Comments | bjewelled: My Top Ten Pet (Fanfic/Writing in General) Peeves

bjewelled

My Top Ten Pet (Fanfic/Writing in General) Peeves

Feb 10, 2009 02:58

I'm supposed to be working. We've got big changes tonight. Oooooh~

Actually, I am working. Mostly. I just have to wait a few minutes for the servers to do their thing. So in the meantime, let me educate you all.

( My Top Ten Pet Writing Peeves )

writing

Comments 115

cageyklio February 10 2009, 15:12:15 UTC

he inserted his CD into her CD player

::thud::

He uploaded his manly data into her willing mainframe.
He placed his bookmark in her favorite chapter.
He added a shot of vanilla to her steaming latte.

bjewelled February 10 2009, 20:55:36 UTC

Thank you for rendering me incoherent for several minutes. XD

utopia83 February 13 2009, 15:08:50 UTC

He inserted his USB flashdrive into her USB port...

cageyklio February 13 2009, 15:16:30 UTC

He drove his Impala into her sheltering garage.

Thread 11

(The comment has been removed)

bjewelled February 13 2009, 06:21:04 UTC

People at work looked at me very funny when I started giggling out loud there. Thank you. :)

copperbadge February 12 2009, 23:28:30 UTC

I heart you so much right now.

Character X dies and Character Y turns into an intergalactic octopus.

I'm pretty sure this is the plot of a Torchwood fic I read.

I can understand why tie-in novelists do the life story thing, because someone who isn't familiar with the series might on the off-chance buy the book, but it's still stupid because they are WAY outside the target market and likely to be confused anyway. Though it may be a publisher's requirement or something.

Anyway, yes. Yes to all. May I link? (I like to ask, 'cause firebombing you with 2500 of my nearest and dearest can be annoying.)

bjewelled February 13 2009, 06:16:57 UTC

You're very welcome to link! If there's any way I can contribute to the general education of humanity then I'm happy to oblige :)

I actually enjoy trying to write a bit of a teaser in less than fifty words. It's a challenge. Though I have a feeling I read that fic too. Everything's better with tentacles? ;)

copperbadge February 13 2009, 14:05:49 UTC

I quite like writing summaries usually, yes. Once in a while I get totally stuck and just pull a quote from the fic, but I never like doing that.

I do miss summaries when there isn't one at all -- I like to at least be told what genre I'm in, and who I can expect to show up...

snakeling February 13 2009, 19:57:42 UTC

What Lies Within, by xtricks? It's a great fic, so much better than the "that tentacle fic" moniker it usually gets :)

Thread 5

travels_in_time February 13 2009, 14:43:27 UTC

AMEN to all this. Er, except I quite like the fluff, in small quantities and occasionally, and when it's in character.

One that's been driving me crazy lately, along the lines of "HAVE HAVE HAVE"--"lowly" is NOT AN ADVERB. It's an adjective, probably a politically incorrect one that shouldn't see much use nowadays, as in someone of a "lowly station". If your story has someone "murmuring lowly" into someone else's ear, you're doing it wrong.

(Hi! Here via copperbadge!)

braidedmane February 13 2009, 20:08:01 UTC

Tennyson disagrees with you.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

travels_in_time February 13 2009, 21:25:06 UTC

Tennyson disagrees with you.

Yes. Yes, he does. :D

(OK, OK, so possibly I'm wrong? In that case I'll allow its use only if you're a recognized dead poet.)

lothy February 25 2009, 02:09:00 UTC

Dictionary.com

6. in a quiet voice; softly: to converse lowly.

51stcenturyfox February 13 2009, 14:53:27 UTC

Here via the link from copperbadge as well.

If, in total, your 83 part opus comes to less than 10,000 words all told, you don't seem to have realised that your scattershot approach to publication is only going to alienate a lot of readers.

Oh, thank you!

I often see this and wonder if any readers enjoy it, because I don't. But I'm one of those people who doesn't put a good book down for anything. If it's going to take three months to get to the end, I'll just wait until the writer is finished (and hopefully by then it has been condensed into chapters of greater length anyway).

...and I'm secretly afraid that the author will never finish the story.

fer_de_lance February 18 2009, 10:11:49 UTC

I'm completely with you. When I see five-hundred-word "chapters", my assumption is that there is no plot to speak of (or else the story would flow, not be composed of six thousand snippets), and I ignore it. Especially when it's spamming my flist every day.

and I'm secretly afraid that the author will never finish the story.

This, too! :D Especially if they don't give an ending number ("here's chapter 63/85"). Because I already assume it's plotless, and that means there's a good chance eventually the author will realise this and, after running out of snippets, be stuck for anything else to add.