cimorene | bad epithets

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bad epithets

aeslis and i were just discussing why i call phrases such as "the other man" and "the green-eyed boy" epithets (or, if i speak about them with their own epithet intact, "bad epithets". it pretty much covers all of them). she hypothesised that it was for a "cim-like reason", which i denied - it has a perfectly logical basis in the analysis of epic poetry! and then, just now, i discovered (look, aes!) the origin of my habit.

why are epithets bad all the time?

because they're unnecessary. they aren't unnecessary as in gratifying, the way the cherry on a sundae is unnecessary; they're unnecessary as in gratuitous, the way it is unnecessary to devote an early paragraph of your story to clumsily expositing the whole of canon, or to search out "substitutes" for the verb "to say" such as "questioned" (which means to doubt, not to pose a question, but that's a rant for another day). it looks ridiculous; it causes your readers to cringe in embarrassment on your behalf. you should never do it. not even "the man". no, not even "the blond". not even "his lover". especially not "his lover". if you don't believe me, allow me to assure you that you will understand eventually¹.

on the other hand, who doesn't love to mock badfic? to that end, i have been saving examples of bad epithets since i began reading prince of tennis fiction in march. i've read some truly egregious epithets before, particularly at the rodney mckay, angsty goth teenie archive, which is a veritable bottomless treasure trove of badfic; but i've never encountered a fandom like this one for bad epithets. take for example:

The little precocious, burgundy-haired acrobat liked Hyotei’s blue-haired tensai.

in fact, i have saved urls to all these sources, but i felt leaving them anonymous in the post would be more diplomatic.

But as the days turned into weeks turned into months turned into years, the little redhead boy with the permanent bandage as a facial accessory burrowed his way into his heart, turning Oishi’s entire world upside down.

He wondered what brand of shampoo the little prodigy used, then mentally slapped himself for even entertaining such a thought.
and

But then again, his noisy libido reminded him, what about the golden-eyed youth didn’t appeal to him?

Ryouma approached Eiji with dread, reluctantly pulling out a long piece of paper from the bundle enclosed in the upperclassman's fist.

For some reason, his lips burned every time the bespectacled teen gave him a kiss, even if it was such a light peck that it could barely even be classified as one.

"Ah.. gonna.." he groaned, his movements becoming erratic, urging himself on, visions of the younger boy's face when he was sprawled breathlessly beneath him almost enough to make the speed ace lose it right then and there.

The taller male hummed low in his throat, pleased that the younger male was responding.

The recent graduate of Seishun Gakuen stayed silent as the older teen took out his cell phone and pressed a button.

Then, the bespectacled teen paused long enough to remove said glasses, placing them somewhere out of reach before burying into the curve of Kaidoh’s warm neck once more.

Right now, nothing can explain the joy that is swimming around in the ice mountain's heart.

The mumbler flicked the note to the other's feet and turned around to head toward his house.

The exact nature of the quest was as of yet unclear to the purple-haired teen.

With that in mind, he raced to where the ball was hit and sent it back, wanting to see what else his red haired love was going to do.

“Yanagi?” Jackal said, not quite sure why Yukimura’s close friend had stopped short of entering the hospital room.

The older was resting partially on top of the younger and the latter sought the other’s hand, finding and squeezing it gently.

The cashier at the front of the Christmas novelty store shot him a dirty look, but the orange-haired volley specialist was too excited to notice.

*

1. i've discovered recently - to my horror, rather - that i used to use them sometimes too, although only relatively mild ones such as "his lover" and "his friend", as far as i can tell. it seems, regrettably, that almost everyone goes through this phase, so we can sympathise with each other! the important thing is that it remain a phase and that you then outgrow it.

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As with anything, I never say never with epithets. There are good times to use them.

Sometimes a character doesn't know the other character's name. In that case, something unobtrusive like "the man" or "the maid" is perfect, and there is, in fact, no other choice.

Sometimes using one conveys more than using their name would. If character A is angry with character B, it is entirely acceptable for him to refer to B in narrative as the cunt, the fucker, the bastard, etc.

If I sat around for a bit, I could probably think of other examples as well. but yes, most of the time epithets are horribly misused, break POV, and make the reader cringe in embarrassment when they're not laughing their head off. But there are times when you can and should use them.

okay, point. both of those examples are technically epithets, but i suppose i don't habitually think of them that way because if the point of view character doesn't know the real name, it's impossible for him to use it; the epithet isn't really a replacement there. for example, in the last one, it's the "at the front of the christmas novelty store" that makes it ridiculous; it wouldn't be at all strange if it just said "the cashier", which is exactly what the pov character would call the cashier.

Yes, exactly. The problem (or one of them) with bad epithets is that the author seems to see them as a way to pack in all this information (which either they've not mentioned yet, or they want to make sure they reader is clear on). "The cashier at the front of the Christmas novelty store" is terrible because in this scene, the author should have already established where they are, and once they have, it's no longer necessary to keep reminding the audience. To include all that info in an epithet is clunky and usually turns out to be unnecessary because it's either info that has been stated before or is extranneous.

i think you've really encapsulated the problem in a nutshell! well, one of the problems - the hair/eye colour thing is slightly different since the writer obviously assumes the reader knows it already, in which case the "emerald" and "magenta" business just seems bewilderingly superfluous. are they trying to prove they know long words for colours or what?

