This post is fascinating! You always make me think.
Thanks! I'm glad!
Absolutely. I've actually been struck with this in my own writing. I use the eyes thing a lot. I use it even more if I don't catch myself. It's occurred to me before that it's unrealistic and can be overdone easily, and so I've been more conscious of it, but I still use it.
I use it a lot in my writing too! I only recently realized how much I use it, and also how much I *love* it . . . But yeah, I try to curtail it because it just doesn't seem that realistic.
Writing fiction is often about reframing rl so that it has narrative unity, so that there's more order to it, and in that context no, I don't think it hurts. If the story is supposed to accurately reflect the mundanity of real life or something, then I would say it is detrimental.
I guess that's one of the things I'm wondering about. How far do you take realism? Even in a story with vampires, you still want elements to be *real*. I read this meta once about how in universes like BtVS and HP and LOTR, you're less likely to write about the mundane, about characters brushing their teeth, because they're so much bigger than that; they're apocalyptal, etc. So with that inspiration, I wrote a Buffy/Angel fic about teeth brushing and vacumming and eating and driving and sleeping and laundry, everything ordinary I can think of. Um, I had a point here, but it got lost somewhere.
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Thanks! I'm glad!
Absolutely. I've actually been struck with this in my own writing. I use the eyes thing a lot. I use it even more if I don't catch myself. It's occurred to me before that it's unrealistic and can be overdone easily, and so I've been more conscious of it, but I still use it.
I use it a lot in my writing too! I only recently realized how much I use it, and also how much I *love* it . . . But yeah, I try to curtail it because it just doesn't seem that realistic.
Writing fiction is often about reframing rl so that it has narrative unity, so that there's more order to it, and in that context no, I don't think it hurts. If the story is supposed to accurately reflect the mundanity of real life or something, then I would say it is detrimental.
I guess that's one of the things I'm wondering about. How far do you take realism? Even in a story with vampires, you still want elements to be *real*. I read this meta once about how in universes like BtVS and HP and LOTR, you're less likely to write about the mundane, about characters brushing their teeth, because they're so much bigger than that; they're apocalyptal, etc. So with that inspiration, I wrote a Buffy/Angel fic about teeth brushing and vacumming and eating and driving and sleeping and laundry, everything ordinary I can think of. Um, I had a point here, but it got lost somewhere.