[ SECRET POST #1475 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1475 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 14 pages, 349 secrets from Secret Submission Post #211.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[tymaporer.livejournal.com]

But when you have numerous references to the same character within a small space, it gets very repetitive and awkward to keep referring to them the same way each and every time.

[(Anonymous)]

That's what pronouns are for. And if a writer constantly needs to be saying (name) (name) (name) (name) or she she she she, that writer should learn to vary up sentence and paragraph structure to get the same point across without having to say someone's name 5 times in 3 sentences.

[(Anonymous)]

You can't always use pronouns when you're writing slash.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

You can; you can make it work. Seriously, there are many people who write lots and lots of slash and never use Homeric epithets. It's not that complicated.

[(Anonymous)]

I write nothing but slash, and I manage just fine with names and pronouns.

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

I manage it, and I write bucketloads of slash...

[mollywobbles867.livejournal.com]

Yes you can. I've done it and I've seen it done.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes you can, but it's a genuine skill learning how to do it. Keep working on it, anon.

I write slash almost exclusively and I manage with just pronouns and their names and so do many others. It can be done.

[xerxes92.livejournal.com]

Pronouns can get annoying if overused, too.

[yuppu.livejournal.com]

... are we the only people who think this, apart from the anon down there?
Ok, well, I agree with you. Also because pronouns don't help when you have a more character of the same gender in the same scene.
And the use of this kind of epithets does NOT make a story badly written.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm in the middle of RPing a scene where my character is interacting with an alternate-universe version of himself. I can't even use names, let alone pronouns. :/

[yuppu.livejournal.com]

Same here, Anon U_U

[karel]

Haha, I play this... regularly. It gets fucking difficult. It's just like "how the hell do I differentiate without doing something stupid to their names?"

[(Anonymous)]

And the use of this kind of epithets does NOT make a story badly written.

Uh yes, it does.

Pronouns help if you use them the right way; if it's not helping you just because you have two characters of the same gender who happen to be in the same scene, you are seriously using them wrong.

[yuppu.livejournal.com]

I happen to write scenes where there are fucking FIVE character of the same gender interacting. Using their names every other line makes me go out of my mind.

[(Anonymous)]

Unfortunately, it does make something badly written. It says "amateur" in big, block letters.

If you've seen it in profic, then that published writer is a bad writer.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. It's bad writing.

Plus, if you're one of those writers who wants readers or comments (yes, yes, all fic writers are doing it for themselves only), you may be surprised at how many people back-arrow as soon as they see this. Long story short, it may be the best story in the world, despite the lack of names and pronouns, but that doesn't mean a whole lot if hardly anyone reads it.

[(Anonymous)]

Word... I almost instantly backspace as soon as I see "the _____" referring to any character... but then, I'm particularly choosy. :)

[(Anonymous)]

This so much. BACK BUTTON. I've tried to make it through fics that were otherwise pretty good (I've never seen one that used epithets that I'd call "great") but all the cringing just ruins it for me.

Personally, I think the hair color epithets are worse than the eye-color ones, especially when they refer to a ginger-haired character as "the orange-head". :P If you're a visual thinker, try getting through a sex scene between "the raven" and "the orange-head". I dare you.

And don't say it can't be done, even if you're writing an orgy. There are ways, and good writers do it all the time.

[hooves.livejournal.com]

IAWTC.

I try to avoid using epithets like that if I can. But every now and then I do, and it's not distracting, and I certainly don't think it makes my writing "bad". If my writing's bad it's because of something else. Not one or two epithets in a 5,000-word one-shot.

I do get sick of overuse of them, if that's what people generally mean. "The brown-haired boy" followed shortly after by "the swordsman" followed by "the nurse" gets really annoying really fast. More so when the author is describing "obsidian orbs" or calling a character with blue hair a "bluenette".

So I partly agree; I think a lot of authors overuse epithets! In fact, a lot of stories that use epithets would be better off replacing them with a name or he/she/whatever instead. But I disagree with some of the comments here that epithets are bad and should never, ever be used.

My two cents. :)

[sensualcoco.livejournal.com]

bluenette? lol.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, but this is your cue as a writer to know that you are being clumsy in your description. By rearranging the sentences to combine what a character is doing, you can usually simply refer to that character as the invisible "he" half or more of the time.

Switching back and forth between the actions and thoughts of two or more characters in a single paragraph is confusing even if you come up with a laundry list of identifying features to try to keep the characters separate. Keep the POV steady, characterization IC, and you can use context alone to keep it clear who is doing what.

[fairhearing.livejournal.com]

No, it doesn't. You as a writer, writing it out every time, assume this to be the case. A reader's brain, reading, registers names (and dialogue tags, incidentally, e.g. "said") as punctuation. Whereas an epithet interrupts the reader's steady processing of the narrative like a bump in the road.

Actually, specifying who's talking or doing stuff in the narrative is needed a lot less often than people assume. Written skillfully, a story will take care of 90% of that with just the character's voices and with careful control over the level of free indirect discourse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_indirect_speech).

This is one of the most common mistakes writers make. Even published writers.

+1 to infinity

[sai_salamander]

I FUCKING LOVE YOU.

[(Anonymous)]

Fail!!!

Good Lord, look at the excellent fanfic writers (Resonant, Astolat etc.). Not one of them seems to see the problem.

Use the goddam name of the character, it is not that difficult! No one in their right mind wants to read about "the blue-eyed, right-handed violin player".