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Bad Horse


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Nov
26th
2014

Character names: Re-use versus re-describe · 9:36pm Nov 26th, 2014

Have you got a strong preference for one or the other of these paragraphs?

Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Pinkie Pie applauded and cheered as Dash trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. Pinkie whooped even louder as Dash began sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Pinkie applauded and cheered as the rainbow-maned flier trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. The pink party pony whooped even louder as Dash began sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

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Comments ( 42 )

FIRST! The first paragraph, that is.

Pinkie whooped

I'd argue that you can use 'She' here since you refer to Dash by name later in the sentence.

Pinkie applauded

That should still be 'Pinkie Pie,' yeah?

That said, paragraph #1 every time, please.

Is it possible to do this experiment while controlling for the effect of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome?

The repetition of "Dash" in the first paragraph is jarring. I like the second paragraph more, but I think in this case it might be even better to skip the re-description:

Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Pinkie applauded and cheered as she trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. The pink party pony whooped even louder as Dash began sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

I think that technically this is bad form, but it seems to flow better. I don't think that there is much risk of confusion about which pony "she" is referring to, since only one pony mentioned in the paragraph even has wings.

Strongly prefer #1. "Rainbow-maned flyer" isn't my preference, but doesn't particularly bother me, since her flying is relevant to the passage. "Pink party pony," on the other hand, sticks out like a sore thumb to me, because there's nothing in this paragraph about partying.

That said, there's no reason the second and third sentences can't be reworded or combined to reduce the name use, if it bothers you. Something like

Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. She trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. Pinkie Pie cheered and applauded, then whooped even louder as Dash began sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

Both options need some work on word repetition and sentence structure, but the first is the better off of the two.

Honestly, I'd try to rewrite the paragraph to avoid this dilemma as much as I could.

First paragraph, please.

As to why...

The befuddled Ponygod was taken aback. "Surely, use of pronouns and proper names is preferable to constantly varying synonyms...?"

The lavender mare gave a negating headshake. "Composers of stories prefer to vary words, avoiding stultifying repetition!" The small mauve filly caressed a weighty book of synonyms with reverence.

The cream-colored, polychromatic-maned celestial mare neighed in the negative. "Among the words said to be invisible in any language are surely the articles, conjunctions and pronouns. Must an author really count how many times the words 'the' and 'and' are used in paragraphs, and try to minimize the occurrences? Each time a new euphemism for a character is introduced, the reader is further distracted or confused!"

The violet female pony shivered. "Articles? Conjunctions? Duplicated?! Eliminate all!"

(From chapter's end of this, my story.)

I like elements from both paragraphs? Maybe something like:

Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Pinkie Pie applauded and cheered as the rainbow-maned flier trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. She whooped even louder as Dash began sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

The "rainbow-maned flier" screams of action, which you might want to emphasize.

However, I like this:

The pink party pony whooped even louder

in maybe a more comedic situation because of the alliteration. Alliteration is awesomely funny to me. You would be guaranteed to see this kind of thing in a Bronystories story or a GaryOak clopfic simply for the sake of being stupidly hilarious.

I dunno. I guess it depends on the situation? If it's a more serious tone, the first paragraph. If it's suppose to be funny, or action packed wordy fun, the second one.

I like fewer words in general. Out of those two, I like the first one better. It does have a problem with repetition. Perhaps using single-word replacements? If it's just the two of them you could easily do something like this:

as the pegasus trimmed her wings back

I do find Pinkie to be pretty good on it's own. Both a name and fairly descriptive, as well as brief.

Rewriting to avoid the repetition would be a good thing as well. Simply reducing the amount of names and/or pronouns in a story is tough, but I found it to be worthwhile in improving my own writing.

Repetition vs the ever infamous lavender unicorn syndrome. I'd rather have neither, thank you very much. :rainbowkiss: My take would be something like:

Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Pinkie applauded and cheered as her friend trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. She [is it still clear from the last sentence that Pinkie's still the sentence subject, though?] whooped even louder as Dash began sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

But hey, I ain't even an English native speaker. :pinkiecrazy:


Also, what 2618050 said.

