What trips your aggro meter?

Discussion in 'All Things LitRPG' started by Dragovian, Mar 4, 2018.

  1. RandomFan

    RandomFan Level 6 (Footpad) Citizen Aspiring Writer

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    The former- actually pretty often, I'd think? I wouldn't expect Leerooooy Jenkins to be namedropped a lot, but I say stuff like "early to bed, early to rise" all the time (18th, but still), and "good for the goose, good for the gander" (late 17th, if mangled) isn't that much rarer. It wouldn't be delivered like a joke, of course, but I can see it being considered a traditional battle cry, with connotations of "in for a penny, in for a pound" or "go big or go home".
     
  2. Prax Venter

    Prax Venter Author of Enthralled and Irrelevant Jack LitRPG Author Citizen

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    To clarify further; colloquialisms like "go big or go home" are not the same as, "The greasy bearded dwarf slid him an ale across the dusty bar, and after draining it's mellow, amber contents in one long pull, he belched like Barny from The Simpsons™."
    "Leeroooy Jenkins," is another example of a phrase that sticks out like a sore thumb.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2018
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  3. MrPotatoMan

    MrPotatoMan Level 13 (Assassin) Citizen

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    I share the same pet peve and i think the problem is there are pop culure refrences and there is showing of pop culture skills when the author starts writeing like hes begging for you to like him i think thats a problem makeing constant pop culture refrences dosent make you smart interesting funny or cool sure it can be fun with friends but its not an endeering trait or something that makes you more interesting thats not to say all pop culture refrences are bad for example in bobiverse the character frequently names things after pop culture stuff but thats because theres a cultural reason or story for why that makes sense its the modern day version of nameing something after a mythological creature or tale
     
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  4. Viergacht

    Viergacht Thunderdragon LitRPG Author Roleplaying Beta Reader Citizen Aspiring Writer

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    In shorter term, I'll reference something from my bygone salad days and then have to explain to the blankly staring young'uns what the goddamn hell I'm talking about.

    One thing that jars me a bit is when a game that supposedly is played by all of humanity is very parochial - which is partly due to the authors being from one country, but you should do a bit of research into the pop cultures of other cultures, if you're going that route.
     
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  5. Dragovian

    Dragovian Over-enthusiastic Tank wtb Pocket Healer LitRPG Author Beta Reader Citizen

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    Yeah, sometimes it just comes off as, "Hello, fellow gamers, I too like gaming and am familiar with the popular memes. Let me demonstrate so that you will know I am a Real True Gamer™ just like you."
     
  6. Aleif

    Aleif Level 4 (Warrior) LitRPG Author Citizen

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    Well, sure, but every time a person protests too much or someone extracts a pound of flesh, we're talking about Shakespeare. That's a mere ~400 years away from us.

    I actually generally agree, but there's a case to be made there. Shakespeare was pop culture in his day, as much as they could have been said to have pop culture.
     
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  7. Prax Venter

    Prax Venter Author of Enthralled and Irrelevant Jack LitRPG Author Citizen

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    I guess I focus on the Pop part of Popular culture. Maybe I have the wrong definition in my head and should have used a different word. But when I started all this, I meant present day, immersion breaking, pop-culture references.
    Is there a better word for that? One that separates the wheat from the chaff, as it were?

    If a person in a fantasy world says, "You're putting the cart before the horse," when talking about, "Jumping the gun," it doesn't feel immersion breaking - to me.
     
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2018
  8. Paul Bellow

    Paul Bellow Forum Game Master Staff Member LitRPG Author Shop Owner Citizen Aspiring Writer

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    Are you saying Rick and Morty will be the Shakespear of our generation? Shocking! ;)

    [​IMG]
     
  9. Paul Bellow

    Paul Bellow Forum Game Master Staff Member LitRPG Author Shop Owner Citizen Aspiring Writer

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    Nah, I heard what you were saying, I think.

    Even one or two mentions would be okay, but some go overboard and lean on those rather than story/character development... imho!
     
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  10. Dragovian

    Dragovian Over-enthusiastic Tank wtb Pocket Healer LitRPG Author Beta Reader Citizen

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    Yes, but the reason we still quote Shakespeare isn't because it was pop culture, but because his works were moved into the literary canon and are force-fed to every high school student in English class. If he had JUST written popular entertainment for the masses, and never got the cultural boost of being required reading, I doubt we'd remember the lady protesting too much any more than we remember lines from any OTHER popular playwrights of his era. I don't think most pop culture references are going to have that kind of staying power.

    It's not just in books; Star Trek was a terrible culprit, IMO. Why was Sisko obsessed with baseball, a sport that died out centuries before he was born? Why was Picard obsessed with Dixon Hill, a 40's noir detective? Or Data with Sherlock Holmes? I know the answer is "because these are cultural touchstones we-the-viewer can relate to", but in-universe it would have made much more sense for them to be interested in weird, old fashioned 23rd century stuff, not 19th and 20th century stuff.
     
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  11. Aleif

    Aleif Level 4 (Warrior) LitRPG Author Citizen

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    Sisko did bother me, but my impression of the TNG anachronisms was that it was chosen deliberately to convey that this was supposed to be a crew who actively investigated their cultural history, much as Worf does.

    Shakespeare did write for the popular masses, though. His plays are crammed full of dirty jokes, even the tragedies, and nobody puns as shamelessly as him. He did it very very well, but he's still essentially the early modern Stephen King. Novels of the era (which is when the novel was invented, incidentally) started as trashy romances and grew from there. Similarly, we now consider Raymond Chandler a pretty big influence on writing, even though at the time he was writing for Black Mask and other pulp magazines. You don't get included in the literary canon if you're not widely-read at some point.
     
