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queerchoicesblog · 4 years

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The Rose-fingered Dawn

The wlw miniseries writing project continues with the continuation of the story set in Ancient Greece as suggested by @jackievarma.

I have always found the conventional epithet Homer gave to Dawn, rose-fingered (rhododaktylos) utterly poetic: I still remember it even if my high school days are long gone. That's why I decided to use it in this chapter of the story. Also, aoidos was the term used for itinerary oral epic poets.

Next update on Monday. Hope you enjoy it!

Previous part: The Thiasus

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From that day on I did my best to avoid her as much as possible. The morning after, I told my teacher I didn't want to perform anymore. I would have rather wait as the other new girls. I didn't mention the real problem was that I didn't want to perform with Kleanthis specifically anymore. She was quite surprised by my plea but obliged. I devoted myself to my studies with renewed vigour and kept away from the girl at any given occasion. It was rather hard because Kleanthis was unsurprisingly popular at the thiasus but I succeeded, somehow.

For some time, at least.

Several moons had brightened the night sky and my first year on the island was coming to an end. I woke up earlier than usual that morning so I went out for a walk. My feet led me to the beach where I rehearsed the hymn to Hera. A gentle breeze blew from the sea and the sky was blushing in pink for the arrival of its lover, the Sun. I walked closer to the water's edge and allowed myself to have my feet tenderly stroked by the waves. The dawn there was so different from the one I admired on the roof of my parents' house in Athens. The light was so much brighter on the island.

My contemplation of the sky marvel was abruptly interrupted by a voice.

"Long time no see, Athenian"

It startled me. I turned immediately full knowing to whom it belonged. Kleanthis was looking at me from afar, her head cocked to the side and arms crossed. Not knowing what to do, I greeted her: ignoring her would have been pointless since, for the time since I decided to steer away from her, I had nowhere to run. She approached, her usual semi-serious smile on her lips. I couldn't get why she was always so amused by me.

"Enjoying the dawn?" she asked as she proceeded.

When she reached the shore too, she kept her distance but added:

"For your information, I claimed this spot first"

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused and annoyed.

So she explained that she made a habit to come here early at dawn before the day started to breathe. Yes, she used that phrasing: breathe in the quiet of this land. It reminded her of her island, Samos, even if now Lesbos was her home. I listened to her and noted to myself how displeased I was to find it quite poetic.

I kept my eyes fixed to the sea but I could feel her staring at me.

"I'm surprised you stayed"

I turned towards her and found her giving me a curious look. I asked how I could possibly surprise her so much. She barked laughter then looked back to the sea in front of us.

"You've been avoiding me, Athenian, and you know it"

"I'm not"

"Liar"

The boldness of her statement caused my cheeks to burn. She was right obviously but I refused to admit it. I hated the bitter smirk on her lips when she met my gaze.

"How dare you?" I hissed.

"Everyone fights for my attention yet you run away at the sight of me as if I was the Gorgon and a single glare from me could turn you into stone. See? I'm looking at you now and you're safe so relax, Athenian"

The way she mocked me and kept calling me 'Athenian' instead of using my name made me furious but I kept quiet. I wasn't as quick as her with witty retorts.

"Either I wronged you or you despise me. Now, since I can't conceive what I could have done to wrong you, I concluded that it's the latter"

I didn't answer so she spoke again.

"May I know why?"

I shut my lips before denying that I despise her.

"Lies, lies again" she sighed.

"Stop it! I'm no liar, I don't despise you"

"If anything, I should be the one despising you" she said after a moment.

"Ah, how come? What did I do to you now?"

"You've been here for what? a year yet you are better than most. Already. It took me years and hard work to be like I am now. To sing like you did when we performed. Years and you did it, effortlessly as if you've been doing that your whole life! You...you have the voice of a goddess while I-"

"I'm sure your adoring fans say the same about you. How can you despise someone like me when you have girls kissing the land where you walk? Isn't such adoration enough for you?"

My words slipped out of my mouth before I could think them through. They rang sharper than I meant them to be and left Kleanthis gaping for a moment.

"Are you...jealous? Of me?" she asked, furrowing her brows.

