Dear Author
Jun. 6th, 2005 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
neadodsDear Authors,
If you want to write your book first-person present tense as if I'm sitting down and talking with your protagonist, it would help to make your protagonist someone I'd want to sit down and talk to. For the record, I don't want to talk to vapid, sexist, stupid, foulmouthed women.
Author A, I will grant that your book was set in a time when social classes were rigidly held and a working woman was unusual. To tell the truth, my main complaint is that your keyboard is missing the apostophe. Yes, I understand that it is your character's dialect to drop the "g"s off of any "-ing" suffix. You still have to put in the apostrophe. Every time. No, I'm not the only person who will be bugged by that.
Auther B, your protagonist reads like a 12-year-old trying to pass herself off as an adult on LJ. First: If you want to name-drop designers, then you have to actually use designers. Having your character draw attention to how everything she owns is a designer knockoff only makes her come across as trailor trash. Those of us who don't care about fashions will roll their eyes over the desperation to seem cool; those who do can sniff out a fake a city block away and will ostracize accordingly.
Second: It is offensive as hell for men to refer to women as "made for the sack" or "meat," even in a dance club. Especially in a dance club. Clue: It is equally offensive for women to do so. That she referred to a friend like that only makes the reader understand why said friend would stab her in the back at the first opportunity.
Third: When your heroine can't imagine why she'd be a suspect after a public messy breakup with the victim and when she admits that all she knows about reporters is that they "carry notebooks," it's pretty clear that she's probably too stupid to figure out a subway map. Possibly even too stupid to figure out a subway sandwich. That she thinks she can play girl detective is laughable.
Yes, I am well aware that there are women who think they can get anything they want with a wriggle of their tits - I live in the area that spawned Monica Lewinsky and Washingtonienne - but I guarantee you that neither of them would be able to jiggle their way though an actual homicide investigation. I shall be very disappointed if your heroine doesn't get a massive comeuppance in the course of this writing exercise.
Finally, profanity is like jalapeno - a little has a big impact, a lot just burns you out and leaves you numb.
Disgustedly,
Me
If you want to write your book first-person present tense as if I'm sitting down and talking with your protagonist, it would help to make your protagonist someone I'd want to sit down and talk to. For the record, I don't want to talk to vapid, sexist, stupid, foulmouthed women.
Author A, I will grant that your book was set in a time when social classes were rigidly held and a working woman was unusual. To tell the truth, my main complaint is that your keyboard is missing the apostophe. Yes, I understand that it is your character's dialect to drop the "g"s off of any "-ing" suffix. You still have to put in the apostrophe. Every time. No, I'm not the only person who will be bugged by that.
Auther B, your protagonist reads like a 12-year-old trying to pass herself off as an adult on LJ. First: If you want to name-drop designers, then you have to actually use designers. Having your character draw attention to how everything she owns is a designer knockoff only makes her come across as trailor trash. Those of us who don't care about fashions will roll their eyes over the desperation to seem cool; those who do can sniff out a fake a city block away and will ostracize accordingly.
Second: It is offensive as hell for men to refer to women as "made for the sack" or "meat," even in a dance club. Especially in a dance club. Clue: It is equally offensive for women to do so. That she referred to a friend like that only makes the reader understand why said friend would stab her in the back at the first opportunity.
Third: When your heroine can't imagine why she'd be a suspect after a public messy breakup with the victim and when she admits that all she knows about reporters is that they "carry notebooks," it's pretty clear that she's probably too stupid to figure out a subway map. Possibly even too stupid to figure out a subway sandwich. That she thinks she can play girl detective is laughable.
Yes, I am well aware that there are women who think they can get anything they want with a wriggle of their tits - I live in the area that spawned Monica Lewinsky and Washingtonienne - but I guarantee you that neither of them would be able to jiggle their way though an actual homicide investigation. I shall be very disappointed if your heroine doesn't get a massive comeuppance in the course of this writing exercise.
Finally, profanity is like jalapeno - a little has a big impact, a lot just burns you out and leaves you numb.
Disgustedly,
Me