  12. Aleif

    Aleif Level 4 (Warrior) LitRPG Author Citizen

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    And really? You think it being common to say 'break the ice' or 'dead as a doornail', or that things have come 'full circle', is because people read Shakespeare in high school?
     
  13. Dragovian

    Dragovian Over-enthusiastic Tank wtb Pocket Healer LitRPG Author Beta Reader Citizen

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    I think that things people are repeatedly exposed to are more likely to move into the common vernacular rather than being forgotten. And "dead as a doornail" was already in widespread use well before Shakespeare.
     
  14. Aleif

    Aleif Level 4 (Warrior) LitRPG Author Citizen

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    You had far more diligent classmates than I did, then.
     
  15. Dragovian

    Dragovian Over-enthusiastic Tank wtb Pocket Healer LitRPG Author Beta Reader Citizen

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    I think more likely we can thank the generations who didn't have instant access to an ever-expanding pool of entertainment, and for whom "being well read" was considered important; they're the ones who moved certain phrases into the broader language.
     
  16. Gryphon

    Gryphon Level 18 (Magician) LitRPG Author Citizen

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    To be fair, I'm surprised it's still being dropped.
     
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  17. Viergacht

    Viergacht Thunderdragon LitRPG Author Roleplaying Beta Reader Citizen Aspiring Writer

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    Anyways, back to annoying tropes - I roll my eyes at books where the entire human race gets uploaded into a game for some convoluted reason. I mean, who is running the electrical plant that keeps the computer and all it's other stuff running? What happens if a part fails and needs to be replaced? You're kind of screwed if so.

    Or the world's economy being entirely dependant on gaming. I could see it maybe if it was the economy of a very small, resource-poor country, but otherwise it's just so ridiculously silly it takes me out of the story.
     
  18. Windfall

    Windfall Level 18 (Magician) LitRPG Author Citizen

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    I still haven't read a lot of LitRPG, but there's one very small thing that never fails to annoy me.

    It's stuff like this:

    Jonathan jumped as an alarm horn blared out, breaking the serene silence of the night, which meant the guards must have spotted Benji as he tried to reach the upper chambers. They found Benji! The signal alerted the hallway guards into action, and busy footsteps sounded closer and closer to where Jonathan was. He frantically looked around for a place to hide, but the corridor was bare and he was already too far away from the window he had come through. There's nowhere to hide, and there's no time to go back to the window! A guard wielding a long spear suddenly appeared round the corner. "Halt!" cried the man as he spotted Jonathan. Jonathan turned and ran, wishing he had brought his dagger. I shouldn't have left my dagger at home! He activated his Sprint as he fled down the corridor. Maybe I can outrun the guard! The guard, noticing Jonathan's superior speed, shouted once more for him to stop. When Jonathan did not comply, the man threw his spear at him, yelling, "Intrusions are punishable by death!" The metal tip grazed Jonathan's leg, drawing blood. Ouch! I'm hit! That really hurt!


    In short: excessive exclamation points and constant thoughts in italics that do exactly the same thing as the prose, which really breaks the flow of the story for me, especially when the whole thing is written in this style. Doing it in moderation for extra emphasis is fine. I'm not a fan of thoughts in italics in general, but at least if you're going to do it, have the thoughts actually add something. Have the thoughts be interesting or witty. Otherwise it feels like a constant thought-stutter. It makes me angry if there's a good story in there, since it feels like I have to wade through every idea twice just in slightly different words to get to it.
     
  19. Alexis Keane

    Alexis Keane Level 14 (Defender) Roleplaying Beta Reader Citizen Aspiring Writer

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    Yeah both of those get me too... I don't really like thoughts in italics
     
  20. CheshirePhoenix

    CheshirePhoenix Crazy Hermit on the Hill LitRPG Author Beta Reader Citizen Editor Aspiring Writer

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    It’s a formatting thing. Direct thoughts don’t HAVE to be in italics, it just serves to differentiate thoughts from narration. Consider:

    He thought he had a chance.
    Now’s my chance, he thought.
    Now’s my chance, he thought.

    All three of those are technically correct. Two of them are easier to read and either flow with narrative description, or are differentiated from the narrative description so as not to get lost in it and confuse people.

    The third one is garbage. It hides instead of highlights, without consideration for the fact that readers care about what the characters are thinking (and if they don’t, then you have bigger issues than formatting to worry about). So either use the dodge of couching everything in third person POV narrative style, or just accept that italics are as good for showing thoughts as quotation marks are for showing dialogue, and used for the same purpose.

    Exclamation! Point! Abuse! On the other hand, well... agreed 100%. And I’d like to add any kind of punctuation abuse to that, such as ellipses excesses, comma crashes/exclusions, an exorbitance of emdashes, etc.

    And shopping list syndrome. Multiple sentences in a row that start with “he did...” that basically reads with all of the impact of a shopping list. Usually combined with another pet peeve of mine, the short choppy sentence. Consider:

    He dove for cover. He reloaded his gun. He popped his head out from behind the cover. He spotted the enemy. He aimed and squeezed the trigger. He hit his target.

    Vs.

    John leapt behind cover and reloaded. Peeking out from behind his hastily-acquired cover, he spotted the enemy. A single squeeze of the trigger, and his target collapsed bonelessly.

    The second example uses less words (29 vs 31), describes the same actions, and accomplishes basically the same thing. But which flows better and which would you rather read? Which one strikes you as coming from a novel as opposed to a children’s book? Which one has more impact and better helps you to visualize the action happening?
     




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