Lippiness

[vilakins]

Recently I went through a stage of reading long Harry Potter fics recommended by a couple of people. Some were very good, some were so infected with runaway epithets* that I bailed, and some were distractingly lippy.

Both Harry and Hermione chew and gnaw at their lower lips about once every couple of pages (OK, screens) and Hermione is also unnervingly prone to folding hers. What on earth is lip folding? The most folds anyone can do is in half by squeezing with fingers at the corners of the mouth, but I suspect they mean she compresses her lips or do they mean pursing with lots of tiny folds? Are lip chewing, gnawing, biting, and folding Harry Potter fanfic tropes? [is puzzled and intrigued]

And while we're on the subject of lippy strangeness, Bujold has Miles ripple his fairly frequently. Huh? I imagine waves traversing them, like Barney's burps in The Simpsons but. Is he pursing them? Doing something else like duck-face?


* Seriously, perps? Epithets are not just annoying, they're confusing as well when the reader is left wondering if a new character has been introduced by prose like this:

Harry said hello to Hermione and sat down by the head girl. (It took me a while to figure out there was only one girl there.)

Note: Luna doesn't fold, spindle, or mutilate her lips (as far as I know) but she's the only HP icon I have. Sorry, Luna.

Comments

[pebblerocker]

Haha, oh dear. Checking for new updates before going to bed and your post pops up... very embarrassing to read considering I was folding my lip at the time. It's a valley fold rather than the mountain fold you describe, I'm pushing the middle of my bottom lip to the side so it goes, hm, under the corner of my mouth, sort of. I try not to do it because I know it looks silly.

Not sure if lip biting/fiddling is a Harry Potter trope but it comes up a lot anywhere influenced by Twilight, especially the films as lip-biting seems to be screen-Bella's only expression to vary the default slack-jawed vacant look. I imagine Miles is making horse noises so his lips flap against each other; if not, who knows!

I avoid epithet-riddled fics like the plague. Worst recent offender involved a lot of "the smaller man" in a slash couple who are canonically almost exactly the same height.

[vilakins]

Really? Folding is a sideways twist? ( can do it with both lips in different direactions. :-) I really can't see Hermione doing that though.

I have never seen or read any Twilight. Oy, that sounds about as bad as I'd assumed. As for Miles, I'd have thought the sound (snorting?) would be more important than the lippy vibrations.

Old B7 fanfic was rife with the smaller man, the little thief, the burly rebel, the blonde pilot etc etc. [rolls eyes] Someone once made fun of it by having someone ask for the burly rebel and get Gan when they expected Blake.

[feng_shui_house]

Avengers' fanfic is full of epithets, too. Which can get VERY confusing when they mention 'the genius' and I don't know whether they mean Bruce or Tony, or 'the big blond' and I don't know whether they mean Steve or Thor, or 'the assassin' and I don't know if they mean Clint or Natasha.

[vilakins]

Like 'the rebel', then. [rolls eyes] Why do people do it? I used to think it was only in old fanfic but HP and Avengers are fairly new. I suspect Americans are taught name-phobia along with said-phobia in school.

[feng_shui_house]

A lot of the Avenger epithet writers also use 'armour' and other non-US things. I've seen a lot of it from writers for whom English was obviously a second language, too.

I don't think anyone is taught to do the 'elegant variation' in school; they just pick it up from reading fanfic.

Check out this article and you'll see it goes back a long way and in many types of writing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation

[vilakins]

I know said-phobia was taught in the US as people have told me they learned it. Huh, there's a name for rampant epithets!

I do think people pick it up from fanfic, esp if they're new to writing and also want to conform to what they see as standards. Maybe the HP lip-chewing is like that: a BNF started it, I dunno. I was hoping someone in HP fandom knew about it.

[feng_shui_house]

Well, there was no mention of replacing 'said' or using epithets in any of my English classes. Or my Journalism class. Or even in the one mail-order writing class I took.

So while some people may have been told to do it in school, it wasn't universal- maybe if you took a creative writing class? I don't know. I do know that many non-US writers do it. Have you asked any non-US writers if the were told about that in school?

The Wikipedia article says that this style might be acceptable in French-- of course, Wiki is not all that reliable, but if true, then maybe it began with bilingual French/English writers.

[mab_browne]

There are always these buzz word in fic writing - I can remember at one point thinking that if I never again saw boneless or bonelessly as a synonym for completely physically relaxed/pliant, that I'd be a very happy fanfic reader indeed. What's worse is going back through my old fic and going 'Noooooo!' on the basis that I ought to have known better, but didn't.

I was moved to go back through my old B7 zines, (Chronicles, mainly) and there was some stuff that's still surprisingly readable there. Along with stuff that's not...

[vilakins]

New writers probably feel they need to conform to fanfic conventions of various sorts which might have been what happened here in HP.

I have lots of old zines, bought second-hand when I discovered the fandom in 2001 when there wasn't a lot online (and people on mailing lists got snitty when I suggested it). Some stories are very good (and sadly some are serials I'll never lay my hands on) and some are seriously bad.

[vilakins]

I know Astro was taught it. I did ask once but no one from the UK replied. I've mainly noticed it in US pro-fic. A bad example is Raymond E Feist's 'Magician' where he uses so many epithets I keep thinking someone new's turned up, and also starts every chapter with a one-sentence paragraph like "The storm had arrived" or "The soldiers stood quietly" so that must have been something he was taught. It stands out! I keep meaning to ask if the rest of the series is better since that was his very first.

[feng_shui_house]

Well, I guess I missed out on that class- which was lucky because I would have tried to 'obey the rule' even if it looked stupid to me. :^)

I don't read much current pro-fic, so I don't know whether it's rampant these days. Most of my pro fic is older SF picked up used.

