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charmbrights
Over 90 days ago
Straight Male, 86
United Kingdom

Forum

Quote by Mistress_of_words
Quote by rudyP34

I agree with this. I want to shoot myself when someone pauses his/her story to insert a description. The "let me start by saying that I'm 5'7" with a great body, bla bla bla"... totally kills it for me. I don't mind someone mentioning a body part in action, but otherwise physical descriptions are not necessary.


Agreed! It's even worse when two characters meet in a story for the first time and the narrator (or perspective character) reels off their stats like they'd just greeted them with a tape measure or they have the magical ability to psychically read clothing labels at a distance.

I look across the room and saw her. The most beautiful woman I've ever seen. She had long blonde hair that fell down across her 36D breasts and when she stood up on her four and a half inch heels she was 5'11".

Erm, yeah right.

Agreed. In my "Delights" novels (12 books, 600,000 words) the chief character, the story of whose life they are, is never described, even to his height, though it can be inferred that he is shorter than his chief bodyguard who is described as "a very tall man, almost seven feet and broad in proportion" when that impression is an important part of the story.

While many problems have been pointed out to me by eagle-eyed readers, mostly correctly, not one has ever commented on the lack of description for David Ransome, Emir of Kobekistan.
Quote by Mistress_of_words
Quote by charmbrights
Please will (or even "can") someone explain in what way the meaning is changed when someone writes "meet up", or even "meet up with" instead of simply "meet"? I find it hard to believe that the prepositions add anything to this verb.


That's an interesting one. It's just something that has developed in colloquial spoken language, I think. I have a few observations, but no explanations to offer:

Personally I think it tends to be applied more frequently to pre-arranged social activities, rather than the action of meeting a new person:

Let's meet up at the bowling alley.
I met up with this girl for lunch.
Etc.
vs
I met a girl at the movies.
I was looking forward to meeting him.

Also, I think meet up tends to be used more commonly with the WE/US/THEY pronouns. While meet on its own is more often used with singular pronouns:

We should meet up. Let's meet up.
They met up with...
vs
I'll meet you at..
Where do you want to meet?

I'm aware of the possibility I may be talking bollocks, lol.
I have no objection to anything "in colloquial spoken language" (even "well wicked") but I was specifically thinking of written work, and especially fiction.

Perhaps I too may "be talking bollocks", but somehow I think an author has a duty to write proper English, and to report direct speech as it really is. For example someone living near me affirming the performance of an activity and approval of the result may well say, "She do do that! Tidy!" yet the same person would not dream of writing the same words.
Please will (or even "can") someone explain in what way the meaning is changed when someone writes "meet up", or even "meet up with" instead of simply "meet"? I find it hard to believe that the prepositions add anything to this verb.
Writing as Charmbrights, I have been taken for a female and comments such as "That's not what a man would feel/do/say" have arrived. As a 72-y-o male I think I know what my male characters would feel/do/say. On the other hand I was asked by one reader whether a particular novel was autobiographical - fair enough, except that it was set on a prison colony planet in the year 2123.

Who said readers are not stupid?