Too Much Spanglish, Not Enough Story

Call it a pet peeve of mine, but I see absolutely no point in writing paragraph after paragraph sprinkled with words from another language���liberally, even proudly���when it adds nothing to the story or style. A word or two here and there, especially terms of endearment, sure.

But when every paragraph has a handful of non-English words dropped in���say, five to ten per page���that’s hundreds of instances across a typical 300-page novel. It starts to feel less like creative flair and more like a recurring speed bump, pulling you out of the story every few lines just to reorient yourself. The constant code-switching becomes the story’s background noise, making you aware of the language instead of the emotion, pacing, or plot.