A writing rule that's straight-up wrong · 11:55am Mar 20th, 2013
copied over from /fic/
Lavender Unicorn Syndrome is bullshit. Of all the "rules" for you to follow, Lavender Unicorn Syndrome is by far the worst. It's not even good as a "beginner" rule to follow until you get better at stuff. It's just bad. Starting now, you should pretend you never even heard that advice, and you should start following my advice instead. In fact, I'm going to go through this post to find-and-replace instances of "LUS" with "epithets.
because Lavender Unicorn Syndrome is not a real thing.
Even worse is the fact that people tend to advise you to use pronouns instead of epithets.
I have an English teacher who penalizes papers for using pronouns. And I am talking any pronouns, even if they're quite clearly correct. Clearly this practice is even more bullshitty than telling people to use pronouns instead of epithets, but the teacher does it to his students for a reason: It makes it so you have no chance of ever writing a "boring" pronoun, or one with a questionable antecedent. I now have to go through every single pronoun in what I write for that class and basically replace it with an epithet.
I used a big word here. Not everyone will know it, but it works for what it does
This teacher would prefer if I wrote:
I used a big word here. Not everyone will know the word, but the word worked for what the word does.
That's hideous, and the very reason people use epithets in the first place, but in practice, the rule would've encouraged me to write this:
I used a big word here. Not everyone will know such a big word, but the very specific adjective worked for the situation.
See how not using the adverbs got me to write something more descriptive and meaningful? And do you see how I used an epithet with "the very specific adjective?" I provide this example because, whereas some would advise you to use pronouns and risk doing word repetition of a character's name rather than using an epithet, you should do this instead: tear apart the sentence itself and make it better. Including if that involves an epithet.
Here's an example of a bad epithet:
Flushing hard, Celestia allowed Twilight’s urging to push her nose down until it bumped against the unicorn’s [sexy bits~] the scent of her at that range inescapable, making the alicorn whimper faintly and shudder, already grinding her thighs together slowly.
I dunno about you, but I hate the use of "the alicorn" there. Some of you might find it forgivable, but the fic that this is from does it constantly.
Now, other people will tell you that referring to a character by an epithet i.e. "the lavender unicorn" reads badly because you're mentioning attributes that we already know about. They're lying; they just don't like it because "the unicorn" and "the pink party pony" get overused so much.
I have a more specific, and in my opinion much more useful and more correct, reason for avoiding epithets.
See, to my eye, the little quote I pasted above (which is from an actual fanfic that I reviewed way back when) is saying that "a unicorn" is the one whose sexy bits are being serviced, and "some alicorn" is whimpering. The problem isn't that it's redundant description--quite the opposite. It's non-specific, it's boring, it's amateurish. It's specifying a character in the vaguest most boring possible terms.
The opposite--being specific for no reason--is also possible. If I was describing Twilight having tea, I wouldn't refer to her as "the librarian unicorn." She's not acting in her capacity as a librarian, is she? So why call her out as such?
Let's have a look at another passage from the same fic that's an acceptable or even good example of epithets:
Celestia shook her head the small amount she could, and then pressed another firm lick across her student’s purple-furred gahahahaha this fic sucks so much
Putting aside how hilarious "purple-furred entrance" is, note that "her student" is actually meaningful here. It refers to Celestia's relationship to the other party, and it might even enhance the description. See, the mentioning of Twilight as a "student" emphasizes the fact that the more usual relationship between the two is a student-teacher one. In practice, of course, it's soon sullied by the fact that "her student" is used repeatedly in this fic, until the novelty of a character being submissive in bed to her student wears off. But we can close our eyes and pretend, can't we?
Let's grab another example of good epithets from a fic that isn't crap. In fact, let's use a fic that's one of my favorites.
Dashie wouldn’t squirm or be sexy at first, until Applejack had stroked her belly for a while and nuzzled her from behind—then the sulking pegasus loosened up a little, and began to breathe heavily and wriggle.
