You’re a few books into Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time epic fantasy series and then you realize… the characters in this series tug their hair braids a lot. More than seems particularly natural. And they smooth their skirts quite a bit and…oh goodness the sniffing, the endless sniffing! What is going on here?!?
Lots of authors have idiosyncratic phrases and character actions that get repeated in their work, either consciously or subconsciously. In a multi-volume epic like The Wheel of Time those idiosyncrasies over time become charming; an indication of authenticity, an in-joke that you share between yourself, the author, and the fiction.
Reddit user Nadyin recently conducted a simple condition phrase search through all 15 books of The Wheel of Time to see just how often Jordan used his idiosyncrasies. And what Nadyin found was a whole lotta skirt-smoothing.
| Book | tugs | braids tugged | smooths | skirts smoothed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Spring | 5 | 1 | 41 | 5 |
| The Eye of the World | 39 | 1 | 53 | 1 |
| The Great Hunt | 18 | 0 | 80 | 1 |
| The Dragon Reborn | 45 | 20 | 69 | 3 |
| The Shadow Rising | 41 | 6 | 106 | 5 |
| The Fires of Heaven | 24 | 3 | 83 | 12 |
| Lord of Chaos | 30 | 11 | 101 | 16 |
| A Crown of Swords | 29 | 1 | 80 | 23 |
| The Path of Daggers | 19 | 2 | 85 | 13 |
| Winter’s Heart | 18 | 1 | 75 | 14 |
| Crossroads of Twilight | 36 | 1 | 107 | 16 |
| Knife of Dreams | 23 | 5 | 88 | 12 |
| The Gathering Storm | 19 | 6 | 37 | 1 |
| Towers of Midnight | 17 | 2 | 19 | 0 |
| A Memory of Light | 23 | 0 | 23 | 1 |
Braid-tugging also experienced quite a spike during the events of The Dragon Reborn. But then again, hunting the Black Ajah with no training or support seems like a stressful enough ordeal to warrant such braid-tugging on Nynaeve’s part.
We’re curious how prevalent sniffing is throughout the series. And how often Mat’s head-dice are remarked upon. The answers may appear as Nadyin’s Reddit thread continues to roll out.
You can always spot a Stephen King book by “bodies stacked like cordwood“, and a few other phrases.
Actually, I’ve noticed a tendency in my own writing to start way too many sentences with “Actually.”
Did anybody sniff and tug at the same time? Smooth and sniff?
Reminds me of Daniel Abraham’s A Shadow in Summer. Everybody was posturing themselves when they talked. While it was part of the culture of the characters, it soon grew tedious for me.
Now I’m curious to analyze my own writing to see what phrases I overuse.
One verbal tic which drive me nuts in David Weber’s Safehold series was how his characters were always emoting and chuckling.
Merlin would grimace then chuckle. Cayleb would grin and chuckle fiercely. Haarald would chuckle, then frown.
And on and on. It got so distracting I couldn’t finish the series.
@2 – LOL.
I really want to know about the sniffing though! (Hm, this is now reminding me of that scene in Fellowship of the Ring – but what about the SNIFFING??)
Now we just have to figure out how many winks, smiles and brow furrowing takes place in the Shades of Magic series by V.E Schwab. I swear the main cast of the story have social facial spasms.
Surprised this didn’t turn up “She crossed her arms under her breasts,” since Jordan always thinks that’s relevant. :)
Yes, this bugs the hell out of me. He could have just said, “She crossed her arms on her chest,” and everyone would know what that means. There are any number of retorts I could say about this phrase, maybe some not so decent, but I will remain classy and just say that I can’t stand this statement.
I’m surprised The Fires of Heaven didn’t show up higher on the braid-tug front, considering that’s Nynaeve’s big book.
I call this “Niffleheim Syndrome,” since the first time I noticed it (as a kid) was when reading H. Beam Piper’s “Fuzzy” series. Everything was “Niffleheim” this and “Niffleheim” that to the point where it got actively annoying. The worst was something like:
“That stinks to Niffleheim!”
