JohnH
March 4th, 2002, 07:05 AM
I know we have done this before (in many variations in fact). But this is a bit different. This is not so much the general things that set your teeth on edge, but the little things that drive you wild. Not what might ruin a book but just drive you wild.
For example, I hate dialect. I absolute dispise it. Ah haht eet wan a awther rites n sum stoopid dylek thet they theenk ess kewt.
Why do they use this silly and always clumsy tool? Why not just write that the person could barely be understood? Or their accent was heavy? Some ways of a character saying things as a means of cultural diversity is okay (though anything bordering on Jar-Jar Binks is downright annoying, even if not offensive depending on your views).
I also dislike songs being 'sung' within a work. In some very rare cases it works. Otherwise it somehow strikes me as a silly conceit on the part of the author -- 'look at me! I can rhyme badly'. After all:
Hipty dipty dap
some mindless rhyming crap
it does quite annoy
so I cannot enjoy
the rest of some entertaining pap
Yeech.
Spells are also rather irritating. Especially those that serve really no purpose. Said magicker says or thinks
that they are going to produce fire and then sing/chant/say 'Burn burn into flame you shall turn' Bah! Or else they chant such something and then in big exposition something turns into a ball of flame. Big whoop. All it tells me is that the writer better keep selling books because a job at Hallmark might be a tough sell.
Now some of these elements can be used with some element of restraint. Modesitt uses song/spell in a useful way solely because it is part of the whole magic system. There is some bit of witty 'conceit' on the author's part but it still is not too grating. But it is integrated so deeply into the whole peice of fiction that while not necessary it never seems unnecessary (a personal judgement I know).
Perhaps it is not having any real musical talent whatsoever , well I am a talented listener. Perhaps it is that a story is something that moves the imagination's vision for me rather than the audio. I 'see' the book in my inner world and to some extents I do 'hear' it but not some bard warbling by the fire. I hear just as much if not more when the author writes: ' a bard warbled by the fire'.
Overall I think these aspects fall into one main category of too much information. A really good author sets up the scene and lets the reader's imagination fill in the small cracks (some can be smaller than others). It lets me personalize this inner world to one I can fully see and relate to.
But remember, I would like spefic instances of what annoys you or you could do without. Basically the finishing touches an author might employ to set their work apart (or together) from the others.
For example, I hate dialect. I absolute dispise it. Ah haht eet wan a awther rites n sum stoopid dylek thet they theenk ess kewt.
Why do they use this silly and always clumsy tool? Why not just write that the person could barely be understood? Or their accent was heavy? Some ways of a character saying things as a means of cultural diversity is okay (though anything bordering on Jar-Jar Binks is downright annoying, even if not offensive depending on your views).
I also dislike songs being 'sung' within a work. In some very rare cases it works. Otherwise it somehow strikes me as a silly conceit on the part of the author -- 'look at me! I can rhyme badly'. After all:
Hipty dipty dap
some mindless rhyming crap
it does quite annoy
so I cannot enjoy
the rest of some entertaining pap
Yeech.
Spells are also rather irritating. Especially those that serve really no purpose. Said magicker says or thinks
that they are going to produce fire and then sing/chant/say 'Burn burn into flame you shall turn' Bah! Or else they chant such something and then in big exposition something turns into a ball of flame. Big whoop. All it tells me is that the writer better keep selling books because a job at Hallmark might be a tough sell.
Now some of these elements can be used with some element of restraint. Modesitt uses song/spell in a useful way solely because it is part of the whole magic system. There is some bit of witty 'conceit' on the author's part but it still is not too grating. But it is integrated so deeply into the whole peice of fiction that while not necessary it never seems unnecessary (a personal judgement I know).
Perhaps it is not having any real musical talent whatsoever , well I am a talented listener. Perhaps it is that a story is something that moves the imagination's vision for me rather than the audio. I 'see' the book in my inner world and to some extents I do 'hear' it but not some bard warbling by the fire. I hear just as much if not more when the author writes: ' a bard warbled by the fire'.
Overall I think these aspects fall into one main category of too much information. A really good author sets up the scene and lets the reader's imagination fill in the small cracks (some can be smaller than others). It lets me personalize this inner world to one I can fully see and relate to.
But remember, I would like spefic instances of what annoys you or you could do without. Basically the finishing touches an author might employ to set their work apart (or together) from the others.