<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <b3fb00d6-b38e-4f61-a13f-665e545fa...@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
>>  <phdu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I was reading one of the Locus First Novel threads, and LWE said:

>>> <i>I can report that
>>> at least one person I trust says it's got all your standard
>>> first-novel problems and isn't very good.</i>

>>> And I was wondering, what are these problems?  The only one I can
>>> think of is the 'kitchen sink' problem, where every cool idea the
>>> author's ever had shows up in one book, but I'm sure there's more.
>>> Are there any sfnal specific first novel problems?

>> Mary-Sue-ism, probably, in which the author models her*
>> protagonist on herself* and paints her* much larger than life.

>> E.g.,

>> http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20051212

>> Deus ex machina is also a possibility....

>> *Or if masculine, it's a "Barry Stu."

>    I've usually seen "Marty Stu", actually.

>    Another common first author mistake is "overkill" in the background.
>Sort of related to the Kitchen Sink problem, the author in this case is
>afraid that the reader may miss some aspect of the background the author
>thinks is important, and ends up with thousands of words of infodump and
>As You Know Bobbing that turn out not to be really needed.

>    Some first authors have the opposite problem: things that are obvious
>to them, they assume are obvious to the reader, and thus critical,
>need-to-know information... isn't there.