Oh gods, I just did it. I just wrote the words: “He walked down the hallway with his eyes on the floor.”

That is so disgusting. He’s going to get eye slime on the linoleum, and dust and dirt on those sticky orbs. NASTY! Plus, they’re super hard to put back in, unless your characters are robots, and even then it depends on how well they were wired and whether they were removed carefully so as not to damage the connectors.

And the thing is, I know better. I even teach this rule of writing (Keep your characters’ eyes in their heads) to college students. But it’s so, so easy to make this mistake.

Florida Fish and Wildlife, Mystery Eyeball (Head-on view), FWC photo by Carli Segelson.

I can see why people do it so often—why their characters run their eyes over people, or send their eyes across the room. There are tons of sayings that refer to eyes in that way. For example: “Keep your eyes on the prize,” which is both good advice (as long as not taken literally) and rhyming, which is essential for a good saying. (Not really.)

And there’s “Keep your eyes on the ball,” which is also good advice, if you’re playing a ball-related sport. The phrase “Keep your eyes on me,” which is sometimes used in teaching situations, should absolutely never be taken literally, unless it’s a horror movie—which would be pretty cool, now that I think about it.

Granted, your readers will know what you’re trying to say, but enough of them will stumble over words like “he dropped his eyes to the floor,” thinking of the literal meaning, that it just makes good sense—and good writing—to avoid them. So, instead, have your characters aim their attention, or focus their gaze, or simply look: at the floor, across the room, at the ball, etc. Because if you run your eyes over someone, especially nowadays, you’re gonna get arrested. And that’s fair, because you clearly need help.