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foolish_m0rtal Eliminate moving parts
Now I'm an engineer, and one thing they tell us is the instability of a bunch of moving parts. This is why my cell phone is a single solid piece with no moving parts (Blackberry). This is why all of us are going batshit over the solid state hard drives verses the traditional hard drives with the disks and read/write heads. Moving parts have hinges and connectors, which are stress points that are vulnerable and breakable.
These break points should be eliminated in stories that require certain tones. For example, let us look at a prime piece of example fic from yours truly:
He had a little house in Worshire where many of the other professors lived; it wasn’t too grand and a bit smaller than the others since the other professors were older and had wives and children to accommodate, so they were allowed a bit more space.
Okay, so this isn't the worst example I've seen, but it could still be cleaned up. I count two stress points that could be dealt with. Is it significant to the story that he lives near the other professors? This is more of a context thing, but the answer is yes, so we need to keep some of the information from this 'moving part.'
Let's look at the next bit. Do we care that the other professors are older and have more room? Not really. That information is only there to highlight the fact that our main character is young, has no family, and lives in small quarters. This immediately tells us a lot about his financial and social life, which is pretty much the point of the sentence. So if we get rid of moving parts, we might have something like:
He lived in Worshire like most of the faculty and had a little house suitable enough for a young unattached professor with no wife or children.
Different, but better and less distracting. Note that having a fragmented sentence structure can actually help in more hazy abstract tones. You want that sense of breaking and disjointedness. Keeping within the rules of grammar, go with it. Otherwise, try to eliminate the stress points.
(Back to main advice page)
Now I'm an engineer, and one thing they tell us is the instability of a bunch of moving parts. This is why my cell phone is a single solid piece with no moving parts (Blackberry). This is why all of us are going batshit over the solid state hard drives verses the traditional hard drives with the disks and read/write heads. Moving parts have hinges and connectors, which are stress points that are vulnerable and breakable.
These break points should be eliminated in stories that require certain tones. For example, let us look at a prime piece of example fic from yours truly:
He had a little house in Worshire where many of the other professors lived; it wasn’t too grand and a bit smaller than the others since the other professors were older and had wives and children to accommodate, so they were allowed a bit more space.
Okay, so this isn't the worst example I've seen, but it could still be cleaned up. I count two stress points that could be dealt with. Is it significant to the story that he lives near the other professors? This is more of a context thing, but the answer is yes, so we need to keep some of the information from this 'moving part.'
Let's look at the next bit. Do we care that the other professors are older and have more room? Not really. That information is only there to highlight the fact that our main character is young, has no family, and lives in small quarters. This immediately tells us a lot about his financial and social life, which is pretty much the point of the sentence. So if we get rid of moving parts, we might have something like:
He lived in Worshire like most of the faculty and had a little house suitable enough for a young unattached professor with no wife or children.
Different, but better and less distracting. Note that having a fragmented sentence structure can actually help in more hazy abstract tones. You want that sense of breaking and disjointedness. Keeping within the rules of grammar, go with it. Otherwise, try to eliminate the stress points.
(Back to main advice page)
