Yay!

I’ve finished Zero Hour, the story that took shape in Packing Heat #5. I’m leaving the first draft up for readers to enjoy for free, and I’ll be producing it as both an ebook and paperback.

Here are my thoughts on the writing process of Zero Hour .

Newbie mistakes #4

Obvious Opposites

I read a story excerpt yesterday where one of the characters is referred to twice as “the young prince” and three times as “the younger man,” all in one chapter. This is called an epithet.

I was curious whether the Chicago Manual of Style had anything to say about epithets—and what I found was mainly explanations on how to punctuate them (no great surprise.)

However, this rule caught my eye: Temporary epithets. When preceding a name, role-denoting epithets such as citizen or historian should be lowercased and treated as if in apposition. CMOS 8.37

“Role-denoting” is what stuck out to me! When newbie writers use epithets, so often they’re there to remind us who’s older and younger, who’s the fireman and who’s the arsonist, who’s related to whom.

I find it clumsy. The over-reliance of continually reminding your readers who’s younger by referring to them as, “the young man” rather than their name might indicate that you haven’t dug deeply enough into their personality to show them acting younger. Not that every “younger” person acts the same way—but how does that particular character manifest his or her age? Are they foolhardy, insecure, ignorant, impetuous, or what? Probably, you haven’t explored what the actual ramifications of the characters’ age difference are, otherwise you wouldn’t need to resort to “the young man” to remind us of that character’s age.

I also think you’ll get much more mileage out of the old saw “opposites attract” if the opposition isn’t the main theme of your story. I think you’ll unearth much more interesting interactions if your characters agree in some places but disagree in others.

Think of it as the ten-after-six model. On an analog clock, at six o’clock (am and pm) the minute hand and the hour hand are opposite each other. At ten after six, the minute hand has moved a few degrees toward the hour hand. They’re no longer totally opposite—but they’re different enough to provide all sorts of interesting conflict.

Your Assignment

Are there polar opposites in your story? Think about placing them at ten after six and finding a few areas were they’re in synch.

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