Also, it's because I've been meaning for a while now to wave my cane and yell at you hoodlums to stop saying things like, "She couldn't say why; this was something she just had to do." Because that means in bad-author-speak, "Yeah I don't know where I'm going with this."
This sort of line almost never works when it's 3rd person author voice saying it. OTOH, it can work just fine if it's first person...
For example, it can work just fine if we've got HS Xander telling Buffy or Willow or Cordy that he has no idea why he's doing __insert stupid teenaged boy thing here__ because that would fit well enough with the characterization.
More frequently, yeah, I agree with you. Because it's almost like a case where the author is trying to jam a square peg into a round hole and using the short cut rather than working with characterization....
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This sort of line almost never works when it's 3rd person author voice saying it. OTOH, it can work just fine if it's first person...
For example, it can work just fine if we've got HS Xander telling Buffy or Willow or Cordy that he has no idea why he's doing __insert stupid teenaged boy thing here__ because that would fit well enough with the characterization.
More frequently, yeah, I agree with you. Because it's almost like a case where the author is trying to jam a square peg into a round hole and using the short cut rather than working with characterization....