“That would stink *on* Niffleheim!”
Yeah…
Lol, this is great. In response to @3 Austin, I think the sniff and tug are more likely to go together than the sniff and smooth…
@8 I know! From the very first time I read that I though “That’s a really specific detail. He must have wrote that because sometimes later a woman will cross her arms over her breasts” but that never happened.
I have yet to find a writing querk that annoys me more than that one did.
Has Braid_Tug seen this post? :) She might be interested knowing what she’s told of the background of her username …
I’m surprised Thom Merrilin knuckling his mustache isn’t on the list.
In Brian Sanderson’s novels, characters ‘shrug’ a lot. Maybe not more than what an average person shrugs, I guess, but they do seem to shrug at weird times.
If you’re really curious about sniffing, I reviewed every single Wheel of Time book on Amazon during a great reread leading up to the final book and included sniffs for each character leading up to a crowning for Queen of Sniffs. Nynaeve clearly won. Greg Polansky is my username on Amazon. I used the Kinde App on my iPad and the Kindle for PC to tabulate sniffs by character by book. Here is my total by the end of the series.
And for the series, Nynaeve is the clear winner with 55 sniffs. Elayne is runner up with 20. For all 14 books, excluding New Spring’s 2 sniffs, there were 299 sniffs.
Nynaeve – IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII(55)
Elayne – IIIII IIIII IIIII IIIII (20)
Egwene – IIIII IIIII IIIII IIII (19)
Aviendha – IIIII IIIII IIII (14)
Suian – IIIII IIIII I (11)
Faile – IIIII IIII(9)
Moiraine – IIIII IIII (9)
Min – IIIII III (8)
Leane – IIIII II (7)
Joline – IIIII I (6)
Cadsuane – IIII
Elaida – IIII
Lanfear/Selene – IIII
Melaine – IIII
Romanda – IIII
Amys – III
Bair – III
Corvil – III
Dyelin – III
Idrien – III
Larine – III
Lelaine – III
Renee Harfor – III
Teslyn – III
Aludra – II
Beonin – II
Cook at Inn – II
Deira – II
Feraighin – II
Laras – II
Liandrin – II
Lini – II
Saerin – II
Setelle Anan – II
Sumeko – II
Tiana – II
Adine – I
Ailhuin – I
Alise – I
Alivia – I
Asne – I
Balwer – I
Barasine – I
Beldeine – I
Berisha – I
Berowin – I
Bornhold – I
Breane – I
Caira – I
Canler – I
Carlinya – I
Chubain – I
Corana – I
Daigian – I
Darlin – I
Edarra – I
Edelle – I
Ellorien – I
Essande – I
Erith – I
Females in Crowd – I
Galina – I
Garenia – I
Graendal – I
Jarid – I
Javindhra – I
Jeaine – I
Jeaine – I
Katerine – I
Kireyin – I
Latelle – I
Marin al’Vere – I
Merana – I
Mesaana – I
Merilille – I
Moghedian – I
Nesta din Reas – I
Nicola – I
Nildra – I
Nisao – I
Pevara – I
Renaile – I
Rendra – I
Rhiale – I
Samitsu – I
Semirhage – I
Seonid – I
Sevanna – I
Signet Ring Fellow – I
Silk Shopkeeper – I
Silviana – I
Somara – I
Sorilea – I
Suroth – I
Tam – I
Tavern Wenches at the Woman of Tanchico Inn – I
Tenobia – I
Therava – I
Tion – I
Tylin – I
Vandene – I
Vasha – I
Verin – I
Village Wisdom – I
Yukiri – I
Woman in Fal Dara – I
Women of Emond’s Field – I
I didn’t even realize there were that many “smoothing”. In fact, I didn’t even notice smoothing any more than crossing the arms under the breast. It’s Nynaeve’s braid-tugging that gets on me and that I would look forward to, to affirm she can channel soon.
