Do not want...but why not?: seanan

Do not want...but why not?

Recently, I picked up a book that looked interesting. It hit many of my "sweet spots" for plot, description, and cover blurbs from people I trust. The cover didn't do it any favors, featuring, as it did, a generic Urban Fantasy Hot Girl standing in a Playboy circa-1984 pose, but I've enjoyed books with way worse covers. I entered the text in good faith.

By page two, I was ready to fling the book across the room. Why? Because the author had chosen to scramble the spelling of a common-to-the-genre word in a way that made it look not only pretentious, but difficult to read. This is a personal bug-a-boo of mine, since I really do feel that spelling was standardized for a reason, and while I managed to soldier through, it colored my ability to sink into the text for several chapters.

(As an aside, seriously: not all words become more interesting and mysterious when spelled with a vestigial "y." The worst example I've ever seen was in a YA series full of "mermyds," and the fact that I made it through all three volumes is a testament to the power of raw stubborn.)

One reader of Rosemary and Rue posted a lengthy, positive review, more than half of which was taken up by complaints about the pronunciation guide. Specifically, I didn't write down the correct pronunciation of "Kitsune." It's a fair cop—if you pronounce the word as written in the pronunciation guide, you'll be saying it wrong—and it's been corrected for A Local Habitation, but it was, for this person, as bad as if I'd spelled Toby's name "Aughtcober" and then claimed it was pronounced just like the month. Bug-a-boos for all!

Kate recently delivered a long and eloquent diatribe on "back cover buzz-word bingo," which I really wish I'd had a video camera running for, because it was awesome. The summation is that she watches the back covers of books for certain "buzz-words," and, if the book works up to a magical bingo score, she doesn't read it. I do something similar with bad horror movies, since there are specific buzz-words that mean "soft core porn" and "gratuitous torture," and those really aren't what I'm watching the movie to see.

So what are your bug-a-boos? Terribly twisted spelling? Pronunciations that you don't agree with? Buzz-words oozing off the back cover and getting all over your shoes? How about heroines with ruby hair and emerald eyes who aren't appearing in an Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld fanfic epic? Inquiring blondes want to know!

the_gwenzilliad

November 3 2009, 18:06:10 UTC 7 years ago Edited: November 3 2009, 18:12:58 UTC

New comment

I can't stand:

inconsistent dialogue (the same character, speaking like an Errol Flynn movie one minute and then suddenly sounding like a teenage kid from the 80s, frex).
too much capitalisation, as noted above. The logic of making an occupation a proper noun, for example, is completely lost on me. He's not the King's Armourer. He's the king's armourer. Or, if you want to get more precise, King Joe's armourer.
over/misuse of gerund verb phrases (I suspect you're familiar with this one). "Looking both ways, Jennifer crossed the street." Jennifer's going to get dizzy, fall down, and get hit by a bus. It's more likely that Jennifer looked both ways before she crossed the street — unless Jennifer is destined to be the body in this story.
made up languages with no internal consistency. This tells me an author is really keen to show us how very foreign and special their culture is: they have to pepper their speech and descriptions with italicised words (that makes them much more exotic!) which bear no linguistic similarity to one another. It's a bit like seeing a play translated from French done in French accents. If I'm reading about your faraway world, I'm positive the language they speak there is not the same as the one I speak here. What I am positive of is that they're fluent in it. Sure, name a ceremony or a god or places. Italicising them is a bit OTT, but whatever. What I don't want to see is a sentence that, outside the context of the book, is completely unintelligible. Example: "The drishnak is not for wenda." We can diagram that, but can we explicate it? ;) JRR Tolkein was a linguist. Are you? No? Then seriously, stick to a language in which you are fluent. I'm sure your characters are going to.
As others have mentioned, gratewytüs mysspellynges forre grayte rennfayre-styl jüstysse. And what's this öbsessiön with ümläüts all about? Is that a sure sign somebody was a metalhead in high school, or what? ;)

Gosh. I hate lots of things, don't I? ;)

lovefromgirl

November 3 2009, 18:27:47 UTC 7 years ago

gratewytüs mysspellynges forre grayte rennfayre-styl jüstysse.

I LOVE YOU.

Point #4 is why the only languages I'll touch with a ten-foot pole are English, French, German... and Arabic. :-)

Log in

Do not want...but why not?

Error