I watched I, Robot the other day and was reminded about some of the awful writing I read as a reader and one of the major lessons I learned from it because I, too, was guilty of this up until that year.

If you want to explain something about someone. Do it in one, perfect moment - NOT a series of moments. New writers for some reason almost always believe in an unwritten rule that you have to show something happening three times before the audience gets it. That is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Show it once, perfectly - the audience will get it and you won't tredge your story down.

So the example - I, Robot - **SPOILERS*** We start with him chasing down a robot which we discover is a totally silly thing to do. DONE. but no.... Will Smith goes to express his distaste for robots in almost every scene - even crazy contrived mentions that make me not like him (like giving his idea for the commercial to the President of the US robot company). Enough already! We get it, he hates robots. It really dredges the story down and it makes us not like the character. Can you imagine any character who has to keep mentioning again and again one of their personality traits? I'm a vegetarian. I was a high school superstar football player. It becomes almost comical.

i will note that when we finally discover why he doesn't like robots - that is quite compelling. Kudos on that point to whichever writer did that. But shame on them for overstating their character.