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I found a website of writing advice from a 'Writer & Editor'.... the articles are SO badly written (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by snowflake@hexbear.net to c/writing@hexbear.net
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Ok this is mean of me to post. Sorry Jessica Dall.

"A couple of years ago I touched on the issue of head jumping, which comes from poorly controlled POV in third limited (where a single scene slips between a number of characters’ POVs), but even with head jumping taken care of, some stories can still suffer from POV bloat–or simply more POV characters than the story can easily handle." – what a messy sentence.

"Short scenes are sometimes work well." – this is a self-described editor giving writing and editing advice.

"Pretty much anyone who’s read a book has probably seen narrative written in first and third person. Some people may have even seen a couple in second. Everyone has their favorite to write in, and generally read, but I’ve always been rather partial towards third person." – so much wrong with this writing. 'some people may have even seen a couple in second' sounds like about four people out there have read two texts in second-person perspective. 'and generally read' is awkward and the word 'generally' serves no purpose. 'I've always been rather partial to' is a cliché.

I wouldn't draw attention to it – there's lots of bad writing on the internet – but she's apparently a professional 'Writer & Editor' lololol

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[-] snowflake@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Most self-help books are written in the 2nd person, I think. (In Jessica Dall's defense, she is talking about "stories" only. I agree stories in the 2nd person are very rare.)

And a lot of love poems.

"In second person, the narrator refers to one of the characters as “you”, therefore making the audience member feel as if he or she is a character within the story. (“You see the man walking toward you.”)" – this is also bad writing because the example is so dull. A good writer would have used an example with impact such as "there are so many things I wanted to tell you when you returned from Vietnam – but you didn't." The professional editor has also made a punctuation error here: the word you should have 'single quotes' not "double quotes".

"5 Places to Stop in Ireland" – title breaks AP Style and most stylebooks I know about. It should be 'Five' rather than '5'.

"If you have been following my brand(ish) new TikTok...." – yeah brand(ish) new gtfo

"An absolute must for the book nerds amongst us." – Again reaching for the lazy cliché to express herself.

Dunno why I'm enjoying ripping on her so much. I must have a grudge against her from a past life.

[-] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 week ago

“In second person, the narrator refers to one of the characters as “you”, therefore making the audience member feel as if he or she is a character within the story. (“You see the man walking toward you.”)”

using "he or she" here is also clumsy writing, "they" works far better
it reads like she had a bad ESL teacher

this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
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