Watch out for the Incredibles

The "incredibles" appear when you have a character do something either improbable or impossible. I see manuscripts peppered with little impossibilities and improbabilities. I suspect that many readers would never notice them. At least consciously. If noticed, they can take a reader out of your story and damage your credibility. The suspension of disbelief may be destroyed. I suspect that they are noticed at some level, even if not consciously, and do their damage. Here are some from work I've edited.

He clenched his teeth and said, "I could kill you."

"You always wanted to fly, Erin," he said through gritted teeth.

Okay, now you clench and or grit your teeth and try saying anything intelligible. You'll note that not only are you not able to talk well, but your character would look darned silly trying to talk this way.

(There's a bone on the ground.) I bent down, gingerly touching the small, gray bone.

This is a subtle one. The sentence says he touched the bone as he bends down, but that's not right because the bone is on the ground and he can't touch it until after he bends down. More accurately: I bent down and gingerly touched…etc.

He snarled silently.

A snarl is a sound, so you can't snarl silently. Your mouth can curl as if snarling, though.

Here's a perennial favorite. I've done a number on using "eyes" in a silly way. Here are a couple of examples:

We stood for a long moment, our eyes locked.

So these people put their faces so impossibly close together that their eyes locked together?

Arlene shifted her eyes to the piles of vegetables.

Really, eyes are much more functional when they stay in your head, don't you think?

Here's another "eye" thing:

She wiggled to a sitting position, her eyes sleepy but bright, tugging at the neck of her footy-pajamas.

This sentence has this person tugging at the neck of her jimmies with her eyes. Weird.

I wrapped myself around him and we dropped to our knees.

This leads you to picture someone wrapping their arms and legs around someone else, right? And then they drop to their knees? Naw.

I watched Ellen and her friend drive back to Studio City in their BMW as I waited for someone to answer my call.

Unless this character is in a helicopter or hot air balloon, he/she can't watch someone drive to another city. The writer really meant "depart for."

The voices began, too low to be heard.

If the character knows the voices begin, then they are heard. The writer meant that the words couldn't be understood because the voices were too low.

She stood in the doorway blocking out the light on each side.

This means that the person was wider than the doorway, which seems highly unlikely.

(a man looks at a diapered baby) I saw instantly that the baby was wet.

Nope. You feel whether or not a diaper is wet, but you can't really see it, especially nowadays with disposable diapers.

These illustrate the need for fresh eyes. Sharp, picky eyes. Eyes that do not leave heads but instead stay there and search for the incredibles.

For what it's worth.

RR

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© 2005 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[MeBe]

We stood for a long moment, our eyes locked.

I admit that this is my pet peeve. It irks annoys me to no end when writers substitute "eye" for "gaze" as if the two words were equivalent. Every time I read something like "our eyes locked" or "I could feel the eyes of twenty people on me," I want to scream.

MeBe

[Sarah]

I tried gritting my teeth and talking, and was very understandable. Gritting your teeth does not prevent lip or tongue movement. So, yeah, it is possible to say those things through gritted teeth and be understood ;)

The other points you made are pet peeves of mine, although I shall own up to being guilty of using them a few times in my less attentive moments!

[Margaret]

I have to second MeBe on the gritted teeth/clenched jaw. There's a reason I have shatter lines through most of my teeth and my kids know to quiver in fear when I speak with clenched teeth. Understanding is never an issue.

That said, I like the way you've framed this. I find these types of things in the folks I crit, my copyedit work and in my own writing too. What's the annoying part is they show up in published writing all the time. It leads to the frustration of "why do I bother?" and then I realize I can't leave them alone. They'd haunt me at night :).