There is possibly very simple explanation of this phenomena: female characters. Of course skirts have to be smoothed from time to time! (and it gives wearer of said skirt a second to think, which can be priceless, as I´m sure captain Picard (uniform) or 11th Doctor (bowtie) can confirm.) Of course women are sniffing! I´m sniffing right now at the fact that anyone is surprised by it. Did anyone think about counting, say, grumbling or swordfighting of men? Dice-tossing of Mat? Perrin pondering the great hammer or axe dilemma?
Braidtugging is another thing. When I first read WOT, my hair was too short to made any sort of tuggable braid. Now, with a braid that looks pretty much like Nynaeve´s, I try to tug it when angry (which doesn´t happen a lot) and I must say I just don´t get it. Maybe it only works for Nynaeve.
This is apropos of nothing in this comment thread, but that image at the top – the cover of tEotW just takes me back to the day I saw it sitting majestically on the shelf in Waldenbooks, and decided to purchase it. It really is a beautiful, stunning piece of work that really captures the sense of upcoming adventure that was embodied in the story, even if the details are off (Lan’s samurai helmet, frex) . Darryl Sweet gets some well deserved knocks for some of his later works, but when he was good he was REALLY GOOD.
@18/Tessuna: The braid-tugging strikes me as one of those actions that writers contrive as excuses for mentioning a character’s physical attributes, like describing a man thoughtfully stroking his beard or mustache as a way of establishing to the reader that he has one. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen a man stroke his mustache thoughtfully, but it seems to happen quite a lot in prose.
@20 ChristopherLBennett: I didn’t think about it like that, you’re right. I believe I have seen a man stroke his mustache thoughtfully, though. But when I think about it, most men with mustaches I know have said mustaches for some history-loving reason (renaissance-dancing, lute-playing, Larp etc.) so it is possible they first read about mustache-stroking in some book and, like me with braid-tugging, are just imitating it, because they think that’s what’s a moustached man supposed to do…
If Kingkiller and Wheel of Time ever had a cross over – somebody would tug her braid and sniff almost like she was surprised to see him standing there
RE: “crossing arms under breasts”
Where else would one do so? Over one’s head?
@20/Christopher: I’ve been wondering why so many writers do that. It seems unnecessarily complicated. If a writer wants to mention a character’s physical attributes, why not simply do so?
For example, this is how Tolstoy introduces Levin in Anna Karenina: “‘That is he,’ said the doorkeeper, pointing to a strongly built, broadshouldered man with a curly beard”. For a more recent example, this is how Nancy Peacock introduces one of the narrator’s mother’s boyfriends in her novel Life Without Water: “I remember the smile and gleaming brown eyes of the man named Daniel who picked us up. He had curly black hair and and a neatly trimmed beard.”
@21/Tessuna: I too know a guy who strikes his beard, but he does it on purpose, when he overtly pretends to be thoughtful.
@23/aka swampyankee: There is a way for a woman to cross her arms over her breasts. IIRC, I saw Jessica Henwick do it in an Iron Fist episode — she crossed her arms with both hands tucked flat under her armpits, so that her palms were against her chest. It was kind of like the pose of a topless woman hiding from prying eyes. It seemed kind of odd to me.
@24/Jana: The thing is, most modern fiction is written from the perspective of a single character at a time. It’s easy enough to describe the appearance of someone other than the viewpoint character, but if the viewpoint character is the person you need to describe, that’s a lot trickier. The last time I used the mustache-stroking gag — and the place where it caught my attention because it felt kind of contrived — was when I was writing a Star Trek scene about Captain Bryce Shumar from Shumar’s own point of view. He couldn’t see his own mustache, so the only way to mention it was to describe him doing something with it.
