# Pitfall pack: novel

*Type-specific traps for novel drafting. Loaded by the drafter, line-editor, and polish commands after WRITING-RULES.md. STYLE-GUIDE.md still wins where it conflicts.*

## Filter words

These verbs interpose the narrator between reader and event. Cut them unless the POV explicitly observes itself.

- "she felt", "he felt the X": describe the sensation directly
- "she saw", "he noticed", "she watched": describe the thing itself
- "she heard": describe the sound
- "she thought", "she wondered", "she realized": render the thought as direct interiority or action
- "she seemed", "appeared to": commit to what is, or commit to her reading of it

## Telling not showing

- Emotion words on the nose ("she was furious", "he was nervous"). Replace with body, action, or implication.
- Backstory dumps after a name introduction ("Sarah, who had grown up in Maine and once worked as a..."). Drip feed.
- Author intrusion ("little did she know", "if only he had realized"). Narrator should not signal future to reader.

## POV breaches

- Head-hopping in close third. If the chapter is in Marcus's POV, you cannot describe Sarah's interior thought, only what Marcus perceives.
- Knowing what cannot be known. A first-person narrator does not see their own face unless looking in a mirror.
- Naming things the POV character would not name. A child's POV does not say "diorite countertop"; an unfamiliar object is unfamiliar.

## Dialogue traps

- Talking-head scenes (dialogue without grounding action, gesture, or setting beat). Insert beats.
- As-you-know dialogue (characters explaining things to each other for the reader's benefit). Cut, or break the exposition into action.
- All characters sounding like the narrator. Each speaker needs a distinct lexicon, rhythm, and verbal tic.
- "She said with a smile" / "he said angrily": show the smile, show the anger, drop the adverb on "said".

## Stock phrases (genre overuse)

- Romance: "her breath caught", "his heart raced", "lost in his eyes", "butterflies in her stomach"
- Thriller: "cold sweat", "heart pounding in his ears", "every fiber of his being", "she didn't have time to think"
- Fantasy: "ancient evil", "primal magic", "the prophecy foretold", "older than time itself"
- Literary: "the weight of years", "in the silence between them", "she let the moment hang"

If you reach for a phrase you've read before, the writer has too. Replace with something specific to this character, this image system, this scene.

## Pacing pitfalls

- Three consecutive paragraphs of similar length. Vary.
- Scenes that begin with weather or waking. Cliched openers.
- Time skips signaled with "Three weeks later" alone. Show the gap with a concrete shift in setting or state.

## Closing pitfalls

- Wrapping the chapter with a thematic statement. Trust the reader.
- "And that was the day everything changed." Cut.
- A character looking at the sky / horizon / their reflection as an emotional capstone. Overused.