[ SECRET POST #3209 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3209 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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04. [WARNING for incest]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 054 secrets from Secret Submission Post #459.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fingalsanteater]

Oh god. That made me cringe so hard. Just use their names strategically and vary your sentence structure so it's obvious which "him" you are referring to and we can avoid terrible epithets. I don't think I could've resisted responding to this. I'm not sure I admire your fortitude, OP, because now I might have to suffer through epithet laden fic if this is the type of advice that's going around.

[silverr]

Just use their names strategically and vary your sentence structure so it's obvious which "him" you are referring to

Agreed, though I do think that epithets, like substitutes for 'said,' are tolerable if used sparingly.

[fingalsanteater]

I agree.

[(Anonymous)]

I do think that epithets, like substitutes for 'said,' are tolerable if used sparingly.

You're not necessarily wrong (though I'd say "appropriately" rather than "sparingly"), but I think that of the two, epithets are a lot easier to screw up. If an author occasionally throws in a "shouted" or "explained" that in an ideal world would've been a "said," I'm not even going to notice unless I have my beta goggles on. But if an author uses an epithet in the wrong place, that shit's going to throw me out of the story immediately.

[silverr]

Completely agree. When I have dialogue-heavy scenes, rather than have

"Statement. Statement," A said.
"Another statement," B said.
"Statement. Question?" C said.
"Question?" D asked.

I first try to break the dialogue with actions, or varying the structure:

"Statement. Statement," A said.
"Another statement," B said as they did something. "Statement."
"Statement," C said, then asked, "Question?"
D asked, "Question?"

And only use words like shouted, retorted, snapped, said stoically, asked peevishly if the emotional tone needs a little boost. (I've not actually done a count, but my gut is that I use something other than said or asked no more than 5% of the time.

Epithets even less. I just did a quick search on my current WIP. 85,000+ words, and *-haired (generally the only epithet I ever use) appears 11 times. Only once is it used for a character whose proper name we already know.

[(Anonymous)]

"Just shut the fuck up!" anon ejaculated.

"Never!" the taller woman shouted.

"Can't we all just get along?" the ravenette quivered.

"Do I really have to slap someone to make this end?" the Scandinavian inquired.

"Probably," the carpenter enunciated.

[(Anonymous)]

"LOL" the commenter underneath stated, uninventively.