Re-describing always struck me as horridly tedious. Fine for a paragraph or two, but painfully irritating if carried out over the course of an entire story. I know she has a rainbow mane. Don't waste words telling me she has a rainbow mane unless you either suspect I've forgotten (and I assure you that I haven't) or because it is essential to the scene that she has a rainbow mane or that someone notices that she has a rainbow mane. Otherwise, why are you wasting my time?

Names are like 'said/asked.' It's okay to repeat them because readers automatically gloss over them anyway. They rarely become distracting, unless you're really going overboard.

The first one. The other is horrible. I know she's a pink party pony, but there's no need to mention that she's a pink party pony; it's distracting. Nor would you need to mention Rainbow's rainbow mane—unless you were contrasting her colors with the color of the sky.

2618038 No, because it's about repetition versus the lavender unicorn.

I'm a fan of consistency in names. Like Hemingway calling the protagonist of For Whom The Bell Tolls by his full name, "Robert Jordan," in every instance. To me it's jarring enough to have "Rainbow Dash" and "Dash" in the same paragraph.

2618027 2618031 2618042 2618043 2618049 2618050 2618060 2618061 2618066 2618070 2618092 2618105

I didn't say where I got the paragraphs from because I didn't want to prejudice your answers. The paragraphs come from Equestria Daily's Editor's Omnibus:

This concept of not repeating a word too often holds true for characters as well. You do not always have to use a character's name when a short description or a pronoun will do.

Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Pinkie Pie applauded and cheered as Rainbow Dash trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. Pinkie Pie whooped even louder as Rainbow Dash began to spin, sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

In the above paragraph, the name "Rainbow Dash" appears three times and "Pinkie Pie" twice. This gets repetitive and tiring to read. Try replacing some of these with a short description.

Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Pinkie applauded and cheered as the rainbow-maned flier trimmed her wings and tilted her head back, throwing herself into a spin. The pink party pony whooped even louder as Dash began to spin, sending a spray of water droplets in all directions.

In this paragraph, the proper names for our marshmallow cuties are used, and descriptions were sparingly mixed into the narrative. It's still clear which pony is doing what, and it breaks up the monotony of over-used repetitions.

I edited the first paragraph to say "Dash" instead of "Rainbow Dash", to make it less of a straw man, and I fixed them both so Dash doesn't begin to spin twice.

2618126 This from the guy who's changed his username twice this year.

2618144
Ponyfeathers. That's really unfortunate.

100% with 2618043 2618092 2618105. The repetition of the first paragraph doesn't even register for me. (Although it does if the author insists on using their full names each time; "Pinkie" is gloss but several repetitions of "Pinkie Pie" starts to become noticeable. It's even worse if the full name is obtrusive, like "Twilight Sparkle".)

EDIT:
2618144 Oh snap. They're gonna have to change that. I'm pretty sure EqD complains about LUS too.

Of the two choices, I prefer the first one. However, after reading through it a few times, I couldn't shake the thought that the prose was a bit stilted. (Likely just my brain being its weird self, lol)

If I may offer a slight revision:

Rainbow Dash rocketed into the sky, her wings working hard to gain the speed she would need. Pinkie Pie's loud cheers faded from her ears as she rapidly gained altitude before trimming her wings and tilting her back into a tight spin. Water droplets sprayed from her body in all directions as she became a blur in the air. Down below, Pinkie whooped even louder as she turned her face to the sky, dancing jubilantly as the water fell on her like a gentle shower.

Chances are, I've now butchered this with too much adjective salad, lol. >.>

I think that the real problem here is that the second and third sentences are too similar, which makes both paragraphs kind of ugly. I suspect that if you rearranged the second or third sentences, or combined them somehow, or eliminated one of Pinkie's cheers, it would parse much better.

Not that I think this is a real paragraph, mind you, just that I think that the actual solution to this problem lies somewhere else. Repeating any word too often is distracting, even names, but throwing in a bunch of synonyms for no good reason isn't really a good idea.

I think "rainbow-maned flier" and "pink party pony" are also way too LUS-y.

If I was going to stick with these sentences, I'd use the first one but switch out "Dash" in the second sentence for a synonym, but a very simple, unobtrusive one; "the pegasus" or "her friend", rather than "rainbow-maned flier". Both are relevant to the action (pegasus flying, Pinkie Pie cheering for her friend) but they're both much less expensive than "rainbow-maned".

I strongly prefer #1, though it could use pronouns like "she" to break up some of the repetition.

2618144
I don't get it... Are you implying getting published on EqD is a determinant of a story quality? :pinkiecrazy:

On a more serious note: the quality of stories put up there should rise with the supply (marketing laws, since there's no price to pay for the story :raritywink:), and the omnibus is very much out of date at this point. Following all the rules there would most likely make the pre-reader fail your story hard for reasons much more serious than LUS. It still holds some general pointers for the famous-writer-wannabes, though.

Or maybe it's simply because you have outgrown the omnibus yourself, that you're able to spot nonsensical rules which would drag you down rather than help you improve. :pinkiehappy:

2618144

Heh. I knew instantly where you got these paragraphs from.

I don't understand why writers have problems with this kind of thing. At all. It's not as if LUS and reusing names exhaust the options. Pronouns are a thing, and where those would be ambiguous, one-word redescriptions are usually enough. This isn't rocket surgery.

Another vote for the first. I strongly dislike lavender unicorn substitution used used randomly. The character name or a pronoun should do fine for regular narration. I think you should only a lavender unicorn lavender unicorn substitution when you have a special effect in mind. For example:

1. The point of view character is unfamiliar with the described character. When Applejack looks at Twilight, she sees Twilight. When Mayor Mare looks at Twilight she probably sees "Mrs Sparkle" on account of their relationship being more professional. When Darkmane Stornborn von OC looks at Twilight having just come to Ponyville to learn the magic of friendship he sees a lavender unicorn or a lavender librarian (if he's in the library).
2. You want to emphasise something. For example, a very memorable line from Twisted Choices Through Time

"I apologize for my behavior," said the Father or Modern Magic. "You are truly the superior wizard."

Twilight knows the figure to be Starswirl the Fifth, but the substitution here works to show us how surreal she finds his words.

I think redescribing has its place in reminding readers how the character looked.

Now this might not be a problem with fan fiction using pre-established characters, but often I find myself forgetting how the OCs of the particular story looked, unless its appearance is not at least subtly referenced to and the mental image reinforced gradually during the path of the story.

So in short I would say yes, re-describe, but not too often (perhaps only once a chapter).

Defninately number 2. I am a VERY visual reader and descriptions trump names any day.

I hate them both equally.

I find focusing on this kind of nit-picking rather silly. Neither of those would jar me out of reading a story that had already drawn me in and captured my attention, so to me one's as good as another in story I'm enjoying, and neither of them would make a story I wasn't enjoying tolerable.

First.

Yes, it could be better and reduce the repetitions, but it didn't make me gag like the second one did.

First. Call it what you will, I think the alternative is confusing. Consider it from the general fiction perspective: if these were regular run-of-the-mill humans you were writing about (and neglecting the flying aspect for a second), you'd definitely repeat the character names to establish subject vs identifying them by a physical trait.

Can I go with neither? Repetition of words bother me to no end. In fact, "wings" being reused on both fragments annoys me greatly. As for the second, the descriptions don't add anything to the paragraph, and make it hard to keep track of who is doing what.

There is most likely a way to say the same thing in a way that doesn't need to identify the characters all the time.

I prefer the first, though I would replace the first instance of "as Dash" with "as the pegasus" or something equally simple and non-pronoun. The rest is fine.

2618144 Ah, and then I read the comments. I totally stand by my statement as long as we're talking about the two paragraphs at the top. :twilightsmile:

2618223
You saved me a reply and a blog post.

I tend towards the first, because doing the second just ends up confusing me.

