). But even if you don’t have outside readers, careful consideration of your own writing on a sentence level can kick your prose up a notch–make it more readable, fluid, and fluent.

Here are a few sentence-level edits you can make to let your writing better serve your story:

• Remove adverbs, particularly around dialogue, she said, tersely. The problem with adverbs is that they often indicate that your verbs are weak. Rather than having someone “laugh softly,” consider having them “chuckle.”
• Don’t be afraid of the word “said.” Conversely, in effective dialogue, it’s the words within the quotations that should largely convey tone. Overly relying on your thesaurus turns writing into this experiment to see how often you can avoid the word “said”–and these experiments are distracting to your reader.
• Be careful with your -ing verbs. Too many gerunds generally can slow down your reader–worse, they imply (sometimes against the writer’s intentions) a simultaneous action. “Running up the stairs, Jimmy grabbed his knife from his bedroom.” That’s just not possible unless Jimmy is in two places at once!
• Needless action descriptors. Readers don’t need to know about every. single. movement your character makes. In fact, it’s tiresome, and will try the patience of even the most zen reader. Most readers will skim to character interactions and dialogue when faced with a wall of text. Try to use as few words as possible. For example, “Walking down the street, Jeanie swung her hips, putting one foot in front of the other. She rounded her mouth into a small ‘o’ and blew a thin stream of air past her lips,” can easily become “Jeanie walked down the street, whistling.”

Editing this kind of sloppy draft can be a little boring, but always results in cleaner, more readable prose. Clean prose won’t make you an amazing writer–you need great characters, story, and thematics for that–but it will let your reader focus on what really matters. Let your writing serve your ideas, instead of distract from them.