The Editor from Hell's Hitlist

By Jeanne and the Gang

Note: This article isn't for everybody. People who write fanfic just to write fanfic and have a happy time with their characters needn't bother to read it. It's intended for fanwriters who've said they want to be told when their writing is clichéd, purple, or simply wrong. So now we've told you. Go and sin no more.

I. Sins Against English that Cry to Heaven for Vengeance

• The throws of ecstasy.  And the chenille bedspreads of passion, no doubt. That's *throes*, guys. Nothing to do with vigorous sex. Nothing to do with small-sized blankets on the couch. Everything to do with clichéd English. And whatever throes they are, they're stative. You can only be in them, you cannot be driven to them.

• Villians.  Where on earth did this one come from? I see it too often for it to be a mere typo. Vill-ains, two syllables. (And while we're at it- the Saiyuki character is Gojyo. J-Y. Not pronounced Gojio though I don't care if you do because I don't have to hear you saying it. But not repeat not ohh most definitely not Goyjo. OK?)

• Writting.  The good news: Hooked on Phonics is making a come-back in the grade schools. The bad news: Fandom is already in high school. Write has a long i. Writing has a long i. If you double the t the i sound changes so the word rhymes with fitting. FTR: it's not supposed to. And while we're on the topic- the verb loose means to let go. Lose means to cease to have, or not to win. Looser means less tight. Loser is the guy who doesn't win.

• Drug.  Drug is the translation of kusuri. It is not the past tense of drag.

• Bemused. Bemused means 'mildly stunned, thrown aback by.' I am bemused by the fact that so many people think it means 'amused'.

II. Lost Causes

I might as well throw in the towel on these, but I will go down Bearing Witness that current usage is wrong wrong wrong.

• Lie and lay.  No-one cares, but I'll say it anyway. Lie is an intransitive verb whose past tense is lay. You often find it in the compound 'lie down.' 'Lay' OTOH is a transitive verb. You lay something on something else. Past tense is laid. Got it? Lie down / lying down/ lay down. Lay an egg/ laying an egg/ laid an egg. (Same verb form, different meaning.)

  The ramifications of this?

  You cannot in the present 'lay down' on anything unless you're putting duck feathers somewhere. 'Sometimes I lay down on the ground and look up at the sky.' No you don't. You lie down on the ground. Equally, in the past, 'I was laying on the sofa when the phone rang' prompts the question 'laying what on the sofa? Bricks?' But '*Yesterday* I lay down on the ground and looked up at the sky' is perfectly kosher. So is 'I was laying *Bill* on the sofa when the phone rang,' though a bit crude.

  You cannot lay someone or something in the past. 'He lay her on the bed and pressed burning kisses to her bosom.' He didn't. He laid her on the bed, all senses of the word. Is this too indelicate for your maiden ears? Live with it. It's laid.

• The dog wagged it's tail. There's no excuse for this one. With lie and lay you may have to fight your own speaker's instincts, but 'it's' merely requires you to think. Alas, this is beyond people who learned to spell by watching television. It's is the contraction of it is. That's what that apostrophe is there for- telling you something's been left out. Its is the possessive of it. He, his. She, her. It, its. So simple. Why can't MSWord's Spellcheck get it?

• There, their, they're- (patting shoulder) it's not that bad. (Sobbing) Yes it is. You just don't understand my pain.

• Disinterested.  Does not mean 'uninterested.' Doesn't. Really. Check the dictionary. It means 'having no personal stake in or profit to be made from.' Neutral third party.

• Begs the question.  Means 'dodges the issue' '/ducks/ the question', not 'requires that we then ask.'

• Nauseous.  The grand-daddy of lost causes. Means 'nauseating', 'sickening', 'making people ill.' Does not mean sickened, feeling ill. That's nauseated.  'I'm nauseous' means 'I'm vomit-inducing,' 'I make people want to throw up.' Which may be true, but one normally doesn't admit it openly.

III. Purple Prose- no, amethyst prose

• Orbs.  'His blue orbs welled with crystal tears.' A phrase worthy of Bulwer-Lytton, the acknowledged king of bad writing. Using orbs for eyes immediately turns your story into farce. On the same level of cliché as 'pulsating manhood.'

• The Jewel Case of Ocular Organs.  Sapphire eyes, amethyst eyes, emerald eyes, ruby eyes (happens in my series), turquoise eyes, jade eyes. (And their Japanese mineral cousin: obsidian eyes. Has really purty kanji to go with it, and the Japanese fanwriters use it whenever they can.) Use these sparingly if you use them at all. It's dangerous to flaunt your jewellery in public and equally dangerous to flaunt verbal gemstones. You risk sounding like Bulwer-Lytton. This applies to the power of ten when they're 'sapphire orbs', of course.

  Related dangers- ebony eyes, ivory skin, ruby lips, those crystal tears. Use only if you're actively trying to sound like a bad nineteenth century novel. Jade scepters belong in a class of their own. (See below.)

• The epithet rampant.  I've talked about this before. Fanwriters love it. They won't ever use a person's name twice in the same paragraph, because they think it's unforgivably bad writing. They do much much worse and use an epithet instead. Hair colour for choice-- the blonde, the redhead, the brunette. (Blonde and brunette are the feminine forms of the adjective, which a country that isn't required to learn French thinks can be applied to men. "Hey, it's just an 'e.'" Yup. And the difference between senor and senora is just an a.)

  Then we have profession-- how many 'pilots' can dance on the head of a GW story? Distinguished by hair colour: the black-haired pilot, the brunette pilot, the blonde pilot, the pilot with the braid. And so on-- the Chinese, the half-Japanese, the half-youkai, the former crime boss, the cute rock singer. The emerald-eyed youth. Please point me to a teenaged guy who thinks of his best pal as a youth, let alone an emerald-eyed one. Why does no-one use the epithet 'stinking little bastard,' one wonders? 'Duo lay the stinking little bastard on the bed and drove him to the throws of extacy' at least has the merit of being the God's own truth.

IV. In a class of its own.

• Cock. Yes you have to use it in here-and-now tough guy stories or teenage stories or whatever stories, cause that's what guys in general call their cocks. You don't have to use it every sentence just for the thrill of using it. 'Duo pulled out his rampant cock and shoved it in Wufei's face. The black-haired pilot eyed the brunette's cock with contempt. 'You think I care how big your cock is?' the obsidian-eyed youth spat. You will, my Asian charmer. My cock will teach you. The master of Death Scythe flipped the delicate Chinese pilot onto his belly and shoved his throbbing cock inside the butt that normally warmed Shenron's control chair.'

V. In a class of their own

• All the other words for cock. You don't win this one. Penis, dick, shaft, phallus, sex, self, throbbing desire, jade tower, aching need... Whatever you call it, someone will snigger. Throw yourself on the mercy of the court. It's still easier than finding acceptable vocab to write yuri in.