Never read Feist, for one. Sound like I didn't miss much there, either.

[kerravonsen]

I've never heard of lip-folding. Nor of lip-rippling either.

The most lippy thing I've seen in HP fic is Hermione biting her lip in concentration or nervousness.

[vilakins]

It's not rampant. It just was in the Feist book and a few others I've encountered, most not as bad as Feist (who admittedly was writing decades ago). Most pro-fic I read is very good or I bail, and I don't often do that. I stuck Magician out but am uncertain about continuing even though I like the Japanese-style other world (Midkemis itself if your bog-standard medieval monarchy).

[vilakins]

In some fics she did it a lot and also cried far too frequently which got annoying. She doesn't just bite either; she chews and gnaws. I keep wincing and wondering if she's drawing blood.

Lip-folding and rippling remain a puzzle.

[feng_shui_house]

Oh, ok, just a few people who hopefully learn better. Reminds me, the ONE new set of books I got in the last year was the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, but I only got as far as page 25 or so.

Just didn't like the set up-- but I should try to read it, cuz I liked the idea of daemons & they're fun to use in fanfic, but I need to read the original to know how to warp them to suit me.

Someday I'll get back to it... not now, am tired, cat woke me up WAY too early. Need to catch a nap now, or I'll be too tired to sleep at bedtime in 5 hours.

[vilakins]

I have no intention of reading that, or Hunger Games or Game of Thrones. I like to be entertained, not depressed or repelled by violence. I refused to watch a recent NCIS on those grounds; I leave them to Greg,

[kerravonsen]

I don't like it when Hermione cries too much! Give me my Hermione determined and hiding her upsetness on the inside, thank you muchly.

I remember one fic I read (well, started reading) where everybody was crying, as if "crying" was shorthand for any kind of upset feeling. Lazy writing.

[feng_shui_house]

I definitely am not reading/watching the Hunger Games or Game of Thrones. I've heard enough scraps stuck into fanfic to know I would be very distressed by them.

I'll probably skip through HDM for mentions of the daemons to get an idea how they were envisioned. I don't want to read horrible things. No, not my idea of fun.

ok, am going to have nap now. Was nice talking with you. :^)

[vilakins]

Exactly! Hermione's no tear-sodden wimp! The author did apologise at one point (it was in the pit of voles) so maybe people commented unfavourably. Harry's also tougher than he's depicted in some fics I came across.

BTW will you write more of your Harry finding solace in books fic? That's excellent both in plot and characterisation. I also loved your Hermione/Snape one where she ends up saying how much damage the house system has done. I read it on my Kindle and have been slack about going back and commenting / giving kudos,

[kerravonsen]

Exactly! Hermione's no tear-sodden wimp! The author did apologise at one point (it was in the pit of voles) so maybe people commented unfavourably.

Pit of voles? No surprise there.

Harry's also tougher than he's depicted in some fics I came across.

There seems to be a subgenre of AU Harry-whumping fic where he's physically abused and a complete mental wreck. Sign of hurt/comfort addiction on the part of the authors, I think.

BTW will you write more of your Harry finding solace in books fic? That's excellent both in plot and characterisation.

Thank you!

I've been pondering whether I will get back into doing some fic-writing for this picowrimo this November, with that fic as one of the leading possibles. You have just convinced me to do so!

I also loved your Hermione/Snape one where she ends up saying how much damage the house system has done. I read it on my Kindle and have been slack about going back and commenting / giving kudos,

Thank you! That one seems to be my most popular fic, which is in line with the observation that some people have made that het fic is always more popular than gen fic. But, hey, it's one of my favourite fics that I wrote, too; one of the ones that I tend to re-read. 8-) Always write fic that one wishes to read. Then again, that's one of my usual motivations: that there aren't enough stories of the kind I like to read, so I have to write them myself...

[kerravonsen]

I have no intention of reading that, or Hunger Games or Game of Thrones. I like to be entertained, not depressed or repelled by violence.

Me too! Me too!

[vilakins]

Sometimes it's all hurt and very little comfort, or the comfort is almost immediately followed by more hurt. Ick.

Oh, excellent! [rubs hands in glee] I should get back to my WIP but I'll probably spend some of it on the intoabar story once I have my assignment.

That was a lovely fic! Both Hermione and Snape were so in character and very believable as a couple the way you wrote them.

Sometimes I reread mine when I get kudos. :-)

[kerravonsen]

Sometimes I reread mine when I get kudos. :-)

Me too. I just recently re-read "Verity" for that very reason.

[pebblerocker]

There may be many other lip-folding techniques; I don't claim any expertise in mouth origami!

I like your cast list of the rebel leader, rebel pilot, rebel computer and rebel rebel thief.

[aralias.livejournal.com]

maybe folding lips is...putting one over the other? i asked the internet and it offers some indication (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110227171551AAVuAE9) of what hermione might be feeling, but no one saying 'what IS this?' bally useless.

also - i feel (as a recent perp) i should leap in defensively and say: i put epithets in my kill the dead thing, because tanith did. a lot.

that's my excuse and i'm sticking to it, but i must own... with that excuse in my arsenal, that i found it quite useful. for rhythm and for tone - it's difficult not to get some fun epic-ness out of 'the ghostkiller'. it's not something i'd want to do every day or in most fics, and it still drives me mad in most places (including 'kill the dead', but particularly when we discriminate between blake and everyone else by terming blake 'the rebel' - cally's a rebel! avon's a rebel! vila's a rebel! not all of them by choice, but they are all rebels. who are you talking about? yes, i know you're talking about blake, but i wish you'd just say 'blake'), but... i did guiltily enjoy it for 4,000 words.