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AgenticThe Drafting SkillStyle GuideBan ListChapter OutlineProgress TrackingSample DraftThe Process
AgenticThe Drafting SkillStyle GuideBan ListChapter OutlineProgress TrackingSample DraftThe Process

Ban List — What the Prose Must Never Do

Banned words, phrases, and moves. AI-voice tells, craft violations, and the one exception.

Agentic — Ban List

Words, patterns, and moves the prose must never use. Read before writing every scene. No exceptions.

Banned Words and Phrases

These are AI-voice tells. Their presence flags prose as machine-generated.

Words

  • delve / delved / delving
  • tapestry
  • myriad
  • palpable
  • visceral (as an adjective for emotion)
  • journey (metaphorical)
  • nuanced (as praise)
  • landscape (metaphorical)
  • juxtaposition
  • paradigm
  • interplay
  • dichotomy
  • intricate
  • multifaceted
  • resonate / resonated
  • navigating (metaphorical)
  • testament (as in "a testament to")
  • embark
  • pivotal
  • underscore
  • galvanize
  • burgeoning

Phrases

  • "couldn't help but"
  • "a silence stretched between them"
  • "the weight of" (metaphorical)
  • "hung in the air"
  • "sent a shiver down"
  • "the world seemed to"
  • "something shifted in"
  • "a beat passed"
  • "the air felt thick with"
  • "let out a breath [he/she] didn't know [he/she] was holding"
  • "eyes that held"
  • "voice barely above a whisper"
  • "the gravity of the situation"
  • "a flicker of" (emotion)
  • "cut through the silence"
  • "the room seemed to shrink"
  • "an unspoken understanding"
  • "for what felt like an eternity"
  • "something unreadable in [his/her] eyes"
  • "the words hung between them"

Banned Moves

Never name an emotion directly

  • Not: "She felt afraid."
  • Not: "Anger rose in him."
  • Not: "A wave of sadness washed over her."
  • Instead: Show the physical manifestation. What does the body do? What does the character notice? What do they stop doing?

Never use adverbs on dialogue tags

  • Not: "he said quietly"
  • Not: "she whispered urgently"
  • Use "said" or no tag. Use action beats for tone.

Never editorialize or judge characters from the narrator

  • Not: "It was a cruel thing to say."
  • Not: "She made the wrong choice."
  • The narrator observes. The reader judges.

Never explain the subtext

  • Not: "What he really meant was..."
  • Not: "The implication was clear."
  • Not: "She understood what he was really saying."
  • If the subtext needs explaining, the dialogue has failed. Rewrite the dialogue.

Never use a metaphor that isn't concrete and physical

  • Not: "Her trust was a bridge slowly collapsing."
  • Yes: "Like he was waiting for the bus." (mundane, specific, comparing down)

Never resolve tension within the scene that introduces it

  • Scenes end on unresolved questions. The reader must want the next scene.
  • A scene that begins and ends a conflict in the same space has failed structurally.

Never give Mara interior monologue

  • Mara has no POV. No thoughts on the page. Her motives are revealed through dialogue, action, and what other characters piece together.

Never reference the interrogation bookend between Ch 2 and Ch 34

  • The reader must forget the frame exists before the payoff.

Never make the Super Bowl the plot

  • It's texture, not story. TVs in backgrounds. Food on counters. The game referenced in passing. It should feel like weather — always present, never the point.

Style Constraints

Sentence structure

  • No more than one simile per page
  • Similes compare down (extraordinary → mundane), never up
  • No semicolons in dialogue
  • Sentence fragments are for overriding the previous sentence, not for decoration

Paragraphs

  • Single-sentence paragraphs are for verdicts and turns. Max 2-3 per page. Overuse dilutes them.
  • Character introductions get one dense paragraph (5-8 sentences). Do not spread the introduction across multiple paragraphs.

Dialogue

  • "Said" only. No "muttered," "exclaimed," "breathed," "offered," "countered"
  • Untagged dialogue for established two-person exchanges
  • Action beats over attribution whenever possible

Description

  • No weather unless it matters to the scene
  • No sky unless a character is looking at it for a reason
  • Every physical detail must characterize, not decorate
  • Rooms are described through their thesis (what the room communicates about its owner), not their inventory

The One Exception

Dark humor is allowed to break any of these rules if the break itself is the joke. Vic eating birthday cake while holding a senator at gunpoint breaks description conventions deliberately. The break is the characterization.