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

[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.