Yeah, it's like revenge of the thesaurus. When I was in VC, I would see some fics where in the space of one fic, Louis' eyes would be viridian, emerald, green, sea green, jade, and just about any other green color you could think of. But they're not even the same color, so it's just crazy.

like the dreaded mood ring eyes of sparklypoo!

And man, those are really bad. I think anime fic lends itself to the worst epithets because the characters are often so wild-looking (witness all the outrageous hair colors mentioned above) or have bizarre professions.

hahahahahah. i'd love to go into one of the fantasy anime fandoms just to collect epithets now. i'm envisioning things like "the lime-haired demon-summoner sighed wearily and placed his hand on the shoulder of the dejected magical robotics-engineer."

Mwhahaha - I was going to say that. You could make a mix of epithets about HP Mary Sues and anime characters, and nobody would be able to tell them apart. XD

someone should totally do that. :}

... ice mountain. (Who is that even referring to? o_O)

Oh, anime badfic ♥_♥ Endless hours of entertainment.

I've definitely used "his friend" or "the professor" or "his classmate" at least once or twice just because otherwise I felt like I was repeating the characters name, like, three times in a given sentence. Although, really, it wasn't necessary. Pronouns are your friends... XP

the ice mountain is tezuka. <.<; i had to look at the fic again to find out. which... ouch.

for some reason there are a very few which aren't as irritating, like "his companion", which is the only one which springs readily to mind. i acknowledge that it's quite difficult to manage with only pronouns and names in english sometimes, particularly writing slash, since you have two "he"s floating around. it would be so convenient if english had a set of separate reflexive pronouns for the subject of the sentence. gay porn written in swedish wouldn't hold nearly the same potential for confusion.

ahahahahahaa. those are fabulous. XD (somehow, "the upperclassman" is one that doesn't bother me a bit.)

i think everyone goes through the phase of using epithets; as a reader, i can only hope an author either becomes very good at it or stops all together.

"the upperclassman" might make sense if the narrator didn't know who eiji was or if the narrator were a third person and class rank had any bearing whatsoever on what was going on. considering it's ryoma and he knows eiji quite well, i find it very silly. i doubt he'd ever say or think such a thing.

which is why i find it odd that i'm not bothered by it! then again, i read so little prince of tennis fanfic.

(seriously, though: why do people even bother with bad epithets? the name of the person actually says everything they need to say; saying "eiji did a backflip" or whatever would automatically account for his appearance, his age, his family, etc etc... the mind boggles.)

why do people even bother with bad epithets?

i do not know, but this is a very good question. :(( i try not to think about it, because the more i do, the more my brain hurts.

Ahahahaha. All of these sound like Nature documentary commentaries about the mating habbits of a bizarre tropical species. Can't you just hear David Attenborough saying "The taller male hummed low in his throat, pleased that the younger male was responding"?

yes. yes, i can, actually. and hey, phrases like 'the bandana-clad teen' would make so much more sense if they were the name of a type of bird or something. birds always have stupid names like that.

At last, I can finally cross the orange-haired volley specialist off my lifetime "species sighted" list!

without checking the context i'm not even sure what that means... although perhaps if i knew what a volley specialist really was with more exactitude i would. ("orange-haired"?)

I try to avoid epithets, except in the case of Fennish stories, where the source material uses them like there's no tomorrow. "The young private," "his officer," "the younger lad" and so on and so forth. I do sometimes think that people reading my Mars stories will think I don't know any better than to say things like "the young soldier," etc - but then I reflect that no other fandom of mine offers the chance to have the narrator weigh in and quasi-innocently describe one character as another's "particular friend", and I cackle a lot.

indeed! and of course if you're writing fanfiction for a printed source you should try to be pastichey and capture the flavour of the original. a somewhat distant and wry narrator like you see in wodehouse or even sometimes austen will do that too. i was just thinking today how much i long to step back and make those sorts of little comments, but that kind of narrating doesn't really fit with most fandoms and pov characters. :)

I was just catching up on my flist, and I was so happy to find that someone feels the same way I do about epithets. For awhile, of course, I used them quite liberally, so I'm as guilty as anyone. HOWEVER, as soon as I realized that I disliked reading them in other people's works, I stopped using them. Some words can be repetitious. Characters' names are not. Use them.

Which brings me to the actual point of this comment, a moral question: when I am beta-reading for someone else, is it appropriate to mention that they might overuse epithets? I've encountered this several times. I was worried that it might be a simple matter of opinion, but now I wonder if I should say something. I'm just curious to know what you think. XD Advice, please?

