[ 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

[vethica]

For starters, they're very good at throwing the reader out of the story. If the characters know each other, which is the case in most pairing fic, they probably won't think of each other as "the American" or "the smaller man" or whatever - they'll think of them by their name. In these cases, it's a pretty clear signal of author-brain, rather than character-brain. There's also the fact that a lot of the time, epithets are completely irrelevant to what's going on in the scene. Do we need to be told that someone is "the mechanic" if he's currently making out with his boyfriend and not mechanic-ing at all?

Conversely, epithets can be super useful when there's a reason to use them. If character A doesn't know character B's name, or doesn't care about them enough to use it, epithets can be a great way of showing that distance. If your mechanic guy happens to be in the middle of fixing a car, by all means call him "the mechanic"! Like any other writing tool, epithets have their place, and the problem is that a lot of authors don't know what the hell that place is. :|

[(Anonymous)]

But most of what I read isn't first person....

[vethica]

If it's third person, it's pretty likely to be third person limited.

[(Anonymous)]

this has nothing to do with perspective but with the narrator's position. take HP for example. we only ever get to see what goes on inside harry's head. Look at ASoIaF, where 3rd person POV is the central element of narrative style. Now look at LoTR, 3rd person, but the perspective shifts through the main characters a lot, sometimes giving insights and limiting perspective, sometimes broadening it, giving an overview of how everyone is feeling.

of course there's also the tab-switch perspective of contemporary fanfiction, which is really horrible and originated from fics that were originally roleplayed and then published as fic. here we get insight into A for one tab, then the perspective switches, and we get - worst case, oh dread - the whole thing again from B's perspective. even without the worst case scenario it's really jarring...

[naemi.livejournal.com]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Well said.

[vethica]

Thanks. ♥

[iambecomebees]

Also they can be confusing if the author didn't think it out too well. In the secret, the examples given include "the Texan" and "the American." Are they the same person then? Last I checked Texas was in America.

[(Anonymous)]

Tell that to Texas.

[naemi.livejournal.com]

I can't second this enough.

[esteefee]

This times a thousand. All epithets do is make me laugh and backbutton. "The ex-CIA assassin opened Harold's pants and took out the genius's cock." This makes me think a) three people are having sex or b) one of them is going to assassinate the one who stole someone else's cock.

What the heck does someone's profession have to do with anything when they're having sex?

Not to mention, in Highlander fiction it becomes even more hilarious because people's physical age has zero to do with what they look like. So you have "the older man" being 5000 years old and *looking* like much younger than the younger man. Try working that out as you're zipping through a fic. It's almost impossible without stopping dead and shaking your head, hard.

Unnecessary epithets are a joke. It's easy enough to restructure the sentence to be less confusing or repeat the person's name. I keep to using epithets only when the POV character is meeting someone for the first time. Or if they have amnesia.