The cliched method is to have the viewpoint character look in a mirror or see their reflection in a window. I guess these days you could have them taking a selfie. You could have them just stop everything to describe their own appearance to the audience, but that would be clumsy. You’re trying to simulate a running narrative of the character’s inner thoughts, and how often do people stop to do a review of their own physical attributes? It’s hard to do it in a way that isn’t awkward or forced.
One trick I like to use is to establish aspects of a character’s appearance by having them contrast another character’s appearance with their own — for instance, in my story “No Dominion,” the narrator observes that a colleague has “warm brown skin, a few shades lighter than my own,” establishing that the narrator herself is rather dark-skinned. This can also be a nice trick for establishing an alien character’s anatomy from their own point of view — for instance, say, “The Earthling had no tail and half the natural number of eyes, and though it had hair on its head, there was none in evidence on its back.”
@25/Christopher: That last sentence is a great way to establish not only a character’s anatomy but also a nicely alien point of view!
Concerning more mundane (from a human point of view) characteristics like a braid or a beard, I see the need to have the character do something with it, but the writer could use actions people actually perform in real life. “She was braiding her hair/he was trimming his beard when s/he heard noise outside.” Skin colour is probably more difficult in this respect.
Or others could talk about the character (“the blond guy with the beard over there”) or address them (“Hey, you there, with the braid and the boots!”). But I think I like your solution of having the character describe others best because it makes the character’s appearance the normal one and thus brings the reader into the character’s worldview.
I’m reminded of “clench-racing” vis-a-vis the work of Stephen R. Donaldson.
What really upsets me is that neither the wolves or the Trollocs ever sniff. While women do it all the time.
Now if Nynaeve stroked her braid or Thom tugged his mustache, that would be wonderful. Likewise if some woman tugged her skirts or stroked her braid …
I honestly hoped to read of a woman crossing her breasts under her arms, but alas, it was not to be.
Fashion-aware characters could describe how their new clothes fit/don’t fit their hair/skin/eye color. Of course WoT has too many dresses in color X slashed with color Y (did anyone count that?).
@5, Rob, don’t forget the 269362992 times someone ‘bares their teeth’ like a demented wolf on meth. I don’t thinkeven real human beings show as much emotion (grunting, moaning, grinning, teeth-baring, shrugging, etc.) as Weber’s characters do in Safehold.
Most writers have this kind of verbal tics. These tics DO serve a purpose originally, but they become really obvious when they are repeated over and over again through a 10 000 pages epic…
I’m HUGE Erikson fan, but I sometimes chuckle at the frequency of people “scowling” in the Malazan saga. Sure, it’s not a happy world, but everybody’s scowling, all the time, no matter what they do. There’s an insane amount of scowling (and other scowl-ish behaviours) going on at any given time.
While in Abercrombie First Law’s world, everybody is always “sucking on his teeth” (or sometimes the inside of their lips, or mouth, or whatever).
To those that are interested…
Total “tugs”: 386
Total “braids tugged”: 60
Total “smooths”: 1047
Total “skirts smoothed”: 123
Someone finally got around to this? I can’t tell you how many times I tried to re-read the Wheel of Time so I could be caught up when the final Brandon Sanderson finished books came out that I could not even get out of Emond’s Field without throwing the book across the room and throwing my hands up in the air and yell, “Never again!”
That being said all the braid tugging aside only twice in my life have I ever punched a book, same book, once the first time through and same exact spot during the re-read when I somehow miraculously made it past the first book re-read, yes again it was the Wheel of Time. Perrin’s whining about not wanting to be called Perrin Wolf-Eyes & I’m not a wolf nonsense made all the braid tugging quaint and mildly amusing in comparison.
I think each of Elayne’s chin-raises should count as three braid-tugs. She is a skilled chin-master.
Our eldest daughter once began a study called “Inside Harry Potter,” in which she counted how many times the kid wizard’s stomach clenched, felt queasy, lurched, heaved, gurgled, had a bad feeling, or his innards went cold, or whatever. After getting through 2/3rds of the first book, she gave up, kinda queasy herself.
