No-no's in Character Actions

I wrote this tweet a couple days ago:

"No-no's in character actions: eye-rolling, grinning, smiling, sighing, head-jerking, arms crossed in front of chest. All cliches."

Think about about all the times you've seen these actions in manuscripts, even in published books-- they seem to be everywhere!

Not meaning you can never use them, of course, but be very very careful and sparing in how many times you have a character roll her eyes, cross her arms in front of her chest, smile, grin and sigh. A few I didn't include: clenching teeth, gritting teeth, glaring, laughing-- not because there's anything wrong with these actions themselves but it's because they have become too overused.

A question that came back to me: "So characters can't act like real people?"

Actually, real people have countless mannerisms. Writers must go beyond the obvious and the cliched in their descriptive tags. I mean, think about all the little expressions and gestures that real people use to show their thoughts and emotions. Why limit ourselves to those common ones that everyone else is using? As writers, we need to have refined powers of observation, not falling back on what's ordinary and easy. If you want to show a character's disgust or boredom, give me something besides eye-rolling. Please!

Crossing arms in front of chest used to be good the first few times, but lately I see it everywhere. It's unfortunately become a cliche. What other overused character mannerisms have you been seeing lately?

D is for Description

DESCRIPTION is one of the four chief types of composition (along with argumentation, exposition and narration) that has as its purpose the picturing of a scene or setting. Although sometimes used for its own sake (as in Poe's Landor's Cottage) it more often is subordinated to one of the other types of writing, especially to narration, with which it most frequently goes hand in hand.

If you write YA, go easy on the DESCRIPTION. Younger readers love dialogue and will avoid a book that has large paragraph blocks describing the environment. Keep your descriptive passages brief and include in the dialogue tags to make your story a fast read.

Some genres are known for fuller use of description, such as fantasy where the readers need to visualize the world created in the story. And literary fiction. In fact, in these particular genres, if the author doesn't utilize DESCRIPTION properly, their readers will feel cheated.

(This post has been inspired by and in some instances, directly quoted from A Handbook to Literature, 8th Edition, by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman)