Vee Hoffman's Blog - Posts Tagged "what-not-to-write"
What Not to Write
I forget who it was now, but recently I was joking around with someone that I need to host a reality show much like "What Not to Wear", but called "What Not to Write". In this show I would take promising or not-so-promising young fic writers and whip them into shape.
I can see the first episode now. I walk into your Google Drive and start tossing words aside. Suddenly, I gasp in horror.
"What are these?! " I ask sternly.
When you don't answer, I'm quite happy to fill in the blanks. "Epithets! I've never seen so many epithets! Oh, honey, you need to lose some of these!" I start pruning as I keep talking. "First of all, don't be afraid of pronouns or names! Yes, you're writing a story about two people of the same gender, but that's not a hindrance. Writing is 10% vocabulary and 90% rhythm, sugar! You just need to execute a nice he/name/he/name combination until it sounds natural.
"Now let's look at the less obvious problem, here. You're mentioning an epithet without even establishing! Before you said "he looked at the blond", you'd better have established that son of a bitch as blond! That had better be a point and have a reason, otherwise it's lazy and it's the definition of an epithet (which, by the way, has a negative connotation for a reason!). Do not use epithets to introduce a character as belonging to a specific ethnicity, culture, occupation, etc. without informing the audience of this distinction your own damn self. In fact, ethnic, cultural, and occupational epithets are the worst. They're so unfashionable! Ack, let's just get rid of all of these."
"Can I keep just one?"
"In what context?"
"Well, someone asks 'Who here knows the Lord's prayer?' and then I write 'Loki looked skeptically at his Buddhist friend.'"
"...wait who's Buddhist in your Loki fic?"
"That's not the point!"
"That example is fantastic because it holds context. Now if you'd said 'Loki looked skeptically at the barista,' wow I have no idea why you pulled that out and you should be ashamed of yourself. All you're doing is the author equivalent of pasting a day-glow arrow pointing at another character's head. It lacks grace. Precision. Fashion sense."
"Can I--"
"If you ever refer to Loki as 'the Asgardian' in your fic I will personally find you and put you in a headlock."
...and that would basically be my show.
I can see the first episode now. I walk into your Google Drive and start tossing words aside. Suddenly, I gasp in horror.
"What are these?! " I ask sternly.
When you don't answer, I'm quite happy to fill in the blanks. "Epithets! I've never seen so many epithets! Oh, honey, you need to lose some of these!" I start pruning as I keep talking. "First of all, don't be afraid of pronouns or names! Yes, you're writing a story about two people of the same gender, but that's not a hindrance. Writing is 10% vocabulary and 90% rhythm, sugar! You just need to execute a nice he/name/he/name combination until it sounds natural.
"Now let's look at the less obvious problem, here. You're mentioning an epithet without even establishing! Before you said "he looked at the blond", you'd better have established that son of a bitch as blond! That had better be a point and have a reason, otherwise it's lazy and it's the definition of an epithet (which, by the way, has a negative connotation for a reason!). Do not use epithets to introduce a character as belonging to a specific ethnicity, culture, occupation, etc. without informing the audience of this distinction your own damn self. In fact, ethnic, cultural, and occupational epithets are the worst. They're so unfashionable! Ack, let's just get rid of all of these."
"Can I keep just one?"
"In what context?"
"Well, someone asks 'Who here knows the Lord's prayer?' and then I write 'Loki looked skeptically at his Buddhist friend.'"
"...wait who's Buddhist in your Loki fic?"
"That's not the point!"
"That example is fantastic because it holds context. Now if you'd said 'Loki looked skeptically at the barista,' wow I have no idea why you pulled that out and you should be ashamed of yourself. All you're doing is the author equivalent of pasting a day-glow arrow pointing at another character's head. It lacks grace. Precision. Fashion sense."
"Can I--"
"If you ever refer to Loki as 'the Asgardian' in your fic I will personally find you and put you in a headlock."
...and that would basically be my show.