But I couldn't stand her presence any longer.

"I'm not but I'm late for my morning class. Oh, and by the way, you missed your dawn. Me too, thanks to you" I say pointing at the horizon where the sun was now taking the stage.

Then I stormed off, away from her and the sea.

I resumed ignoring her but it didn't last long this time. I have no recollection how many days had passed since our bickering but one night as I laid in bed to sleep I found a note under my pillow. It wasn't signed but I knew the author was her.

'Meet me at the beach at dawn I'll refrain my sharp tongue and won't disturb you this time Depriving someone of a rose-fingered dawn is a crime And - alas!- I'm guilty'

I definitely wasn't expecting any of it. Neither to receive an invitation from her and her choice of words: maybe with a bit of luck and hard work, she could have made a female Homer one day.

I went down to the beach the morning after and she was there. True to her word, she kept quiet and we just sat in silence enjoying the everyday wonder of dawn. 'Rose-fingered dawn' as she said, just like the aoidos.

When the sun started shining in the sky, I stood and walked away after throwing her a grateful look. Before I was out of earshot, she spoke. She asked if I would perform with her again at the Aphrodite celebrations next moon. Sappho wanted her to participate and let her choose her partner. I stopped and turned back towards her.

"Why me?"

She fell silent for a moment as if pondering her answer.

"I told you, you have the voice of a goddess"

Then she diverted her eyes, drawing circles in the sand.

"I'll think about it" I say before hurrying away.

#original work #wlw writing project #wlw writing #wlw miniseries #ancient greece #lgbtqa+

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lemontrash · 4 years

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Epithets; the Pros and Pitfalls

Ok gang, so recently the topic of epithets in fanfic has come up and this is a topic I have been thinking about a LOT for A LONG TIME so I figured maybe now is the time to share my thoughts on phrases like ‘the braided baka’ and ‘the ebony-eyed Chinese pilot’ and what some of the pitfalls are in using epithets to enrich your writing.

NOTE: I am not slamming the use of epithets! I am not coming into your fic from 25 years ago saying ‘shame!’. I am only maintaining that these are tricky to get right, and to raise awareness of how epithets can be a really useful, powerful tool of description but also a double-edged blade.

What is an Epithet Anyway?

An epithet is a word or phrase applied to a person or thing to describe an actual or attributed quality, in addition to or instead of their name, and which are used to identify.

On one side of tradition, they are poetic. Homer, writer of the Odyssey, was a big fan of these. ‘The wine dark sea’, ‘rosy fingered Dawn’, and ‘Nausicaa of the long white arms’ are some of his most famous, never mind ‘Apollo, destroyer of mice!’. In his works they were generally descriptive, or talked directly to the schemata (the perceptions and understanding) of his audience.

Everyone knows Achaeans are super hairy, right? You know that.

On another side of tradition, they are identifiers. If you have a populace named virtually nothing but John, Richard and Henry and you’re not used to using family names, then calling this John ‘Long John’ and that John ‘Little John’ helps direct attention to the right person. Or to acknowledge their good or bad deeds/attributes (Peter the Brave vs Stinky Pete, for example) or their lineage (Aragorn son of Arathorn/ John of Gaunt). They can be used for comedic purposes as a device to make purposefully similar characters more amusing (Wee Jock, Big Jock and Smaller-than-Big-Jock-but-Bigger-than-Wee-Jock Jock all agreed to steal the sheep. The Pirate with the Peg Leg and the Pirate with the Clothes Peg boarded the ship.)

But notice that many of these epithets still use people’s names or are direct substitutions for when a name isn’t known. And they are largely subjective - epithets carry not only description but opinion - the opinion of society at large or the opinion of the individual speaker - and pinpoint value - what it IS about this person we should pay attention to.

And that means epithets can be used to praise, (Richard the Lionheart), to criticise (Bad King John), and to stereotype (those hairy Achaeans).

Oh and these are just epithets used for people. Epithets come in other forms, for example:

“The earth is crying-sweet, And scattering-bright the air, Eddying, dizzying, closing round, With soft and drunken laughter…”

The highlighted parts of Beauty and Beauty by Rupert Brooke are also epithets. But i’m going to focus on those used to describe people in this discussion.

