Verbal annoyances

[easol.livejournal.com]

Y'know, people often talk about LKH's unbelievable metaphors ("evil chocolate in your ice cream" or whatever the hell that was), her smells, her silly "gawth" names, or her tendency to describe in detail what every character is wearing. But I find that there are a lot of verbal tics that bother me just as much.

Edit -- Similes: It feels like LKH cannot go through a paragraph without at least one terrible and/or vague simile, even when a simile is not needed. "... the fire burned us both like a force of nature"? Yeah, way to kill the drama.

Shading: Note to LKH -- I do not care how many shades lighter X's eyes are than Y's, or how many shades darker their shirt is. What are you using, paint chips?

"... Across My Skin": Words cannot express how sick I am of this phrase.

"White Bread": I hate this with a passion. What the hell is wrong with just saying "Hispanic" or "black"?

Rude conversations: If you are going to have people talking about the heroine like she isn't even there, then write books in the third person. It's just annoying to have people dissecting Whorenita's emotions while she sits there and drools.

Well, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Does anyone else have 'em?

Comments

[dwg.livejournal.com]

OHYESAND, "Let me test my understanding here," wherein something so. mindblowingly. obvious and simple has to be explained in painful detail for Anita/Merry to get wrong and then explained all over again.

Seriously, just hire a translator, or get everyone to speak really slowly like they're talking to an idiot savant. Because in a way, they really, really are.

[nimnix.livejournal.com]

The phrase "idiot savant" implies the presence of some form of skill. We are talking about Anita, right? I'm sure any skill she's had has atrophied from lack of use.

I don't remember Anite being all that retarded in the early books. It's amazing she can breathe and eat now considering how often she has to "test her understanding".

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Well, she does have that phenomenal skill in somehow hoodwinking every person with a Y chromasome into worshipping and luffing her liek woah. But other than that, you've got a point.

[nimnix.livejournal.com]

That's not even her skill... she had to borrow it from JC :P

[hellozombies.livejournal.com]

LMAO. Good one.

Maybe someone should point that out to LKH? I'm sure she wouldn't like her precious Anita being completely unoriginal. She has to be the BESTEST, dammit!

[nimnix.livejournal.com]

Well, she is amazing at turning even me off with her sex scenes, and I'm a huge perv. Of course I don't normally consider that a skill, more of an unfortunate side-effect of reading her work.

How would she even recognize Anita as being unoriginal, anyway? She'd have to go on the scaaaary internets and read something outside of her comfort zone, like research.

[bludflower.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah... That one goes hand in hand with dim Anita's "What's THAT supposed to mean!?!"

[easol.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hate that too. Even if she didn't use it constantly, it's such a stupid phrase. Sounds like something a pompous windbag boss would say because he's too dim to follow.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

Oh GOD the stupid, stupid repetition. Which is invariably designed to make it clear that Their Ways Are Not Like Our Ways and Poor Anita Must Work Around Normal Human Understanding To Comprehend The Ways Of The Supernatural. And it's never anything mindblowing enough to warrant the reaction. Certainly, a good Catholic girl from the Midwest might go, "You want me to do WHAT with your mermaids?" but the painful spelling out every single thing is just not how humans work.