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Rant Alert!

Okay, there is this trend on, well, everywhere that is ruining my immersion in stories because I get irrationally annoyed with the author. I would lose my zen if he or she were present and demand to know in what idiot universe “far” was acceptable word choice. It’s like you’re happily reading in your favorite chair, with your favorite blanket, and your favorite lap cat, when someone runs up and shoves an air horn in your ear.

 

She was far prettier than even she realized.

She was prettier than even she realized.

People forgot they were eating in mid-chew when she entered a room.

 

It’s far more important to fight the dragon than to take the treasure.

It’s more important to fight the dragon than to take the treasure.

Fighting the dragon meant eternal glory in the halls of Valhalla. You can’t take treasure with you when you die.

 

Far is the new very. It’s overused, it doesn’t provide emphasis, and it’s just lazy. I’m not a great writer, and I don’t have all the answers, but I am a great reader and know what doesn’t work for me.

There are a bazillion posts on Pinterest with infographics on what words to use instead of very. I think there is even a meme from that one movie with Robin Williams and school. Hang tight, let me find it.

So let’s skip over the part about wooing women, although sometimes a good wooing is appreciated. (Let’s not be prim, we’re writers. Even if you’ve been married 60 years, the feeling of being wooed by Mr. Darcy is still beautiful. Your husband/wife flirting with you after your 4th child is still exhilarating.)

You ARE wooing your audience. You must woo your publishers. Unless you write purely for the pleasure of your cats (which is also fine, but Kronos won’t sit still long enough to listen to me), then you must woo your audience with your command of language, imagery, and emotion.

Sure, use far in the first draft. Even the second. But drop it like an angry raccoon before you publish. You can do better. We can all do better.

So let’s take a stand against the villainy of “very” and “far.” (Unless far is being used to express distance.) We will not be lazy in wooing our audience. We will write well because it is a shame to labor over a thing and have it turn out poorly when there is a simple fix.

It’s Wednesday, my dudes!

It’s also November 1st, which means that NaNoWriMo has begun! I am pleased to announce I wrote 1,963 words today to the nostalgic sounds of the Chrono Trigger soundtrack.

Lari is lost, confused, and generally handling things better than I think she should be. Being lost in a strange world is terrifying after all. Or at least it should be. Poor girl. I’ll have to throw some more terrible things at her.

The writing prompt tells me to explain why I started a blog. Who cares! It’s fun. It’s a place to ramble where nobody has to listen if they don’t want to. If they’re going to listen/read, then that is their business.

I suppose there will be updates on my novels if I ever get around to finishing or publishing one. Subversion (staring Lari and Venn) is my NaNoWriMo project for 2017. Seducing the Djinn was my Camp NaNoWriMo project this past summer. It’s at 50,000 or 60,000 words now, and the plot stinks. It makes no sense, there is no conflict, nothing terrible happens, and I want to vomit on the whole thing. But that’s what first drafts are for I’m told.

What know that our high school teachers had it right on this whole “do a rough draft then fix it and make it good thing”? Oh well. Props to them.

I am also planning on doing an epistolary novel on Wattpad where you can also find me as Elena Landis. Don’t get too excited yet. I made the cover for it, and that’s about it.

Back to real adult work for now. And the puppy. He’s a little clingy today.