I'm reading an old Sil. Desire right now. I'd say late nineties. (On a sidenote: It's not very good. The heroine is too wishy-washy. The hero's not too bad.) And I've come across something that triggered one of my pet peeves.
Insouciant
I'm a fairly well-read individual. And I don't mind bipping along in the literary world and finding words that I don't know. That's what a dictionary and thesaurus are for. And I'm not afraid to use them.
But this author uses this word at least half a dozen times. And for those of us who didn't or don't know what it means...the thesaurus says "carefree."
All right. Carefree. I can get into that. But when an author repeatedly beats me over the head with a word that simply sticks out like a sore thumb because they raided the thesaurus and GOD FORBID they use the simpler term...I become ticked.
I like broadening my literary horizons. It helps me with the writing and whatnot. But having to look up words that really don't even BELONG in a work, well that's just a waste of time and energy. And it really works out to me not buying another book from that author. Period.
Because an author who does this breaks one of the golden rules: Thou shalt not interrupt the flow of the story.
Let the smiting begin.
Grins*
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1 comment:
I've read a few authors who are so busy trying to show how smart they are, it begins to be annoying. Historical authors do that too with detail. Some of it is totally unnecessary and just there to make themselves look like research geniuses.
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