[meme] the cringe list
I. Why is that whenever I make cookies, they always end up tasting of egg?
II. Compose a list of your ten worst cliches, in any genre. (I chose romance, because there is such opportunity for wank.) Tag three people to do the same.
1. When the author confuses fabulism with purple prose.
Don't get me wrong; I love fabulism. My favorite authors are outright fabulists, I have a definite fabulous fabulist streak in myself, I've been known to consider manslaughter when all I have to read is straight-as-a-board prose. But there is a difference between unique, over-the-top description and the soppy splashes of estrogen that purple prose often is. (All you girls out there, no offense, but we of the female gender are often the worst of this. In the same vein, amateur male writers are often the other way around, skimping on description entirely.) Repetitive, sweet, cliche-filled; if I have to read about someone's endless blue eyes like pools of water or the darkness lurking within his/her soul again, I may scream.
2. "He/she claimed his/her mouth with hungry abandon."
With or without the hungry abandon, I'm of the opinion that this has got to be one of the silliest, most overused romantic phrases ever. (For starters, it's just one of those expressions that snuck onto the linguistic highway without ever making a pit stop for some common sense. I mean, does the act of a kiss involve planting small national flags on the other person's lips? Like other cringe-worthy euphemisms, it can ruin a good passage for me in no time at all.)
3. Younger man, older man, scientist, geneticist, doctor.
The last time I checked, people had names, and in the throes of passion, one does not usually cry out, "Younger man, harder, harder!" Writers often use creative epithets to try and spice up a boring story, but what a lot of them don't realize is that the repetition of names can be just as poignant, and a lot less ridiculous. People just don't use these sorts of identifiers in real life; really, they shouldn't exist in fiction either. Unless you're specifically trying to cultivate distance - another p.o.v., for example - or these people just don't know each others' names, it's best to stick with identifying the characters by their name and not their age/height/job description.
4. "I'm only gay for you."
Grumble, grumble.
5. When all problems to the relationship are outside forces.
Because that's just not how relationships work. Even if you're stuck in the middle of a war zone, trying to deliver a baby on top of a sickly elephant, chances are you'll be focusing less on the bombs shrieking overhead and more on the bickering between you and your girlfriend, who still hasn't forgiven you for what you said about her friend Marjorie last week. People don't work in tandem, and there are conflicts that cannot be resolved with hot, heavy sex. That's just one of the laws of the universe, which brings us to...
6. When the author confuses sex with happily ever after.
The way most relationship fics are set up - problem -> conflict -> resolution -> sex - this unfortunately fairly common. All the problems encountered in the act of getting (or staying) together don't dissipate in the afterglow; they'll still be there, probably now magnified and fairly sticky. Sex complicates. I'd say that's a pretty universal fact.
7. The zombie hand of Rob Lowe.
HAAAAAAAAA.
8. Lover, life partner, girlfriend, boyfriend.
While this technically falls under #3, epithets, I'd say romantic epithets deserve their own category. Perhaps even two categories, homo and hetero, because while boy-girl relationship labels are fairly straightforward, you wouldn't believe some of the things I've heard same-sex relationshipees call each other. Personally, I think partner is fine if you're discussing stock mergers, and lover can be pretty poignant if used properly, but noxious if overused. Boyfriend and girlfriend are probably the most straightforward, but even these can create snags. Really, until someone invents a term that isn't archaic, a warp, or completely bloodless, I'd be happy if no one used these identifiers at all.
9. When authors take themselves (and their characters) too seriously.
It's okay for a character to be a bucket of sloppy emo - I'm looking at you, Peter Pet. - and it's okay to snigger at them, point out their failings. If we saw them on the street, we'd certainly do that; what's so different about an ink crosswalk, paper highway? More than anything else, I love a writer who can make fun of their characters, and equal amounts of cringe pop up when people push flawed characters up onto pedestals of love and devotion. (Or, for that matter, push them down in the dirt.) Learn from Pretty Balanced: no one is genuinely bad, or genuinely anything.
10. An excess of beauty.
It seems that everyone is beautiful these days. Men? Beautiful, for purposes of fucking with linguistic tradition (especially common in slash). Women? Beautiful, for purposes of linguistic love-making. Calling a character "beautiful" is one of those triggers, the sort that say: NARRATOR IN LOVE WITH THIS PERSON. But even in the throes of love, people are occasionally ugly, clumsy, embarrassing, or do ugly/clumsy/embarrassing things. More to the point: by trying to break out of tradition (slashers, I'm lookin' at you), people create a tradition of their own. Why can't a character be handsome, or another of a whole slew of adjectives? After a while, this feminizing characters - for rarely do I see anyone butchifying a female character - just gets annoying.
(And the bonus essay rec, because I couldn't just stop there...)
11. Said is Not a Four-Letter Word.
Tagging: molly-commas, airspaniel, futuresoon.
