a small editorial argh

[lagilman]

Okay folks, listen up and listen right now.

Eyes do not collide. Or if they do, a) you're writing horror or b) your name is Libba Bray (*waves at Libba*. Yes, that scare-the-roommate story still cracks me up)

Gazes may collide. Stares can collide, although that's trickier. But eyes? Remain in sockets. They do not collide, follow someone across the room, jump from item to item, or otherwise do anything that would require them leaving their sockets unless actually leaving their sockets.

Okay? Okay.

Your line-editor thanks you.

Comments

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

Sounds like my alter-ego's gripe several days ago about the difference between the iris and the pupil.

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

It's not the fall that kills you ...

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

That's a weird thing to be confused about, since usually the iris and the pupil are different colors...

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

I know, but I found it in a published book -- and more than once!

[arouraleona.livejournal.com]

They COULD collide if people weren't watching where they were going, walking around in a daze, and leading with their brow ridge. It wouldn't be horror, but it MIGHT just be comedy. Granted, it would most likely be bad comedy...

[fibro-witch.livejournal.com]

Oh my, now I don't feel so back about some of my writing. In the above picture Byron's eyes are trying to collide with a cookie.

[severedscythe.livejournal.com]

*laughs so hard she nearly makes herself sick*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_starlady_/]

Catherine Asaro used to do a cautionary writing talk about SF for romance writers. SF readers take things literally. You can't say things like, "His eyes roamed her body" or they'll expect the next line to be, "'Oh, sorry, I thought I had those fixed,' as he picked them up and put them back in the sockets." Other problems? "Her knees turned to jelly." "His heart exploded." "Their lips merged." "He melted in her gaze."

Eyes colliding--good one!

Diane

[lagilman]

Romance writers do seem to be the worst offenders with this particular item (that and "molten core." I've ranted on "molten core" before. The skin of male genitalia is delicate. If your core is molten he's not going to be a happy boy...)

(likewise if your vaginal muscles "bite" around him. Yes, I've encountered that one. No, it wasn't a h/s romance. I really do wonder what was going through the author's mind...)

[chicating.livejournal.com]

Trying to make the woman's part more active, most likely, but it sounds painful.

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

Vagina dentatis, obviously!

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

Well, if you've read Misty's Jinx High, this makes emminent sense. A demon familiar castrated a high school football hero in this way.

[otterdance.livejournal.com]

And I think that it goes without saying that tongues don't "tangle".

[e-cunningham.livejournal.com]

::nods::

I have a similar reaction to one of Laurell K. Hamilton's oft-used rhetorical devices. Anita Blake is fond of observing that so-and-so "gives her peaceful eyes." My mind immediately leaps to issues of presentation. I envision a plateful of half-lidded eyes, all of them in contented-puppy-dog-brown or dreamy shades of blue. Or possibly, when I'm in a more structured mood, eyes filling a miniature egg carton. A peaceful one. With a bow. Because they are, after all, a gift.

A popular fantasy writer often observes that one character "puts a cold stare over" some other character. This one puts a hitch in my gitalong, in that it really doesn't evoke a visual image, neither the one the author intended nor some bizarre alternate visualization. A Spiderman net shooting from someone's eyes and settling down over the other character as miniature icicles form on the strands? Doesn't work--it takes way too long. There seems to be a distinct time interval during which you'll decide whether to get back into the story and keep going, or put the book aside altogether. The longer the distraction offered by an odd image, the greater the likelihood of an unfinished book.

Eyes do strange things in fiction. They tend to dart around a room. (Pinball, anyone?) And damn near everyone says, at one time or another, "their eyes met." That one is such a familiar usage that it doesn't always evoke images of tiny white arms protruding from the eyeballs in question to politely shake hands with a new acquaintance. But sometimes, yeah, I do envision this, and it's every bit as creepy as it sounds. Glistening, moist, sclera-white hands and arms, with tiny red veins. ::shudders::

So. Thank you for your effects on behalf of over-imaginative readers everywhere.

[fibro-witch.livejournal.com]

Oh man, you just gave me an idea for a very silly panel.

[otterdance.livejournal.com]

I was teaching a critique workshop a few years back and one of the less promising writers wrote "Her eyes fell to the floor", beside which I wrote "Boing boing boing!" I now have an eyeball ball that I roll across the table at any offenders.

[rosenhaus.livejournal.com]

Eyes don't collide?

What happened when Sammy Davis Jr. bumped into Moshe Dyan?

Runnin' and duckin',
Steven

[lagilman]

Nah, that's what the eyepatches are for, to keep the socket clear of incoming eyeballs...

(and glass eyes are exempt)

[fibro-witch.livejournal.com]

This would make a really funny panel for a convention. Ask artists to draw eyes colliding and all.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

YES. That is one of my biggest pet peeves. Every time I read a sentence like "her eyes traveled around the room," I get this mental image of a pair of squishy, slimy eyeballs rolling across the floor, picking up lint and dust as they go.

[isabeau.livejournal.com]

Wipe your eyes off before putting them back in, missy; you don't know where they've been!

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

*laughs out loud* That's one of those things I'm always Very Aware of when writing. :)

[larah33.livejournal.com]

Doesn't beat the line "she hit him with a pair of grape lollpop eyes". And that line got published. *shivers*

[lagilman]

Be thankful I'm sparing you some of the Unfortunate Visuals from the sex scenes... (at least this author understands the need for blocking, so there's been no need for the emergency of the Action Figures of Correction.)

[claireeddy.livejournal.com]

For some reason fantasy writers do a great deal of what I call "Joe's got a head like a ping pong ball and his eyes roll all over the floor". Every time I encounter it I try not to giggle...and then I try and tactfully make them change it. Every. Single. Time.

This would make a cool panel topic...

--claire

[warriorofworry.livejournal.com]

I got a reputation for being a v.v. mean "B" reader for taking issue with eyes that leave their sockets.

I'm "wrapped"

[happypete.livejournal.com]

You could say that I await your next editorial comment with baited breath...That is, you could say that only if I had just finished a shrimp dinner.

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

Eyes do more than see.
They collide.
They travel.
And then there was the one-eyed Marine pilot who took out his glass eye, and showed off the Marine anchor on the other hemisphere of the orb from the fake iris and pupil.
(No, I am not making that up, I was a eyewitness to him doing that, in an bar in the Officers Club at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.)

[lagilman]

As I said, if the EYE leaves the SOCKET then you can claim traveling, or rolling, or any other activity.

If it stays in the socket? Nogo.