Bad Epithets

[cimorene]

Someone just reblogged this post about Bad Epithets (or rather, about epithets and when to use them and when not to use them) from me. I get reblogs on this fairly frequently, even after qutite a few years.

When you are writing a story and refer to a character by a physical trait, occupation, age, or any other attribute, rather than that character’s name, you are bringing the reader’s attention to that particular attribute. ...You shouldn’t refer to the characters in ways that [the viewpoint character] wouldn’t.

It's just one of many times I've written this rant (although the first two parts of the post are by other people, because it really is quite a common problem), and it's probably somewhere in this journal multiple times. But I was thinking about Bad Epithets recently because of a couple of really hilaribble ones that I've seen while reading fanfiction.

Comments

[stranger]

To all of you who fight this battle, thank you. Misplaced epithets are just so stunningly amateur, and not in a good way.

[cimorene]

Wait, whaẗ́'s the good way to be stunningly amateur?😆

[stranger]

Sometimes a story isn't very polished, but conveys love and understanding of the source. You might think, "It's stunningly bad grammar, but this really shows the way Kirk and Spock support each other on the ship but also compete at chess. If only the writer knew what an apostrophe was... and knew more than rudimentary chess moves..."

[cimorene]

Ah, okay, it's good in spite of being stunningly amateur - or like, valuable, or approaching good, or something like that, but just also happens to perhaps unfortunately be stunningly amateur.

Of course, everybody started somewhere; some of us were just lucky enough for our earliest efforts not to be published as fanfiction on the internet...

[phosfate]

Baby's First Story in English can be perfectly awesome even though there's some comedy grammar, and they will only improve. VetFan's 500th story can be exactly like her first story with the names changed - OH GOD NOT HER AGAIN BACK ARROW BACK ARROW!

Fanficcers are known for being super encouraging, which is great, but there are some people who want to mentor but simply can't imagine not wanting to post a story. "Did you finish that one you were writing?" "No, because it was super derivative, the plot was stupid, and I hate it." "But you should finish it." "Why? This is not me being insecure, it is literally quite bad."

The person you want to hold on to is the person who says, "Okay, would you like help?" or "Okay, tell you what, hang on to this bit and this bit and this bit, put them away, and see if you can use them in something else later on. You are good at this thing and this thing and this thing. Start a different story."

[cimorene]

Structural level feedback, yeah! That's the best.

I had a beta who did that once!... And never again. It's not easy to do, either, I'm afraid.

[phosfate]

There's a thing in online fic culture that really hurries people to post, and it does readers and writers no favors. "I stayed up until 3 am to finish this because I really wanted to get it posted!" is not a selling point.

[cimorene]

Yes! I think about that constantly (all the author notes about that) and it's EVERYWHERE. Why? What clock are they running against? I just cannot even begin to comprehend.

[phosfate]

I know some writers were afraid something inspired by that week's episode would be upended by the next week's, but...jeez, go to bed, finish it tomorrow night and go over it a couple times.