cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (can he type?)
In case you were writing something, maybe going for a dreamy or lyrical tone, and you were waffling - if you were asking yourself, "Yeah, self, I like that, but is it deep, or is it pretentious? Do I like it because it's poetic, or because of a little too much exposure to high school literary journals?" - this list may help you out. Think of it as a resource.

1. Creating new verbs by squishing together words that have nothing to do with each other and make no sense. Example: "Spreadmelt the peanut butter over the white bread." Minus extra points if the words are actually a contradiction in terms. Example: "Wakingupsleeping in slow, honey dribbles all the night."

2. Incomplete sentences. Example: "He showers and reaches for his toothbrush outside the hotwet enclosure feeling in the without and not checking to see if it's." Minus extra points if the incomplete thought is the end of a scene. Example: "She wishes she could, sometimes, but unfortunately - [scenebreak]"

3. Doing away with rules of punctuation for no good reason. Example: "Linderwall was a peaceful/prosperous place where the knights polished their armour every bluemoon, mainly for show, where the greatest event was when the occasional fairy godmother overcame her complacent ennui to become annoyed and cursed some unfortunate child and even then a princeprincess could usually be found to marry the unfortunate offspring, philosophers were highly respected and the number five was fashionable, but maybe, maybe in its simple prosperity and conservative pleasance in the harsh basketwoven high-lowing Cimorene, hated it."

4. Nonsense similes. Example: "Her hair hung over her forehead like the wiggly green tophat of a swollen butterfly larva anxious for the rain." Minus extra points for fused metaphors. Example: "Her eyes were fixed on the screen eagerly, winged, filled to bursting with the bittersweet savour of forgotten iced tea, the images seeping like bubbles bleeding desperately through the cracks in a frozen-thawed dishsoap:bottle of loneliness."

5. Unmotivated and inconsistent lack of capitalisation. Example: "John creases the takeout menu between nervous fingers and finally clenches hand on worn-plastic phone - the pizza place delivers, but not quickly. (spent hours waiting, endless hours of horror, nopizza, sad and hungry)"

6. Nonsense hyphenation. Example: "The dog slept on the smelly-plaid cushion and snored and occasionally drooled a bubble of dreamy drool onto the sad-grimy floor."
cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (wtf?)
Dear Badfic Writers,

Brackets ({}) and square brackets ([]) have their own purposes. They are not just a pair of parentheses dressed up in their own very special and unique snowflake outfits for when you are writing a story and it doesn't seem special enough with plain punctuation.

Thanks for your attention to this matter,
cim
cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (Default)
Listen, people.

It's not "If you think ___, you've got another thing coming". It's "If you think __, you've got another think coming." Get it? See how that works? The word "think" appears in both places! As if to suggest that the approaching think is going to replace the previous think which was in error! See how it even (gasp!) makes sense that way, whereas a "thing" coming in that context is so meaningless as to be completely baffling? [*]
cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (godlike)
ExpandI hate open letter PSAs. It smacks of Dear John, or Dear Friendslist I'm Cutting You. )
cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (Default)
there's this big ... i don't know. trend. not just in fanfiction, on the internet. to make intransitive verbs transitive-- i drift my gaze over his face for instance.

cim's verdict: NO.

eta: it goes the other way too! auugh! help! the seeping penis. a seeping thing is something that is coming gradually out of a container in small amounts. usually, liquids seep. a seeping thing is not a container that has things coming gradually out of it. for that matter, nothing SEEPS out of a cock in the first place, except if it has a wound on it. well, i suppose you could say sweat was seeping from pores, but to me that sounds a bit... awkward and redundant.

eta2: that's not really the opposite of transitivising intransitive verbs because 'seep' IS intransitive, and she hasn't tried to make it transitive; she's done something similar, though, because the fluid (or other emergent substance) which is supposed to be the subject of 'seep' becomes--not an actual object but--sort of a mental, implied one. a usual phrase would be "the seeping fluid."

lalala

8 Oct 2003 10:15 pm
cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (sex)
and lo, the oxford english dictionary didst consume so much crack that e.b. white's elements of style did eschew it, and the child that wast conceived upon it did grow within the shadow of its shame as in the shadow of a mighty Tree of Shamefulness. so that when it was time for her to go forth the OED didst say unto her 'lo, childe, go forth and utilize, pretentiously, nigh unto hordes of pretentious words,' and go forth she didst, never knowing that such a thing as Style might exist, and she didst compose many long-winded essays for the [livejournal.com profile] johnny_depp_fans, and even unto the community [livejournal.com profile] depp_daily did she send them. and her words were many, but no less numerous were her errors of grammar, for she knew not of Style. and the elements of style did turn its back, and weep, for a crack-child of the OED is a terrible thing to behold.
cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (Default)
Like strawberries left to ripen on the vine until they were sun-sweet and delicious, Qui-Gon's kisses tasted of all of his dreams.

so, a few things:
1. ALL his dreams taste of strawberries?
2. just a few of his dreams aren't enough for the flavor--all are necessary?
3. strawberries aren't delicious unless they've become sun-sweet on the vine?
4. is there something unusual about the taste of sweet/ripe strawberries, so that he felt the need to mention those as conditions? is it normal to eat bitter or sour strawberries? or unripe ones?
cimorene: cartoony drawing of a woman's head in profile giving dubious side-eye (Default)
Usually I don't bother with it on livejournal. In fact, I often cut corners in my punctuation, as well, to more closely imitate patterns of speech. But don't think that means I wasn't correcting everyone who didn't want to be corrected from the age of three. I think a little lesson is in order, here.

The phrase 'middle school,' like the words 'school' and 'captain,' is only capitalized when part of a proper noun.

Correct: Westlawn Middle School.
Incorrect: Westlawn middle school.

Correct: The middle school rang with the babble of slamming lockers, squeaking shoes and adolescent voices.
Incorrect: I haven't felt so chastized since Middle School.

we now return you to your regularly scheduled lack of capital letters.

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