See, this is why contemporary litfic eats ass. Their pointless gatekeeper "rules" are an attempt to strip all meaning and color from fiction writing, and we are all intellectually poorer for this literary burglary.
No adverbs because words that end in -ly are ugly. No words that end in -ing because they are annoying. Can't use the word 's…
See, this is why contemporary litfic eats ass. Their pointless gatekeeper "rules" are an attempt to strip all meaning and color from fiction writing, and we are all intellectually poorer for this literary burglary.
No adverbs because words that end in -ly are ugly. No words that end in -ing because they are annoying. Can't use the word 'said' to describe what was said, and can't use the word the because the the the the the the.
20% of my editing should NOT be deciding whether to OFFEND people with an Oxford comma!!!
Fuck, man. People get so caught up on words. It's almost like they hold the magic power to change people's hearts and minds. Wonder why someone would be afraid of that.
Thanks, Thaddeus, for standing up for language, and the beauty of ALL the words and their various suffix choices.
As an editor who often suggests their clients cut BACK on adverb usage (five in two lines is too many, and I've seen it many times as well.) But the general rule I believe, the one heuristic of a hill I will die on, or murder should it come to that, is a place and time for everything and a thing for every place and time.
I'm not a prescriptivist and I agree with you generally but I'd go so far as to say that experimentally in writing I'm running into completely competent writers from the level of officious grammatical style, which is the barrier to entry into the academy or the halls of the elite, but who lack any sense of style, control, or where punctuation in fiction may ought to actually go.
Because I'm not a prescriptivist but a lingual descriptivist and I'm having a problem with rhymes and half or incomplete rhymes lately but don't understand where it's coming from, I'd also point out that beauty can come from dissonance and contrast, which I'm sure Thaddeus will or has already gotten to, though all of his essays i've yet to be able to get read through, because I'm giving out a free five page dev edit a week and it's suddenly made me into a person people in some corners here listen to. (Along with my apartment exploding and trying to foster community not just around begging for money with my guts out under a stage light with my shirt sweated through.) Though, I'd suggest no one really listen to me if for no reason than sticker shock when they make an editorial inquiry and find out my $125 dollar non-negotiable reading fee is the least shocking thing about the sticker they're looking at. Because if I break it down by the second my hourly rate is $.0125 cents for every tick of the clock that I keep on my desk, and I do round that bitch up to the next full round cent. But, there are always special cases, I love what I do, I'm quite good at it, and I have a sort heart.
And if an Oxford comma offends them who the fuck are they anyway?
I come from the indies and I beg everyone on this platform, please, stop paying so much attention to the big five. Their lottery system was broken before all the mergers and acquisitions. (Together they hold over 650 separate sub-imprints)
But the best thing about this platform is people actually read, interact, and generally are thoughtful.
"No adverbs because words that end in -ly are ugly. No words that end in -ing because they are annoying. Can't use the word 'said' to describe what was said, and can't use the word the because the the the the the the." However I'd suggest that any editor worth their salt wouldn't prescribe such bullshit right off the blocks. Every writer has at least one personal syntax or two, some have entire internal grammars I prefer to lean into. I fucking hate these bland rules the MFA industrial complex provides, New York reinforces, and then heretics paywall claiming they're teaching you something I could have told you was charlatan bullshit before you read it.
But I've been around writing publishing and editing fiction 20 years, so in a sense, I get it.
Fuck there were too many near rhymes in that. I think I'm having a mental break.
See, this is why contemporary litfic eats ass. Their pointless gatekeeper "rules" are an attempt to strip all meaning and color from fiction writing, and we are all intellectually poorer for this literary burglary.
No adverbs because words that end in -ly are ugly. No words that end in -ing because they are annoying. Can't use the word 'said' to describe what was said, and can't use the word the because the the the the the the.
20% of my editing should NOT be deciding whether to OFFEND people with an Oxford comma!!!
Fuck, man. People get so caught up on words. It's almost like they hold the magic power to change people's hearts and minds. Wonder why someone would be afraid of that.
Thanks, Thaddeus, for standing up for language, and the beauty of ALL the words and their various suffix choices.
😂 Thank you!
As an editor who often suggests their clients cut BACK on adverb usage (five in two lines is too many, and I've seen it many times as well.) But the general rule I believe, the one heuristic of a hill I will die on, or murder should it come to that, is a place and time for everything and a thing for every place and time.
I'm not a prescriptivist and I agree with you generally but I'd go so far as to say that experimentally in writing I'm running into completely competent writers from the level of officious grammatical style, which is the barrier to entry into the academy or the halls of the elite, but who lack any sense of style, control, or where punctuation in fiction may ought to actually go.
Because I'm not a prescriptivist but a lingual descriptivist and I'm having a problem with rhymes and half or incomplete rhymes lately but don't understand where it's coming from, I'd also point out that beauty can come from dissonance and contrast, which I'm sure Thaddeus will or has already gotten to, though all of his essays i've yet to be able to get read through, because I'm giving out a free five page dev edit a week and it's suddenly made me into a person people in some corners here listen to. (Along with my apartment exploding and trying to foster community not just around begging for money with my guts out under a stage light with my shirt sweated through.) Though, I'd suggest no one really listen to me if for no reason than sticker shock when they make an editorial inquiry and find out my $125 dollar non-negotiable reading fee is the least shocking thing about the sticker they're looking at. Because if I break it down by the second my hourly rate is $.0125 cents for every tick of the clock that I keep on my desk, and I do round that bitch up to the next full round cent. But, there are always special cases, I love what I do, I'm quite good at it, and I have a sort heart.
And if an Oxford comma offends them who the fuck are they anyway?
I come from the indies and I beg everyone on this platform, please, stop paying so much attention to the big five. Their lottery system was broken before all the mergers and acquisitions. (Together they hold over 650 separate sub-imprints)
But the best thing about this platform is people actually read, interact, and generally are thoughtful.
"No adverbs because words that end in -ly are ugly. No words that end in -ing because they are annoying. Can't use the word 'said' to describe what was said, and can't use the word the because the the the the the the." However I'd suggest that any editor worth their salt wouldn't prescribe such bullshit right off the blocks. Every writer has at least one personal syntax or two, some have entire internal grammars I prefer to lean into. I fucking hate these bland rules the MFA industrial complex provides, New York reinforces, and then heretics paywall claiming they're teaching you something I could have told you was charlatan bullshit before you read it.
But I've been around writing publishing and editing fiction 20 years, so in a sense, I get it.
Fuck there were too many near rhymes in that. I think I'm having a mental break.