In short, epithets always carry meaning in two ways - they focus on what the user feels is perceptively important about the subject of the epithet, and as a result, when we look through the lens of an epithet, our view of a character narrows.

Why are they Great?

Because they’re poetic by nature; they add interest and often eloquence. And because they tell us so much about the point of view of the user. They can add new facets to characters and give writers a secondary means of identifying characters to reduce name fatigue, or differentiate between otherwise similar characters. They can be comedic or evocative. They can show the changeability of characters as they develop or when circumstances change. Clever Odysseus, Lord of Men can become Pitiable Odysseus, hated by the sea.

But because they are poetic, because they carry opinion and because they are inherently narrow in their focus, there’s a whole bunch of pitfalls to be aware of when using epithets. Getting this wrong, well, maybe you just make your story harder to follow. Get it very wrong, and at worst you could genuinely offend someone.

What’s the Problem with Poetry?

The first basic issue you may encounter is that your epithets are too vague or are being overused.

‘My better half’ is an epithet. But if he (she? they?) has not been introduced in any capacity and you also alternate referring to him (her? them?) as ‘the hardened police officer’ and ‘the sloe-eyed beauty’ I might be forgiven for losing track of how many people are in the scene, how they’re related and how I should be thinking of them. Especially early in a story where i’m still getting up to speed with the setting. Here your epithets are muddying the story and it’s a situation where you should be using names. Even for fanfic where we’re assuming that the characters are familiar to everyone, you should be clearly introducing your version of the characters, because generally readers like to know they’re on the same page from the start rather than get thrown for a loop later on. And also you can’t be sure what your reader is thinking, so tell them.

Don’t forget that a NAME captures the whole of a person. Epithets only capture a slice.

You may also make your epithets too purple. ‘The azure-orbed golden-haired CEO’ is a mouthful, and may be adding detail that is irrelevant to the scene; imaging encountering that in a scene where Quatre is busy slashing through Leos in a desert battle. Who is stopping to think about that? Why does it deserve a spotlight right here, right now?

The other type of overuse is to pick one epithet that is your favourite and use it for every other mention of that character. Because epithets carry more meaning than names this is a little like shouting that character’s name through a bullhorn. It’s great the first couple of times - Wow! Exciting! Memorable! - but it fatigues faster than using their name would have. The epithet can then become annoying (’I know he’s got long hair, stop saying it!’) or at very very worst it can become othering. You will alienate your reader from the character, and at the absolute worst, this may mean your reader either comes out with expressions of an attitude to that character that you had no intention of courting or encouraging, or they think YOU have those attitudes and go away from your story thinking ‘wow, that was a well-written story but OOF. that guy’s got some uncomfortable feelings about stuff’.

Whose Line is it Anyway?

Epithets can be factual. They can be based on things you know, I know, and (most importantly) everyone in the story knows. For example, ‘The Wing Gundam Pilot’ is a factual epithet for Heero and is based on knowledge accessible and agreed by 99% of people.

It would still not work if the narrative POV is a character who doesn’t know Heero or doesn’t recognise him as a Gundam Pilot at all. E.G. He’s in disguise and questioning Abdul, who has never met him before.

And this is because epithets are still directional. They convey an understanding or a focus from the user to the reader, regardless of if the user is a character within the story, or the voice of the author themselves. And that’s where it can get weird.

Let’s say I’m writing a story from Rashid’s POV. As a person, he is unlikely to be fussed about the colour of Heero’s eyes, or the fact that Trowa is tall because Rashid is too pragmatic to give a hoot if your eyes are blue or not, and literally everyone is a shrimp compared to Rashid. So in that story, epithets like ‘The azure-eyed pilot’ or ‘the tall pilot’ would be strange if not meaningless coming from that character, and in fact would break the 4th wall by forcing the author’s voice into the foreground.

