Authorial tics that make you *sigh*

[Cheryl]

:smiles:

btw, I don't particularly like Klingon style apostrophes, but maybe the lore explains them like O'Reilly and other Irish names?

[Karin]

Eva wrote: "Purple prose that makes no sense and contradicts itself. Check out this excerpt (not made up, the novel won the "Clifton Fadiman Medal For Excellence In Fiction"), and please forgive the length:

"..."

Wow. Has the author every spent any time by the water? While it's true that you can see both still and moving water of different colours at the very same time in certain areas I have been on in the inlets of British Columbia, this still makes NO sense because there is a lot more going on and we aren't talking about just a river. Usually in those situations there is more than one water feature and other things going on to make it so.

TV is full of inane content that makes no sense to experts, but we expect that sort of drivel on TV--sometimes it's what makes it entertaining, but how can I picture this?????????

[Karin]

Eva wrote: "Thank you, Beth! That helps.

Other tics:

- Always using 'he smirked' instead of smiled, grinned, looked amused, laughed, chuckled, or any other word - or just implying amusement by letting the c..."

Sparring half-naked--you said it!

AND, long, complicated names that are made up for the story. What's the point?

As for apostrophes in names, only if they make sense such as if they look linguistic and can be pronounced,such as adding the de to a word that starts with a vowel in French (thus the d'), or O'Shea because that comes from "grandson of" etc. But to make a fictional name with too many vowels and throwing in apostrophes is lame, lame, lame. My maiden name had no apostrophes, but more vowels than consonants and some weird combinations due to several country changes and it was hard enough--why do that to your readers on purpose???

[Karin]

Many other annoying tics have already been mentioned. But some more:

oxymorons, eg "somewhat stooped with age, upright posture" (not making this up, this really was in a novel I read)

cliches like "swallowed hard" - if you want to use it once in a book, fine, but if it shows up a few times, I toss it, because usually there are far more cliches

There are other things, but this is enough for now.

[Karin]

Becky wrote: "Eva wrote: ""Their tongues battled for dominance". That's not how kissing works."

"He took possession of her mouth."

Gag."

Yes, all of that stuff is annoying, to say the least. Who the H*ll wants to kiss someone whose tongue is battling for dominance, anyway??? Okay, maybe someone somewhere does, but they can imagine that themselves, then.

[Silvana]

Tor has an article about apostrophes: https://www.tor.com/2013/08/27/apostr...

And I concur with this one (as Karin also pointed out): "It seems to annoy people more when there is no reason for the apostrophe—when it’s just included to make a name sound exotic."

I think I'll try the boing method. F-boing-lar!

[Trike]

I’m reading (but not enjoying) Too Like the Lightning and she has apostrophes a-plenty. I don’t dislike it because of that, though, and her use of them as contractions make sense in her future world.

One of the reasons Hawai’i isn’t spelled with its apostrophe — a diacritical mark used to indicate a glottal stop — is because the US government declared sometime in the late 1800s that apostrophes were strictly verboten. That’s why the signs say “Devils Tower” and “Pikes Peak” instead of the correct “Devil’s Tower” and “Pike’s Peak.” If you’re rich enough, then you can influence the gubmint into allowing you to keep your apostrophe. Example: “Martha’s Vineyard.” Know who lives there? Rich people.

You know who isn’t rich? Native Americans. Oh, and guess who uses a lot of apostrophes in their names and words. Yep. So the native islanders got caught up in the government’s attempted erasure of the continental native people’s culture.

Everything is politics.

[Cheryl]

Interesting history, Trike. Thanks.

[Leticia]

I have not thought of that, I wished tough that Trail of Lightning would have a glossary for the ones who have less knowledge of Native American culture. I don't get a lot of the words/references and really miss the subtext.

[Trike]

Cheryl wrote: "Interesting history, Trike. Thanks."

Who’d’ve thought my interests in language and history would overlap in the Venn diagram of SFF writing? 😂

An interesting read about Hawaii (and more) is Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes. My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Karin]

Trike wrote: "I’m reading (but not enjoying) Too Like the Lightning and she has apostrophes a-plenty. I don’t dislike it because of that, though, and her use of them as contractions make sense in..."

Interesting. This is an American law, naturally, but now I have to see how that works in Canada. This was a quick search. There is no law about it and you see both in that country--Peggy's Cove, NS and St. John's, NFLD, for example. BUT apparently, according to some grammar experts, a place name isn't actually possessive since it generally isn't owned by the person or thing named, etc.

Grammar and punctuation is not a hard and fast thing where one code rules all--you don't see me using an Oxford comma because they were frowned on in my alma mater and even after all these years in the States, they just look wrong to me. Punctuation--well, I enjoyed Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, and not just for the humour. The history of punctuation was interesting to me, perhaps because I read it when I was still homechooling one or more of my kids.

BUT, it irks me when I see place names that lack the apostrophes!!! Actually, the misuse of apostrophes annoys me in general. Anytime I have misused one it is a typo and later on I cringe.

[Karin]

Speaking of this topic, I started and ditched a book last night within about 2-3 pages for one of my biggest pet peeves--gross anachronisms. I realize that when people write historical fiction, or, as in this book, a dual story in past and present, that they don't write just like the people did back then. BUT, read this--and it is supposed to be 1907. There are several anachronisms all lumped together--terminology and attitude and a lack of understanding of what girls would have been allowed to do at this age and with whom.

Libby despised how the town of Gossamer Grove had labeled Calvin as a simpleton. He was more empathetic and intuitive than other adults who were considered "functional."

Even if I suspend my disbelief over a turn of the 20th C young, single woman being allowed to have any grown man as her best friend (generally around puberty that would have been nixed), and that she was allowed to have a best friend who was a simpleton (already a cleaned up word compared to the time) "functional" used like this rips me out of the period like a very sticky band aid being ripped off quickly by someone else. My grandparents were growing up at that time and that is NOT how it was!

This is not a self-published book, but the writing is fairly weak.