George R R Martin loves his boiled leather.
How about the amount of times arms were folded under bosoms? That seemed to happen quite frequently as well.
This is an interesting topic… Joe Abercrombie’s characters do A LOT of ‘grimacing’. I noticed this when listening to the audio books since the pronunciation is much different in a British accent. Or at least to us here in Eastern Canada. Lol
I got through about two or three books and gave up. Jordan can join the GRRMartin Badly Needs a Good Editor Club. I also find it interesting that only the female character tics are being counted. He had something for all the characters. It got tedious.
My question is, is the relative scarcity in the last 3 books a matter of the characters growing beyond a need to subconciously reassure themselves, or is it the difference in author?
I hate one author over the word solemnly. Somethimes she uses that word twice in one page.
Brandon Sanderson has his own “tics”.
In the first chapter of the first Mistborn book, practically every Kelsier sentence involves him smiling. I get that he’s being contrasted with the downtrodden people in the room, but it annoyed me at the time.
I think it was in Shadows of Self, I noticed that almost every time a character got interrupted while speaking, they got cut off after “I–“. To the point where I didn’t think Sanderson had a particular sentence in mind, just that the character needd to be saying something in order to get cut off. I was listening to the audiobook and I took to howling every time it happened. And yet in the sequel, that problem was gone.
I recall Lev Grossman tweeting about an overused phrase he recently had to expunge from the book he’s working on..
I think for writers avoiding such tics must be like playing whack-a-mole. You get rid of one, only to notice you’ve picked up a new one.
Arrgh, the braid pulling! I, however, even more annoyed by how frequently women simpered.
Bear in mind a lot of the “smooths” may refer to “smooth Aes Sedai” faces/expressions, I think.
But man, what happened during Crown of Sw- oh. Cadsuane.
Problem is, these counts don’t include all the times Nynaeve yanked her braid so hard someone watching thought it would be pulled out at the roots, or the thoughtful pulls she gave it, and so forth. “Nynaeve had a tangle of her long, thin braids gripped in her fist”. “Her hand tried to yank her hair out of her scalp.”
Another thing I’d kind of like a count of is the number of times a woman rides a horse wearing a skirt, and either a) not caring about how much leg they’re exposing or b) utterly mortified about same.
I got tired of counting braid tugs when I hit forty in Book 4, counting things like “Gripping her braid hard” and so forth. I made an effort to NOT count the spankings. Dragon Reborn or Amyrlin Seat or groom or scullery maid, it doesn’t matter – someone is bound to come along who will give you a smack (or twenty) on the rump.
I made a note that I’d like to take Crown of Swords in particular in an editable form, and remove all the braid-pulling, skirt-smoothing, stalking, glowering, and catfights. It would be a novella.
If you look at the reddit post the numbers don’t match to what is listed here. They are far fewer on reddit.
In Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus, especially Son of Neptune, he overuses both ‘upstart’ and ‘defiantly’. It’s a bit distracting, but at least it gets better.
@45: Yes, I was about to mention the spankings. I seem to recall Jordan’s female characters also stamped their feet a lot.
And the arm-crossing under their breasts of course. If I was an editor on such a book it would be fun to find all the places where a man crosses his arms, add “under his breasts” to them, and send it back to the author. :-)
I actually stopped reading Wheel of Time over this. I was SO annoyed by the constnt tugs and smothing of skirts I put the book down and have never picked it up again.
Yes it’s the tics of the female characters that are being counted but i think this is because it’s one of Jordan’s real weak spots. He seems to have a problem writing female characters. The only one that really rings true for me is Min and she’s very much a Tom boy. The Aiel women aren’t to bad but with them they live in a very structured society that gives them a strong frame work they have to exist in and again they are sort of Tom boys being worriors and or the matriarch of the clan. Nearly all the western women seem to either hate men or think every man is a useless impetus fool who can’t even walk straight without the direction of a woman. I get the history of the world would have something to do with this, it’s believed men nearly destroyed the entire world but still.