Effective epithets are either universal and readily accepted (and therefore often neutral/factual, even if they are poetic - rosey-fingered Dawn) or they are naturally biased towards the perspective of the user. Which means characterisation of an epithet used by a person in a story to describe another person in the story goes both ways: When a story in Heero’s POV describes Duo as a ‘violet-eyed beauty’ I may think ‘Duo, purple eyes, pretty boy, yes. check!’ but I will probably also think, ‘wow, Heero’s a massive closet romantic and he has some serious pants-feels for Duo’.

Or if that doesn’t match my view of Heero as a character, I may well think that this author has missed the point of Heero Yuy: Perfect Soldier and it’s THEM who has the serious pants-feels for Duo. If it’s the middle of a gritty battle scene, I may also think ‘Wow, is this really the time, author? Put it back in your pants’.

Or maybe in the above example, it’s a 1x2 but this is jumping the gun. Heero isn’t aware of his own feelings yet so this kind of epithet is premature in Chapter 1. Bring it in down the line when Heero’s acknowledging to himself that Duo makes him go all weird and sweaty.

So use epithets knowing that they will describe the target but also the user, and if those things don’t accord, can jar your reader quickly out of the headspace you were trying to achieve or shout your own voice over that of your characters.

Distilling or Reducing?

If I take a mint plant and distill it, I will end up with a bottle of menthol oil which I could shove under your nose and declare ‘this is perfume!’ and you, eyes streaming, would have to stand there and generally agree.

But if i take a mint plant, rip off a leaf and push it in your face and declare ‘this is perfume!’ you’re less likely to agree with me. Because in this case, I am not distilling, i am reducing.

Epithets can work the same way. At their best, they take everything you want to convey about a character and their situation/personality and condense it into one potent phrase that socks your reader in the face.

But all too often, they are used reductively and then you actually lose a great deal of what’s important about a character for the sake of showmanship and/or lazy writer’s short-hand.

Let’s go back to the Odyssey. Odysseus has just washed up after being shipwrecked; he’s naked, salt encrusted, beardy and beasty and savage. Whilst stumbling around on the shore he is met by a princess, Nausicaa. Nausicaa of the long, white arms. That’s her epithet. From a modern feminist perspective, it seems a little reductive, but in the context of the story, it’s a distillation. She plays an opposite to Odysseus in this scene as he struggles to come back to civilisation after his hardships. She is washing rich clothes; he’s dressed in rags. She’s feminine and cultured and graceful; he’s acting like a wild lion. She represents civilisation and ideals with her fragility and her skin that’s been protected from the sun. He’s burnt and has forgotten how to act like a man.

So whilst the epithet is focussed it tells me a lot of what i need to know and expect of Nausicaa in terms of her role in the story, and the fact that she will compel Odysseus to come back to himself as King of Ithaca.

However, epithets are commonly based on appearance, status or origin, and can very easily fall into stereotype and tropes. Remember Homer’s hairy Achaeans? Was that a flattering description? Would Achaeans bang their chest and cheer proudly to be described as hairy, or would they be put out? If Achaeans are hairy, then what are Trojans?

Let’s bring this to a modern context. If I use ‘the American pilot’ as short hand to convey that Duo is brash and loud and reckless...can I guarantee that my reader will agree with that assumption? Personally I know a lot of Americans, many of whom are not brash or loud or reckless. And if Americans in my fic are de facto brash and loud and reckless... what are Chinese people like? Humourless and ill-tempered? Or is that just Wufei? As a British person, I can find it more than tiresome to see myself represented as old-fashioned and endlessly polite; particularly when it gets obvious that the writer hasn’t the first clue about the UK or British culture. I can only imagine what it’s like for minority groups.

If you start short-handing in this way, it’s the top of a potentially slippery slope into unintentional racial or cultural profiling. This is where epithets can start to raise eyebrows or make readers reach for the back-button. You need to ask yourself - is this lazy description or is this meaningful? Is this from a ‘generic’ POV (IE, mine as the author) or is it quantified by the POV of a character in the story who may carry those biases? Should those biases be acknowledged or explored by the story? Should those biases be carried in character speech only, then, or is it ok to put them into the prose?

Is there a way I can characterise that without short-handing with a basic epithet? If I’m already saying that Duo flipped the table and threw his hands up in impatience, does tagging on this epithet strengthen the meaning of those actions, or are his actions defining the epithet?

