rpanons | 007

Rundown:

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Concerns?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Epithets. In general.

Everything from "The Japanese teen" to "the purplette" (jesus christ) and even seemingly innocuous stuff like "the swordsman" or "the ninja" - they are very rarely a good idea. Just use their names or even just 'he' - if you're a good enough writer then your prose will not be confusing. I promise you.

They're overused in slash especially. Years ago, LJ reviewers used to crack down on them constantly and most of the writers here really improved. These days, LJ/DW crosses over with FF.net so much more and there's less concrit.

Peeved because I'm considering apping to a game and the tags are rife with them. :/

I used to be in a fandom but I eventually had to quit because I would have chucked my computer out the window if I'd seen so much as one more "music loving teen".

I am actually studying a book in class that does this on purpose. There's no names, just like "the dutch woman" or smth.

I am about to kill things. I know it's a style choice but jfc I have no idea what's going on.

What if your character doesn't know the other character's name at the time so they do regard them as "the swordsman?" I try to keep my prose in limited third-person so as to avoid looking like I'm infomodding and also to keep focused on my character's pov.

Ditto. If the other player's writing my character's name or something they don't ICly know, I do so too, but if they don't mention it, I stick with 'the man/woman/whatever'.

Or what it's canonly ic for your character to use epithets even when they do know the other character's name? One good example is Sissel from Ghost Trick. He knows Detective Cabanela's name but frequently refers to him as "the detective in the white coat."

I do this, but it's generally because writing "she" and their name a million times in one post just looks even worse than "the blonde" or "the ninja" ever do.

No, they really don't; as long as it's not a 'can't tell what's going on' thing with two characters of the same sex or something, "she", "he", "said" and the like are things we as readers are just trained to gloss over. It's awkwardly trying to avoid using them that sticks out like a sore thumb every single time.

As an addendum, I read a published story recently by someone with a background in writing fanfiction. It was confirmed in the 'about me' at the end, but I could tell just from reading the story, just because they did this.

007

Re: ITT: WORDS

+1

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+1

same anon

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