It's disconcerting
Understatement of the decade! How can a guy be competent if he cannot plan? How can he plan if the people he is supposed to trust implicitly--and impress with his competence--systematically undermine him in what shoukd be their best moments together?
Okay. Now let's find out how the ladies see this. That is, if they're willing to open up about it. (Dangerous words, indeed.)
Making progress. I expect to have the easy 4,000 words done by tomorrow. Then, the hard part.
I'm planning, tentatively, to get very nasty with a feminine habit that can drive men to distraction: The woman who says she doesn't want dessert, but helps herself to the dessert her husband/boyfriend/date orders. I figure there must be a reason for it besides cussedness and an excuse to yield to temptation whilst virtuously denying it. Sharing as bonding, maybe? Or just a desire to strike back at the boor who put temptation in front of her?
I've been hung up for four days on a scene shift. A conversation is cut off by a scene break. It continues right after the break, with the same ensemble in a different place. Easy cinematic effect and a basic writing device, and I can't make it work smoothly!
But last night I saw a way to interrupt the flow to good effect--a better result than I'd hoped for the other way. I woke up without forgetting it, and after a few false starts I've got a hundred odd words that I like.
Oh, I believe that at one time the British used 'draught' for all the meanings given in the article. You might have to go back to early Agatha Christie, or even to Sherlock Holmes. The sense was 'draw' as in pull or withdraw.
Memories are what we know them to be. Feelings are immediate and often unprocessed.
Maybe the dragons have to learn that humans feel disgust about dragon-style hunting?
Maybe read =That Hideous Strength= and pay attention to how Mr. Bultitude's feelings are described?
'Draughts' is also used to mean the game of checkers.
I like the idea, though I suggest it come in fits and starts as a surprise. And one of the pair pushed it away and needs to learm to let it happen.
What happens on the human side?
Jeopardy: rope frays. Pons wedges knife between fish's plates. Fish thrashes, Pons dodges, rope breaks, fish falls, tail fins slicing like machete through brush. Impact drives knife home, severing fish's spine. Valharic appears. ... Pons recovers knife, which is gouged by the fish's armor.
Alda tosses the last beans, and birds settle over it.
I wouldn't call PJ O'Rourke's writing majestic. It's more anti-majestic, in the style of The Vagabond King. But it is brilliant, especially the illustration of Riccardo's Law of Comparative Advantage.
I've gpt the battle typed up; about 1000 words. The next part is talk, should come in a little shorter.
Maybe Hinkey accidentally transported someone else?
Or someone deliberately slipped in, either for innocent reasons or ro make mischief ... for Hinkey or for history?
You could always let the Mormons become the Tabernacle of Wales.
Agreed that you should review, as much as possible, within the author's style. But sometimes that style works against the story or the telling, so your best contribution will criticize style. In which case, you should keep it gentle and constructive, especially when reviewer and author haven't come to understand each other.
There are books written entirely in the historical present.
Hmm. In the presence of the offender, I prefer to suppress the eye roll and the gutter vocalization, hanging my head instead. But (pardon the spelling) chacon a son gout!
I usually wince over my VISA bill.
Hmm. Isn't long, loud, drawn-out sigh usually the first expression of exasperation?
I too have thesauruses. As to where I get my news ... It's not talk shows, whether F&F or The View. Funny you should feel the need to drag politics into a discussion about the meaning of a word.
Does politics define everything about a person? Is your worst slur "He's one of THEM?" What would that say about you?
Exasperation is a reaction to people. It differs from frustration in that the source of the difficulty is a person (or person substitute, like a dog whose personality you know). The respect for that other person may lead to blame, but the inherent frustration is presumably blunted by respect for the other's personhood.
If you disagree, tell me where and how. We can discuss the matter, or we may end up accepting our disagreement. Anything else makes as much sense as judging the other person by the color(s) of his avatar.
Probably not. But dictionaries don't explain the difference between real and reactive power. They're not about fine, deep distinctions.
Are you writing for the dictionary or the reader?
Exasperation is not just irritation. It's related to frustration, though it's causes are slightly different. Frustration comes from one's purpose being thwarted, by purpose or accidend. Exasperation is a lesser emotion and results from the failure of another to understand or conform.
You can read feeling in the eyes, yes, but can you narrow it to exasperation?
And does exasperation constitute burning, or is that require a different species of frustration?
If you can't identify the emotion from the eyes alone, you need other description.
The real problem is that you're mixing external description with internal emoting.
BAMF! has been used for the noise of air displacement from teleporting. Maybe 'djomp'?
You mean like Ravel's =Bolero=?
Maybe look for a two-syllable compound?
Added thought on the little review:
Fartravel -- four syllables, and awkward, for a bit of 'tech'. After a decade or two, people would be saying 'Farter' or they'd invent other terms. (Are you old enough to remember https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrvergnügen ?) Anyway, if people could substitute a short walk, it doesn't seem very Far.
Heinlein was a genius at this. He could drop a nonce term like Welton Fine-grain or Burroughs Bachelor Buggy and the reader would get it at once.
