Ever had that moment when you're reading and have that moment where you smile at a story-or roll your eyes and shake your head in disapproval? Yeah, we all have experienced that at some point or the other. As a writer, your aim is to create the latter feeling for your reader rather than the former. Eager to know what feelings you've been creating? Let's get started with The Offensive Description.

1. Mixed Metaphors

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. An appropriate example would be "School is hell"-ah come on! You can't deny that one for sure ;-). Having metaphor, when properly done helps to create a story in strong words, however, there's a warning to it. When you throw in metaphors in an attempt to describe a relationship between two completely different things, you officially sign your 'divorce letter' with your readers.

  Here's what I mean:  

2. Odd Contrasts.

In a metaphor there's a certain relationship: The two things compared must be unrelated, but they can't be incongruous. Thus a metaphor becomes problematic when either;

(1) The two things compared aren't sufficiently different, or;

(2) When they're so different the relationship seems nonsensical. An example of the first kind might be simply, "Her tears were streams of water," which makes no sense given that her tears are indeed streams, just not the kind with trout in them. To illustrate the second, where the things compared seem not to match in any way, I turn to a fictional character, this time George Costanza from Seinfeld: "The sea was angry that day, my friends. Like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli."

3. Excessive descriptions

Seriously, I can't number how many 1 star reviews of books I've seen on Amazon just for one reason: Excessive descriptions. A few articles I've read have always listed this as some of the huge IDENTITY FLAGS of 'amateur writers'. We've been guilty at some point to fill in every description that comes to mind. I mean, we want the reader too be able to imagine the princess' golden, silky, glittering locks of hair as she walks majestically and gracefully into the gothic, dimly lit, exquisite hall of the mighty castle's court.

**Reader: Closes book never to read anything from you till eternity**

Like Stephen King would say: "The road to hell is paved with Adverbs"...others say it's Adjectives. 

Bottom line is this; be cautious of how much –ly and –ish words that appear in your story, the ones that make it in should be there for a reason.

4. Flowery words.

I remember putting up a short story on Amazon and expecting all the praises. Well, while that story ranked on Free Bestseller, I had enough reason to be sorry for myself for ever putting up such.

The first thing that was pointed out was the [over]use of flowery words. Guilty as charged. The simplest, most precise way of saying something is always the best way, whether you're being literal or poetic. There's no reason to have your character strut, stride, amble, jog, or lurch if he can simply walk, or to have him exhort, exclaim, interrupt, groan, bark, or whine if he can simply say. Using such overly demonstrative verbs when simpler ones would do only makes your character look like a collection of tics rather than a person.

5. Clichés

Clichés are the poetry of the uninspired, a way of making connections and comparisons between unlike things without having to make the effort. But clichés are also insidious, and the thing that makes them insidious is the very thing that makes them clichés in the first place: The more accepted and widely used the cliché, the less likely we are to recognize it as one. We begin to think that the cliché itself has meaning.

Unfortunately, there's no simple rule for spotting clichés in your work; the only way to spot them is to be diligent in searching them out. But once you've found them, there are ways of rehabilitating them, looking at what the clichés are attempting to do and then finding a fresh approach to accomplish that.

You could try these sites to see how much clichéd your works are;

http://cliche.theinfo.org

http://www.westegg.com/cliche

http://www.writing2.richmond.edu/wriing/wweb/cliche.html

http://www.phrases.org.uk/index.html

P.S- @a-dora-ble did a thread for generic Cliché titles ...you just might want to join in the fun.

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We'd love to hear your thoughts. Which of these acts are you guilty of?

What are some silly mixed metaphors you've heard, read or thought of?

Till next week, stay #Inspired.