@23: Exactly. Which is why I feel boggled that he felt the need to comment on it every time they crossed their arms. It’s like Jordan felt the need to remind us, every time a woman crossed their arms, that they had breasts. In case we forgot.
(I don’t remember if any male characters constantly crossed their arms, but I don’t remember the also unneccessary “over his chest,” ever being used when it did happen in the first book.)
Someone should do a count for the Dune series for variations on “_____ tried to swallow in a dry throat” Jars me every time I hit one.
When Sanderson took over, I noticed that every character began gritting their teeth to show when they were upset. I wonder which character wins for gritting the most!
I always wondered how many times Mat commented on a “well-turned ankle”
Oh, the spankings! That was the tic that finally put me over the edge. I started to wonder if Jordan had some sort of fetish.
Also, I got tired of all the guys musing on how they would never understand women. (I can’t remember if the women did something similar.)
I can think of probably two dozen instances of someone dismounting a horse and “tucking his/her riding into his/her belt.”
“Riding gloves,” sorry. Measure once, cut twice……
All the “tics” in the article and mentioned in the comments were annoying, but to me the worst was “she (or he) licked her lips…..” It drove me nuts!
Charming? There was nothing charming about the sniffing and tugging. It was simply annoying.
Love these stats! Anyone ever count the occurrences of “leatherleaf?”
I used to binge-read Dean Koontz as a schoolboy, and I lost count of the “sickly yellow glow of the sodium vapor streetlights” and “semiautomatic uzi illegally converted to fully-automatic fire” and the loner main characters with a haunting past (often involving special forces training) who almost exclusively wore “chinos.”
He’s gotten a lot better in recent decades.
A quirk that didst only irk.
And can someone please tell me if it’s sniffing IN or OUT. I don’t think I know anyone who sniffs (in either direction) when exasperated or frustrated. Is it a fast, forceful sigh out? That I can buy.
Time to take a glance over my own writing to check that it doesn’t have anything so distinctive as to be annoying. I certainly have characters who frown, raise an eyebrow, ruefully curl a lip, or snarl them when enraged or exerting themselves, but I’m pretty sure none of it is chronic.
Sorry to say, but it’s as if Jordan read somewhere that you should give your characters quirks to make them unique among the rest. But then he makes EVERYONE do the same thing!
Word overuse can be very distracting. I’m currently on book 6 of Malazan Book of the Fallen and the word Turgid has become quite distracting.
I’m reading Dracula, and in one or two chapters, Stoker begins using the word ‘stertorous’ over … and over … and over. Drove me crazy.
When my dad read Robinson Crusoe to us long ago, there was a word (I can’t remember what it is) that Defoe used constantly throughout the book.
Thank you! I’m reading WoT for the first time and I thought I was either going as mad as Rand is expected to or that Jordan went to press without A) an editor B) having ever met a woman who didn’t hate men, have a serious drug problem and huge breasts.
It is moderately uncomfortable to cross your arms over your breasts even if modestly endowed. Also you look like you should be lying in a coffin.
To be fair it is natural for a woman wearing, full skirts to let her hands rest on the fabric. This allows one to compress the skirts if going through a narrow space and to gather and lift them if necessary. It would also be natural to stroke the fabric musingly, or to let your hands clench on it if angry or tense. No doubt all that clenching makes wrinkles that then must be smoothed….
There is also a lot of crossing of knees and swinging of feet, often by women, which is just wrong because it’s decidedly awkward to cross your legs under layers of petticoats. Ankles certainly. Knees not so much. Women in long, layers of skirts tended to sit with their knees well apart. Knees together and crossed knees came in with the shorter skirts of the 1920s.
I think those numbers are massively underestimated. I’m listening to The Dragon Reborn audible right now, and there’s 20 braid tugs every 5 minutes.