He Said, She Said -- A Sort-of Lesson in Writing
He Said, She Said
A Sort-of Lesson in Writing
Wonderful directed me to an interesting (and, evidently, controversial) entry at keket_amunet's journal on the topic of why we get addicted to fanfiction. The topic that seemed to get the goat for everyone was the mention of saidisms; keket said an abundance of saidisms would turn her off of a fic (and I assume that this is more than likely in conjunction with other factors as well; I don't think she'd simply stop reading a story because an author said "cried" after saying "murmured"), which is somewhat unfortunate to me, because I find them pretty useful. I believe in the decline of the English language, and I believe that the use of saidisms tend to eliminate the possibility of an author going beyond the necessary means to get their point out. If you have never read/heard about the decline of the English language, I would highly recommend reading George Orwell's Politics and the English Language, an exemplary paper on the degradation of English through the use of unnecessary and "dead" words and phrases.
Anyway, the point is that I don't think the use of saidisms is necessarily what will turn people off of writing, unless you're like Keket who is (as far as I can tell) studying writing and therefore more sensitive to certain things in that regard. I think the thing most of us attribute to bad writing is either an over or under abundance of imagery and description. On one hand, you have someone who is trying to paint the world through a story when a picture is the only thing worth a thousand words, and on the other you have someone writing plot the same way the author of See Spot Run does. Neither type is considered to be a good author, one for trying far too hard and the other for not working nearly enough.
I believe that saidisms will throw you in a fic if they are the only means the author uses to describe a situation. There was a piece of the thread where Keket described this with an example of a dialogue written only with saidisms, and an author (some bnf, I can't remember the name) countered by giving her own example, a rewritten version of Keket's scenario. If we saw Keket's version in a fic, almost every single one of us would be clicking the back button a few steps to find another fic to read. If we saw the bnf's version, I bet we wouldn't even notice. If saidisms are used symbiotically with active descriptions of setting and action, I hardly think that would constitute a piece as poor writing. However, if they are the only thing that keeps a story like from going, "See Spot Run, Spot Runs Fast," then I can assure you that the piece is an utter failure.
Of course, the same thing can be said if adjectives or adverbs are the only methods an author employs for description in a story. If she stomped angrily through the room and he kicked the chair roughly and it lightly nudged at the bowl, all of the -ly's will begin to run together and cause much boredom in our mind. Or, if she dropped the old, worn bag filled with musty, ancient tomes on the fascinating subject of Arithmancy onto the decadently upholstered sofa in the warm, cheerful room, you might want to deck the author with your clenched, tense fists. However, if adverbs and adjectives are used together with other means of description, they would probably go unnoticed because there is something to soften the blow, so to speak. For example:
She stomped angrily through the empty classroom, her steps echoing cacophonously against the stone walls. He watched her slam the door as she left and kicked the old chair before his desk roughly when she was gone, causing it to skid across the floor and crash into the wall.
You're not really feeling overwhelmed by all the adverbs and adjectives, are you?
In short, I don't believe it's just the saidisms that will throw us off a fic; I think it's the general misuse of "describing words" due to an author's want to show you the story and not just tell you it. However, I think that inexperienced writers try to cover up their shortcomings with superfluous text to sound superior. It's a delicate balance of under and over use of these helpful describing words. Too much and the story becomes heavy and oversaturated, leaving the reader lost in a twirl of adjectives and adverbs and saidisms, opaque to the point that the plot is virtually unreadable; too little, and the reader will feel like they're back in third grade in the regular reading class when they clearly should have been reading advanced books.
I think saidisms can definitely be a sign of poor writing, but not necessarily the proof -- just because you have a cough doesn't mean you have pneumonia. We call those types of people hypochondriacs, and I don't think we want to become like that when we start judging writing; as readers, I don't think it would be healthy to begin associating something relatively simple with something completely drastic.
A Sort-of Lesson in Writing
Wonderful directed me to an interesting (and, evidently, controversial) entry at keket_amunet's journal on the topic of why we get addicted to fanfiction. The topic that seemed to get the goat for everyone was the mention of saidisms; keket said an abundance of saidisms would turn her off of a fic (and I assume that this is more than likely in conjunction with other factors as well; I don't think she'd simply stop reading a story because an author said "cried" after saying "murmured"), which is somewhat unfortunate to me, because I find them pretty useful. I believe in the decline of the English language, and I believe that the use of saidisms tend to eliminate the possibility of an author going beyond the necessary means to get their point out. If you have never read/heard about the decline of the English language, I would highly recommend reading George Orwell's Politics and the English Language, an exemplary paper on the degradation of English through the use of unnecessary and "dead" words and phrases.
Anyway, the point is that I don't think the use of saidisms is necessarily what will turn people off of writing, unless you're like Keket who is (as far as I can tell) studying writing and therefore more sensitive to certain things in that regard. I think the thing most of us attribute to bad writing is either an over or under abundance of imagery and description. On one hand, you have someone who is trying to paint the world through a story when a picture is the only thing worth a thousand words, and on the other you have someone writing plot the same way the author of See Spot Run does. Neither type is considered to be a good author, one for trying far too hard and the other for not working nearly enough.
I believe that saidisms will throw you in a fic if they are the only means the author uses to describe a situation. There was a piece of the thread where Keket described this with an example of a dialogue written only with saidisms, and an author (some bnf, I can't remember the name) countered by giving her own example, a rewritten version of Keket's scenario. If we saw Keket's version in a fic, almost every single one of us would be clicking the back button a few steps to find another fic to read. If we saw the bnf's version, I bet we wouldn't even notice. If saidisms are used symbiotically with active descriptions of setting and action, I hardly think that would constitute a piece as poor writing. However, if they are the only thing that keeps a story like from going, "See Spot Run, Spot Runs Fast," then I can assure you that the piece is an utter failure.
Of course, the same thing can be said if adjectives or adverbs are the only methods an author employs for description in a story. If she stomped angrily through the room and he kicked the chair roughly and it lightly nudged at the bowl, all of the -ly's will begin to run together and cause much boredom in our mind. Or, if she dropped the old, worn bag filled with musty, ancient tomes on the fascinating subject of Arithmancy onto the decadently upholstered sofa in the warm, cheerful room, you might want to deck the author with your clenched, tense fists. However, if adverbs and adjectives are used together with other means of description, they would probably go unnoticed because there is something to soften the blow, so to speak. For example:
She stomped angrily through the empty classroom, her steps echoing cacophonously against the stone walls. He watched her slam the door as she left and kicked the old chair before his desk roughly when she was gone, causing it to skid across the floor and crash into the wall.
You're not really feeling overwhelmed by all the adverbs and adjectives, are you?
In short, I don't believe it's just the saidisms that will throw us off a fic; I think it's the general misuse of "describing words" due to an author's want to show you the story and not just tell you it. However, I think that inexperienced writers try to cover up their shortcomings with superfluous text to sound superior. It's a delicate balance of under and over use of these helpful describing words. Too much and the story becomes heavy and oversaturated, leaving the reader lost in a twirl of adjectives and adverbs and saidisms, opaque to the point that the plot is virtually unreadable; too little, and the reader will feel like they're back in third grade in the regular reading class when they clearly should have been reading advanced books.
I think saidisms can definitely be a sign of poor writing, but not necessarily the proof -- just because you have a cough doesn't mean you have pneumonia. We call those types of people hypochondriacs, and I don't think we want to become like that when we start judging writing; as readers, I don't think it would be healthy to begin associating something relatively simple with something completely drastic.