O, the crap I will reach for when I fumble for words. Excerpt:


"Lyonet responds to Gareth's disguise, reducing it to a public subjectivity that would say such hard criticisms; her words address the stereotype and assume it incapable of defeating two knights even after that has been done."

What? Reducing? Public subjectivity? Stereotype? Both my readers quirked an eyebrow and, at best, underlined it, and at worst, labeled it "unclear phrasing."

It's true.

There are at least two kinds of C-grade writing. The first is the one that I ridiculed before. It's fairly barebones, functional writing that is barely grammatically passable before a pass through the electronic proofreader. Stilted phrasing, schematic writing riddled with clunky language, so on.

I've committed the second one, where people introduce words and phrases that certainly mean something at the time, and may indeed do so at a high level, but which otherwise use such disgusting cliched obfuscating terms as "public subjectivity" and "reducing."

What does reducing mean? Well, in this sense I mean it's a degraded sort of perspective compared to Lyonet's own one, a more two dimensional one. What is the public subjectivity? Why, it's the way the aristocratic court would see Gareth in disguise, how they would judge and be biased against him. The stereotype isn't a large problem; it refers to his being an uppity kitchen knave, and that's clear when it's not in excerpt.

So how do I redo it?

"Lyonet responds to Gareth’s disguise by berating him as an aristocratic court might; her words address the kitchen knave stereotype and assume that the knave is incapable of defeating two knights even after that has been accomplished."

Clearer, I hope. I just had to rework a couple of words as I posted it. Whee, writing!

Good writers are the ones that have the sense of when to revise, and how, and that aren't afraid of making large changes.

Great writers do it better.


I'd say I'm pretty good. I'd say I'm pretty too, but that's off topic. ;)