[ SECRET POST #1475 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1475 ⌋

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

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.


__________________________________________________



14.


__________________________________________________



15.


__________________________________________________



16.


__________________________________________________



17.


__________________________________________________



18.


__________________________________________________



19.


__________________________________________________



20.


__________________________________________________



21.


__________________________________________________



22.


__________________________________________________



23.


__________________________________________________



24.


__________________________________________________



25.


__________________________________________________



26.


__________________________________________________



27.


__________________________________________________



28.


__________________________________________________



29.


__________________________________________________



30.


__________________________________________________



31.


__________________________________________________



32.


__________________________________________________



33.


__________________________________________________



34.


__________________________________________________



35.


__________________________________________________



36.


__________________________________________________



37.


__________________________________________________



38.


__________________________________________________



39.


__________________________________________________



40.


__________________________________________________



41.


__________________________________________________



42.


__________________________________________________



43.


__________________________________________________



44.


__________________________________________________



45.


__________________________________________________



46.


__________________________________________________



47.



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

[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)]

If you've got a character with a first and last name, you could use each name for one of the versions of themselves? Thinking of Pratchett's Night Watch, where the older Sam Vimes is referred to as Vimes and the younger one is Sam, it reads quite naturally-seeming.

[karel]

Unfortunately, not even. Same first name, no last name - the only difference is their ages.

[(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)]

Imagine how frustrating and crazy-making it is for readers who have to try and figure out which brown-haired (etc.) person the writer is talking about in these kinds of situations...

[(Anonymous)]

Paragraphing! Characterization! The first will let the reader know when you are switching your focus from one character's words and actions to another. The second will let you know which character it is.

Also to group characters together. If you have one person talking generally to a group of 4 others, it will simply be assumed that the others will all be listening. You don't have to name his audience once you've established that they are all there.

If anything it's more important to stick to just names when it's a crowd, because your audience will have to stop and scratch their head figuring out which one is the "blue haired man" and which one has the "hawk-shaped face." And that's just adding confusion to an already confusing situation.

[szaleniec1000.livejournal.com]

I could see the argument in the case of five instances of the same character, for example in a plot involving time travel or Hollywood cloning. In that kind of situation, you need to ask yourself: how does the POV character distinguish them from each other? Actually that's a good rule in general for when to use epithets - refer to characters in the way the POV character thinks of them.

[fairhearing.livejournal.com]

You're the writer. You're not the reader.

[flax.livejournal.com]

+1

[(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.

[hooves.livejournal.com]

I could probably link you to fanfiction within five minutes. Probably five 'fics. Easily. My fandom has a lot of characters with blue hair. And for some reason someone started that and it never really went away. A pity, really. It sounds stupid.

[szaleniec1000.livejournal.com]

I've definitely seen it mentioned on FFR, along with "whitenette" (no, really) but don't have the link to hand.

[(Anonymous)]

And ravenette.

[(Anonymous)]

Don't forget silverette.