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Fandom Meme, 8 & 9
Jul. 19th, 2021 05:02 pm8. Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily "icky", though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar.
TBH my instant backbutton things are almost all formatting issues: the author has put many lines between paragraphs! Or no lines between paragraphs! Or doesn’t use quotation marks! I find this last one aggravating in published novels, too. I probably would have liked Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility at least 10% more if Towles had just used quotation marks instead of getting all artsy with the dialogue punctuation. What does that add to the book? Nothing!
9. What's the hardest thing about writing, and why are titles the Worst™?
Actually, my experience is that titles are either the Worst™ or the Best™, and there is no in-between. Some projects more or less title themselves (Honeytrap was like this), while others valiantly resist all efforts at being titled until the author, weeping, defeated, turns the working title into the actual title of the book.
However, at least for titles, you do have the option of making the working title into the book title. The blurb, on the other hand! The blurb has to be written from scratch every time, and it’s always like pulling teeth, which makes it the Actual Worst.
Except for the time I was writing the summary for the Reciprocity story where Steve and Bucky FINALLY do it, and the summary was "Fucking finally." I still feel that was a high point of my life.
TBH my instant backbutton things are almost all formatting issues: the author has put many lines between paragraphs! Or no lines between paragraphs! Or doesn’t use quotation marks! I find this last one aggravating in published novels, too. I probably would have liked Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility at least 10% more if Towles had just used quotation marks instead of getting all artsy with the dialogue punctuation. What does that add to the book? Nothing!
9. What's the hardest thing about writing, and why are titles the Worst™?
Actually, my experience is that titles are either the Worst™ or the Best™, and there is no in-between. Some projects more or less title themselves (Honeytrap was like this), while others valiantly resist all efforts at being titled until the author, weeping, defeated, turns the working title into the actual title of the book.
However, at least for titles, you do have the option of making the working title into the book title. The blurb, on the other hand! The blurb has to be written from scratch every time, and it’s always like pulling teeth, which makes it the Actual Worst.
Except for the time I was writing the summary for the Reciprocity story where Steve and Bucky FINALLY do it, and the summary was "Fucking finally." I still feel that was a high point of my life.
