At one of music lessons, my teacher surprised me one day by asking me to play all the wrong notes, not to focus on getting it perfect, but to hit that note wrong, and on purpose. When I asked her why, she said that by learning to hit all the wrong notes, I would know what to avoid, that it's easier to avoid what you know than what you don't, and for music this turned out to be true.
The question I want to ask is: what wrong notes/ annoys you concerning the structure of writing?
Personally for me, I can't stand an overuse of the word 'like', as in, 'it was like this' and 'it was like that'.
I think that by learning what we don't like, we discover a little more about our own personal styles :)
@ Adrian, I didn't mean to say that I overuse the word 'like', only that when authors overuse the word like, every third or second sentence, that it drives me mad. But thank you for your suggestions, right now I'm studying Genette and Stanzel, so I might be able to read those books come end of the year :)
@ Asuntha, it's nice to see that you have such a clear vision about your own style, did it take you long to discover it?
@Paul, completely agree with you, spelling and editing mistakes really distract from reading, it's too bad because some great books are ruined a little by it
Sorry by the way. I should have addressed my comments of what irritates me to Sandra.
Adrian your M&W story is a wonderful sketch and also a great example of using language in a rather unexpected way, to great effect.
Asuntha; short sentences, paragraphs and chapters can be excellent. Gracian said - a good thing when short is twice as good. What he failed to add though, was that a bad thing when short can be twice as bad, or at best less painful. What I find with brief or clipped prose, is that it is great for setting the tempo and moving the plot along. But if it's all the way through a long book, for example, it can be tiring. If this is the style you're comfortable with then that's great. Go with it. If you find your writing needs something when you are writing a full novel for instance, it might be worth trying to mix the style about a little. Put some longer pieces in to give variety.
Final point:- you asked about irritations. My pet irritation of recent years, is when you are enjoying a book and you come across a simple grammatical or procedural error that should have been filtered out in the edit. This shows the cutting of corners has gone too far and it distracts me from the book I was previously enjoying.
Sorry. Rant over now. Do what suits you best Asuntha. (Cracking name by the way.)