Did you know that the alternative meaning of ‘epithet’ is ‘a disparaging or abusive word or phrase’? This is loaded description.

And finally, sometimes the epithet is just plain boring. If the epithet is a universal fact, then it is also a static snapshot of the character we’ve seen before; and it’s often not even individual. Heero has blue eyes... but so does Quatre, and so do Relena, Zechs, Mariemaia, Treize, Sally Po, Sylvia Noventa and that guy over there. It tells me nothing about Heero as a person and even if we argue ‘but it’s a specific shade of blue!’ Well...sure. It’s still not that unique and you shouldn’t have to dig that deep into the epithet to make the trait stand out. It’s the literary version of a newspaper headline yelling ‘WOMAN WEARS CLOTHES’.

For example, compare:

‘The blue-eyed Vice Foreign Minister entered the meeting room’

Cool beans. So what? Relena’s arrived but my attention is already distracted away from her looking for something more plot-related. Especially if this is chapter 3 and her appearance has already been described to me 6 or 7 times.

‘The false queen, Relena Peacecraft entered the meeting room’.

J u i c y! Sounds like tea is going to be spilled. Who’s still holding this grudge against her? Is she the villain here? I’m gonna keep reading.

TL;DR

In summary, epithets carry a lot of personal perspective and can be powerful devices in writing. Used well, they will lift up your writing and make it memorable, vivid and engaging. Used thoughtlessly, you can stumble into a number of pitfalls, some which will make your writing harder to read or unintentionally comedic, and others that could make you look like an asshole.

#fanfic writing #writing advice #epithets #YMMV

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solacefruit · 4 years

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Hello! Been reflecting on the feedback you gave and there’s something that struck my mind. In regards to what you mentioned about over-using epithets, I was wondering about how to strike a better balance; I feel like constantly using just names and he/she/etc would get too repetitive for my liking, but how do I avoid leaning on epithets too much? What even is too much? I know you might not have a real answer, but I thought I should ask anyway just in case. Also, thank you for the feedback!

Hello there! Firstly, you’re very welcome, and secondly, good news: I do actually have an answer for this issue of epithets. Epithets themselves aren’t actually good or bad, but–like anything–over-use or misuse of them can spoil writing. What makes the difference is almost always context.

The mistake that fandom writers often make is that they slap just any old epithet any-old-where, thinking it’s better than repeating a name too many times, which is how you get “the taller man,” “the blonde boy.” These writers fundamentally misunderstand what an epithet can (and should) do, which is describe character. That’s not the same as telling you their height or appearance. I literally mean you should strive to reveal meaningful characterisation with your choices. Otherwise, you’re better served just using a pronoun or name.

So, things to consider when figuring out whether to use epithets or not:

Point-of-view: I bring this up first because it’ll impact everything else. If you are writing in third-person limited, epithets can be great friends to you, because whenever you use them, you are telling your reader what your focal character thinks of the person they are describing. It does not need to be accurate or true! In fact, in third-person limited, everything you write is told through the perspective of the character who is seeing and thinking about the world, so everything is biased on account of being seen through their lens. Because of that, using an epithet can be a great way to reveal your focal character’s perspective and personality by how they think of other people.

For example, “Oakheart prowled over” versus “the handsome warrior prowled over.” This second example tells you what a third-person limited narrator thinks of the character, and the first one doesn’t. As you can imagine, this is a lot of power! Use it wisely. (More on this later).

By comparison, third-person omniscient narration is told by an unseen, usually unknown and unnamed disembodied voice who is describing the protagonist and the rest of the world equally. The narrator can know and see things the protagonist cannot, including the protagonist! That means you can use epithets for anyone, protagonist included–but it’s a good idea to figure out how honest your narrator is first. Do they see the world the way it is, and report it “truthfully”?

