[ SECRET POST #6073 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6073 ⌋

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


01.



__________________________________________________



02.



__________________________________________________



03.
[Love Me to Death]



__________________________________________________



04.



__________________________________________________



05.



__________________________________________________



06.



__________________________________________________



07.



__________________________________________________



08.
[Miley Cyrus, "Flowers"]
























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #868.
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

[(Anonymous)]

It's an issue when the singular they/them gets used at the same time the plural they/them gets used -like when the author talks both about the individual as well as a group of people in the same paragraph. There might be authors who do it well but so far, all stories I've read were apparently written by authors who could NOT do it well and I haven't the patience to go out of my way to find someone who does it right.

[(Anonymous)]

This is the same issue I have with it and I’m a native speaker. I have seen a couple fics that handle it very well and there’s no confusion but mostly the singular and plural are mixed. This is why beta readers need to make a comeback. And I mean real beta readers, not just a friend who will say it’s great or just point out a typo or two.

[(Anonymous)]

DA but agreed, it's a writing skill issue for me, and frankly I frequently have the same problem when a writer doesn't differentiate well between multiple "he's" and "she's" in a scene.

[(Anonymous)]

^ This. I know people want to be all progressive and act like they/them isn't a problem whatsoever, but pronouns can get messy in the hands of a writer who doesn't understand how to keep them straight. It's not a gender/pronoun respect issue, it's an issue of sloppy writing. It's possible to have a barely legible paragraph just using he/him and she/her as well, if the writer isn't careful. Throwing they/them into the mix can complicate things as well.

[(Anonymous)]

This. Pronouns are something you always have to be careful about when writing, and experienced writers can do it well while newbie writers often struggle with clarity. I've seen they/them fics where the author took care with when to use pronouns vs. repeating the character's name and it wasn't difficult to read. But for the most part, I've read fics where it read like someone did a find and replace on "he/him" to "they/them" (I don't actually know if they did that, but that was how it felt when reading) or maybe they just had a heavy preference to use pronouns wherever possible rather than repeat the character's name, and it led to a LOT of "who are you referring to" clarity issues.

It's similar to when you have a slash fic where there are two "he"s floating around in complicated scenes -- you need to be careful to repeat the character names a lot and to structure your sentences so that it's always clear who "he" is referring to in sentences that mention both characters, and to avoid overreliance on wacky-sounding (but clear/unambiguous) epithets. Different pronoun combination situations require different writing techniques to maximize clarity, and some inexperienced writers just don't realize this.