After some more thought, here's a potential third option:
If a passage is grating against some storytelling 'rule' or edging into a grammatically grey area, rewriting it is always an option. In this particular case, and this is merely a suggestion, a few more sentences of description could allow the whole passage to be split into two or more paragraphs with perfectly distinguishable subjects and no name repetition issues.

Hmm... I'm sensing that there's gonna be an intellectual argument here soon. And what goes good with intellectual bickering? Thread derailment. Eee hee hee! c: This is going to be gre—

*sees the massive, fuckheug, shiny metal dragon who expels MWoTs[1] more often than fire sitting in the middle of the room*

Ok, nevermind. Do not want. I'll just watch from sidelines. It seems like BH might be getting at something with this and wants to teach something truly profound about repeating crap vs Purple Unitard Sickness, or he's seeing how humble we are before he passes judgement on everything with his evil nuke lazer as per usual.

Umm... Titanium Dragon? Can you please avert your eyes from my scrumptious catboi form? I might be made of flesh and metal, but Bad Horse is made of treasure. It would appear that someone shoved a Mox Diamond in his evil horse mouth. You should, like, see if he might want to part with it. Like, yeah...

*nonchalantly punches out a window, sweeps out the broken glass from the frame with a sleeve, and then casually flings himself out*

2618144

>> Honeycomb This from the guy who's changed his username twice this year.

You must tell me his names! I must know...

[1]Mighty Wall of Text. It's an inside joke from AoM ;)

Huh, does non-pony writing suffer from Lavender Unicorn Syndrome or is it something unique to pony-writing? Because I honestly can't remember if I've seen a human centric work suffer from this kind of problem.

I prefer the first, though the second could work too, with some minor changes...

2618144 The paragraphs come from Equestria Daily's Editor's Omnibus:

*cough* ah, well, that doesn't actually surprise me too much, because the omnibus, ah, well...see...you know what, I'm just not gonna say anything. I respect the Eqd team for all the work they do. I'll let the evidence speak for itself.

2618114 Ah. The consensus on LUS being bad is so strong I assumed you were at least partly thinking about proper nouns vs. descriptors, which is different but not really isolate-able -- but of course all that repetition is bad as well.

That said, I don't think it's strictly a trade-off. Lavender unicornisms are annoying because they're excessively purple (fancy that) and distracting compared to more standard handles, but you can still change it up while using lower-cost terms -- say "pegasus" instead of "rainbow-maned flier", for instance. In fact, one way to avoid hammering on names too much in a scene with one female and one male character is to rely entirely on pronouns instead, because they're so much more invisible than even names; races like "pegasus" and "unicorn" aren't as invisible as pronouns, but they could serve a similar purpose for revising scenes like this, since a pony scene is a lot more likely to have two or more (sub)species than it is to have one male and one female.

TL;DR: names aren't always the most invisible option, and avoiding repetition is still worth it if you don't trade it against invisibility.

2618862
In the world of prewar pulp magazine mysteries and crime stories, this kind of thing is called "Burly Detective Syndrome." It is a close cousin to "saidbookism."

You may wish to refer to the Turkey City Lexicon, a collection of thoughts on writing stemming from participants' notes taken at the Clarion science fiction writers' workshops of the 1970s and 1980s.

http://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/

I have no problem at all with #1 and feel the only issue is it could stand not to use names at all in places. Denotion could be handled by more evocative description.

#2 on the other hand brings description to redundancy by describing the characters for no reason when what really matters is what the characters are doing, not reminding us who they are. Especially these descriptions: "rainbow-maned" is already redundant, but then "flier" is not only redundant since she was described flying in the previous sentence but also as blandly non-dynamic as you can get describing Rainbow Dash. But "pink party pony" is even worse because the "party" part is purely character reference which is completely irrelevant since we already know who "pink pony" refers to. At this point you might as well becalling her a nickname, and at that point might as well use her actual name.

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