Sulking pegasus. Because she's sulking! Sure it's sorta like we're talking about "just some pegasus in the room," but this time we identify the pegasus as the one who's being all sulky. And it matters that she's being sulky.
So, the tl;dr version:
Don't use epithets, because they are impersonal and they hide your image behind bad writing.
Use epithets, because they are a a quick and natural way to emphasize something about a character.
Side note: Now that throwing out a story update gets you a brief run on the front page, I think imma take all my aborted story "pitches" from this blog and stick them into that shortfic collection that I created way way back in the beginning of my ponyficcing career. I really like all those things and can totally stand beside their writing quality, and besides, this seems like just the thing for attention whorsing for as long as my time is occupied by playing Guild Wars 2 in order to avoid doing important schoolwork.
Awww, thanks
My own take on it is this: I'll throw in lavender unicorns if the lavender-ness is in some way important, or if I absolutely HAVE to reserve 'her' for one specific character in that sentence. The thing that'll kill ya is
hehehe… changed referent for 'her' one-two-THREE times in one sentence.
Hell, even 'Celestia allowed Twilight's urging to push her nose down' borders on being unclear—you've really gotta watch out. Nine-tenths of my revising as I go is about catching these unclearnesses, and damn right I'll throw in as many lavender unicorns as I like to make the result absolutely clear, and I'll dress them up by communicating additional (or less-redundant) information but the real purpose is to avoid the pronoun confusions. It's subtle but crucial.
I've even had characters indicate confusion and hysteria by spouting a torrent of dialogue loaded with unclear 'her', though I'm having a hell of a time thinking of exactly who or where. But I remember somepony did exactly that, greatly perplexing the listener.
933639
I noticed that when I was sifting for a quote from you. You had a couple of straight-up lavender unicorns in the form of, literally, a cerulean pegasus here and there. And sure enough, it was forgivable--I don't think I would trip on it if I were to read the scene again. Evidence for the rule being BS. Possibly because the actual descriptor "lavender unicorn" is in keeping with my advice--a quick reference to the color of the unicorn who's doing whatever is relevant plenty of the time.
What I really wanted was a humorous one, like "pega-slut" or something awesome, but this was the first really clear example I came across.
Hell, maybe THAT'S what I don't like about these, more than the fact that they're impersonal--that they try to anchor a pronoun-antecedent and don't even succeed at that.
Actually, I'll say thanks for clearing that up. It always seemed to me that actual LUS (such as it is) is more a matter of over-correction for too many pronouns. It's more a question of getting out of hand with bizzare and increasingly obscure epithets, I think. That is to say, the problem was always more acurately "cerulean pegasus syndrome," because who the hell knows what cerulean looks like?
It reminds me of anther blog (I'll link to it asap) on show vs. tell. Sometimes it's better, and just easier, to tell the reader what the main characters did, rather than show us breakfast in all of its cereal glory. (I'm looking at you, the late Robert Jordan)
934668
I've got quite a lot to say about show-don't-tell. That'll be the next one.
Can't find the actual blog, but it's Bookplayer.
LUS is fine in small quantities. It's also useful when it actually adds new information (for the twentieth time, the mailmare is gray? No shit!) or there are so many characters present that names get overused and pronouns are ambiguous. Rules are there for a reason. You don't have to follow them all the time, but don't let your teacher's overzealous enforcement of one end of the spectrum make you cling to the other. Many teachers also discourage using "said," but overbearing avoidance of it is just as bad. Your teacher is an English teacher, not a writing teacher. They do these things to make you think, not to show you how you should write.
934668
Telling what the characters did isn't a show-versus-tell issue. Saying how they did it is.
937477 That's a good point. I've also seen it argued that if you can tell something in a more interesting way than you could show it (because you're awesome in the same way as Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett) than you should do that instead.
The point remains: keep it interesting without making it confusing. I still struggle with this one myself.
937723
Thanks for pointing that out--it'll be in the next post for sure.
937474
I juuuust posted about that.
http://mlpchan.net/fic/res/3582.html#4795