*butts in*

You should definitely mention it. Try to give a reason why, too, if you think they may need convincing (frex, so many epithets break POV, so if you come across someone thinking of their best friend as the purple-haired tennis-playing smaller ninja, mention to them that people rarely think of their friends that way! (of course that's an extreme example, but still, even stuff like the smaller man or the blond...people really don't go around thinking of people like that unless they're perfect strangers and they're picking someone out of a group)). It's a stylistic choice, sure, but it's pretty universally acknowledged to be a bad one. If they don't liste, they don't listen (I critiqued someone's fic once and they told me they liked all the epithets (about ten different ones referring to only two people) because it gave some variety, and there was nothing I could do to convince her, so I just told her, well, be aware that when you ask for crit, people are going to point that out.

I definitely want to have a reason, and you gave some good ones. This particular person really does like using epithets, but I think it's possible I can convince them not to, or at least to use them more sparingly. I can understand wanting variety, but epithets just tend to pull me out of the story even more than repetition of a name. While I don't want to hurt any feelings, I really don't think I'm doing my best as a beta, or doing the writer any good, by not mentioning the issue. Thank you so much for the advice! :D

i definitely agree with grace. there are isolated circumstances where epithets are unobjectionable and there are a narrower set of circumstances where it's a debatable stylistic choice (such as "his lover", provided the person in question IS his lover; or even, much as i despise it, occasionally things like "the blonde"; even if the pov character wouldn't think of them that way, there are people who like to jump pov in their narration, and if they want to do that as a rule there's nothing you can do). however, as a general rule pov jumping is bad because it takes you out of the story, and as grace points out, it's a stylistic choice that's widely regarded as bad.

and then, there's this: in the vast majority of epithet cases - all the ones mentioned above, for instance - it really is just a matter of bad writing. there will never be a time when sticking such a long descriptor as "the redheaded acrobatic tennis player with the permanent bandage as a facial accessory" or "the cashier of the novelty christmas store" or "the bandana-clad teen" into the middle of a sentence is acceptable. it wouldn't matter what the phrase was; it makes the sentence gratingly clunky.

or for example, in this one:

The older was resting partially on top of the younger and the latter sought the other’s hand, finding and squeezing it gently.

it is definitely implied that there are three people in the bed. you should never use two epithets for one person within the same sentence; it's as silly as switching from ryoma to echizen in the same sentence! that's not by any means the only thing wrong with those epithets, of course. i don't think calling someone "the older" or "the younger" is really acceptable the way "the former" and "the latter" is. it's a somewhat logical extrapolation on the author's part, but it basically produces the reaction, "the older what?" (which isn't to say "the older man" or "the older teen" would be acceptable.)

Exactly. I just don't think that writers should sacrifice clarity and sense for the sake of variety in what they call the characters. Frankly, I don't usually even like "his friend," "his lover," or "the blonde," but I see how those could be used instead of using a name twice in one sentence. That particular sentence that you quoted, though, is just confusing. The use of two epithets to describe the same person in the same sentence is definitely not acceptable.

I felt kind of, oh, I don't know, elitist at first, when I found myself disliking epithets. Now I realize, though, that it really does take me out of the story, much like pov-jumping or tenses that don't match. Thank you very much for this post, and for your opinions. :)

i feel elitist about fic a lot, because i have so so many pet peeves related to writing. this is why i mostly keep the ranting in chat and out of my journal - to stay as far from wankishness as possible. but rest assured you're not alone! there are zillions of (usually quiet) grammar freaks out there, privately frothing at the mouth over the same things you are. i think there are more than a few communities devoted to it actually, although i don't belong to any. :)

Hee! Just found this on today's

writers_orgasm:

Darke inhaled Lucius's scent as the other boy's weight settled on top of him. He trailed his tongue down the blonde's neck, to his shoulder. He heard Lucius gasp as he bit into the flesh of the older boy's shoulder, just above his collar bone, hard enough to bruise. He raised needy eyes to the blonde's face and licked his lips. He wanted to be punished for what he had just done, but couldn't make himself say the words.

Lucius tangled fingers in his hair and pulled his head back. The older Slytherin had a slightly sinister smile on his lips. The blonde kissed him, a hard and bruising kiss; when Lucius pulled back, Darke's blood was on his lips. Darke whimpered in need as the other boy's tongue trailed across his now-cut lips, tasting the blood. He tried to kiss the other boy but Lucius pulled away, just out of his reach. Again Lucius lowered his head to trail the tip of his tongue across the artist's lips; again he pulled away as Darke tried to respond.

"Lucius.." Darke's voice was ragged with need, "Please.." "What is it you want, little one?" Lucius asked, tongue trailing up the artist's earlobe. A shiver ran through the smaller boy, and Darke whispered, "You. I want you.."

dear god. are there really only two people in the bed...?

Yep. Frightening, isn't it?

Huh. I only just got this comment notification right now. *shakes fist at LJ*

that keeps happening to me too. <.<

HEY! I wrote those!

j/k

But I am very guilty of using epithets in all my questionable rp stuff. Thank you very much for pointing out my folly. XD

heh, rping doesn't exactly count since it's all written so on-the-spot and spur-of-the-moment: everything you produce is essentially rough draft. it's when you've polished it up into a finished product that that kind of carelessness shouldn't remain.

You're too kind.

FYI, Pixxers sent me here, via one of her LJ posts.

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