II. Compose a list of your ten worst cliches, in any genre. (I chose romance, because there is such opportunity for wank.) Tag three people to do the same.
1. When the author confuses fabulism with purple prose.
Don't get me wrong; I love fabulism. My favorite authors are outright fabulists, I have a definite fabulous fabulist streak in myself, I've been known to consider manslaughter when all I have to read is straight-as-a-board prose. But there is a difference between unique, over-the-top description and the soppy splashes of estrogen that purple prose often is. (All you girls out there, no offense, but we of the female gender are often the worst of this. In the same vein, amateur male writers are often the other way around, skimping on description entirely.) Repetitive, sweet, cliche-filled; if I have to read about someone's endless blue eyes like pools of water or the darkness lurking within his/her soul again, I may scream.
2. "He/she claimed his/her mouth with hungry abandon."
With or without the hungry abandon, I'm of the opinion that this has got to be one of the silliest, most overused romantic phrases ever. (For starters, it's just one of those expressions that snuck onto the linguistic highway without ever making a pit stop for some common sense. I mean, does the act of a kiss involve planting small national flags on the other person's lips? Like other cringe-worthy euphemisms, it can ruin a good passage for me in no time at all.)
3. Younger man, older man, scientist, geneticist, doctor.
The last time I checked, people had names, and in the throes of passion, one does not usually cry out, "Younger man, harder, harder!" Writers often use creative epithets to try and spice up a boring story, but what a lot of them don't realize is that the repetition of names can be just as poignant, and a lot less ridiculous. People just don't use these sorts of identifiers in real life; really, they shouldn't exist in fiction either. Unless you're specifically trying to cultivate distance - another p.o.v., for example - or these people just don't know each others' names, it's best to stick with identifying the characters by their name and not their age/height/job description.
4. "I'm only gay for you."
Grumble, grumble.
5. When all problems to the relationship are outside forces.
Because that's just not how relationships work. Even if you're stuck in the middle of a war zone, trying to deliver a baby on top of a sickly elephant, chances are you'll be focusing less on the bombs shrieking overhead and more on the bickering between you and your girlfriend, who still hasn't forgiven you for what you said about her friend Marjorie last week. People don't work in tandem, and there are conflicts that cannot be resolved with hot, heavy sex. That's just one of the laws of the universe, which brings us to...
6. When the author confuses sex with happily ever after.
The way most relationship fics are set up - problem -> conflict -> resolution -> sex - this unfortunately fairly common. All the problems encountered in the act of getting (or staying) together don't dissipate in the afterglow; they'll still be there, probably now magnified and fairly sticky. Sex complicates. I'd say that's a pretty universal fact.
7. The zombie hand of Rob Lowe.
HAAAAAAAAA.
8. Lover, life partner, girlfriend, boyfriend.
While this technically falls under #3, epithets, I'd say romantic epithets deserve their own category. Perhaps even two categories, homo and hetero, because while boy-girl relationship labels are fairly straightforward, you wouldn't believe some of the things I've heard same-sex relationshipees call each other. Personally, I think partner is fine if you're discussing stock mergers, and lover can be pretty poignant if used properly, but noxious if overused. Boyfriend and girlfriend are probably the most straightforward, but even these can create snags. Really, until someone invents a term that isn't archaic, a warp, or completely bloodless, I'd be happy if no one used these identifiers at all.
9. When authors take themselves (and their characters) too seriously.
It's okay for a character to be a bucket of sloppy emo - I'm looking at you, Peter Pet. - and it's okay to snigger at them, point out their failings. If we saw them on the street, we'd certainly do that; what's so different about an ink crosswalk, paper highway? More than anything else, I love a writer who can make fun of their characters, and equal amounts of cringe pop up when people push flawed characters up onto pedestals of love and devotion. (Or, for that matter, push them down in the dirt.) Learn from Pretty Balanced: no one is genuinely bad, or genuinely anything.
10. An excess of beauty.
It seems that everyone is beautiful these days. Men? Beautiful, for purposes of fucking with linguistic tradition (especially common in slash). Women? Beautiful, for purposes of linguistic love-making. Calling a character "beautiful" is one of those triggers, the sort that say: NARRATOR IN LOVE WITH THIS PERSON. But even in the throes of love, people are occasionally ugly, clumsy, embarrassing, or do ugly/clumsy/embarrassing things. More to the point: by trying to break out of tradition (slashers, I'm lookin' at you), people create a tradition of their own. Why can't a character be handsome, or another of a whole slew of adjectives? After a while, this feminizing characters - for rarely do I see anyone butchifying a female character - just gets annoying.
(And the bonus essay rec, because I couldn't just stop there...)
11. Said is Not a Four-Letter Word.
Tagging: molly-commas, airspaniel, futuresoon.