If so, you need to be careful about subjectivity: “the handsome warrior” is going to make the reader think of what they think of as handsome, and if that doesn’t line up with what your narrator later describes physically, your narrator–or worse, you, which some readers conflate with narrator–is going to seem biased or opinionated and that’s going to have ramifications. I can advise sticking to objective facts when using epithets in this narration style, and keep in mind that the epithets you choose to apply to any character is going to reflect your narrator’s implicit thoughts and opinions. This can be used to fantastic effect when your narrator does have a strong voice and set of opinions (essentially, when they are a character in their own right), such as in A Series of Unfortunate Events or Pride and Prejudice. But if you’re trying to keep your narrator invisible to the reader, proceed with caution when using epithets.

Unfamiliarity: epithets are most commonly used before people get to know each other, before learning names. That’s when it’s appropriate to describe someone by their looks, because often that’s all there is to go on: “the dark-haired man,” “the sharp-eyed woman,” “the boy in the blue cloak.” However, once a name is known, these kinds of epithets tend to lose their usefulness, because (see above: third-person limited) why would your focal character keep thinking of them like this once they know their name? Do you think of your friends by their name, or their hair colour? Would you think “the tall person” when thinking of a partner, instead of their name? Probably not! Your characters are the same.

Social distance, respect, and/or role: epithets include titles, such as Her Majesty or the emperor, and often it is not appropriate to call the king just “George,” even in private narration. Because of that, characters who are royal, divine, or otherwise upper class in some significant way often are referred to primarily by epithets.

This can also be true of characters performing a business role, such as a postal worker or shopkeeper, or a parental one, like mum or dad. “The mailman dropped off the package, wished her a good day, and continued down the road” is a perfectly reasonable use of an epithet. You can even do something like: “George!” she said, waving down the mailman. And what that tells you is that the mailman is named George, and clearly the focal character knows him pretty well. That’s a lot of information in one sentence!

Defamiliarisation: similar to above, you can use epithets specifically to obfuscate a name or to imply that a person (or creature) does not have one. In that context, a repeated epithet (or collection of epithets) essentially becomes a name in the mind of the reader and serves the same function. Perhaps the most famous (or infamous?) example of this is Frankenstein’s monster. It is often referred to as the creature, wretch, demon, fiend, being, and so on, because it was never given a name and the absence of a name is significant. These epithets tell you a lot about the characters of both the creature and the creator.

Revealing character detail: this is the one that a lot of people slip on, as I mentioned before, because it’s not always immediately clear when an epithet adds or detracts to an interaction. My rule of thumb is to ask yourself when unsure, “in this moment, what does this reveal?” or “in this moment, what does this highlight?” If a satisfactory answer springs to mind, it’s probably fine. So, for example:

“I told you not to take the patrol past the forest,” said Nightstar. “You disobeyed me.” Mousetail looked away in shame.

There’s nothing wrong with this passage! However, you can also do this:

“I told you not to take the patrol past the forest,” said Nightstar. “You disobeyed me.” The deputy looked away in shame.

What does this highlight? By using this epithet, the reader is reminded of the relationship between these two characters, which in this moment is heavily laden with emotion and tension. You would not achieve that same result with only names. You would also not receive the same result with:

“I told you not to take the patrol past the forest,” said Nightstar. “You disobeyed me.” The brown cat looked away in shame.

You don’t get anything from the use of this epithet, because being a brown cat is totally irrelevant to this exchange. It doesn’t change anything about the dynamic, or the emotional tone, or the dialogue. It’s empty words, thrown in just to avoid saying a name. That is not a choice that serves your story well and when people say using epithets is bad, this is almost invariably the kind of thing they’re referring to.

For the thrill of it: sometimes epithets are fun! Sometimes it’s fun to throw in an unusual description detail, or a particularly choice combination of words in a more poetic style. Sometimes it just sounds good. However, it can be risky–for all the above reasons. Weigh them all up carefully before you throw in your “the moonlight-eyed cat” or “the boy with sun-soaked hair” type thing, but don’t not put these sorts of things in if you feel your story needs it!

I hope this helps! When it doubt, interrogate your choice and see if it is actually adding to what you’re trying to achieve. If it’s not, cut it and replace it with a name or pronoun. There’s no formula to what’s too much or not enough, so you’ve got to judge it on a case-by-case basis. Good luck with your writing!

#advice #reply #this got Very long but i hope it's helpful to you!

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