Ha, ha, Had, Slightly, and Other Author Twitches

Fellow authors take note! I’ve made it my mission to support other indie authors, so I’ve been reading a book a day for the past couple of weeks. I’m noticing things I’ve just dubbed Author Twitches because it’s almost like a case of literary Tourette Syndrome.

I’m lately reading an author Thomas interviewed and his stories are great, but he uses “Ha, ha” at the beginning of many of his character’s spoken sentences. I feel sorry for whoever had to do the voice for his audio books. How would you read that? One complainant in a review said he used Ha, ha, 55 times in his first book. (Why would anyone take the time to count them?)

Another author twitch is over-using the word had. I’ve seen this used as often as three times in one sentence. I don’t believe there is any rule to not use contractions, is there?

Lately, especially in Lit RPG the word ‘slightly’ is popping up like spring flowers along with the phrase “as best (he/she) could.”

If these books are professionally edited… Oy. If self edited we need to take the time to contact the author and with grace and humility, mention these things so we can all improve our writing and editing. It will make reading these self-published works more enjoyable.

How do you feel about this? What Author Twitches have you noticed? Did you mention it to the author?