Glossary of uncommon terms: Camping (literary criticism/proofreading)

Every now and then, I may say of a book, "It was pretty good, except for all the camping."

Most people will probably be confused by this statement. Residents of the alternate universe in which there were more than four Harry Potter books are probably nodding their heads.

Camping is where the characters hide from nefarious forces of doom by hiding out in the woods, for weeks and weeks and weeks with basically nothing happening. The characters get bored and start climbing the walls. So do the readers.

Sometimes it actually is better to tell than show, unless you actually want to drag the audience through the horrifying boredom with the characters. It is a literary choice that some authors take. Not everyone has attained the skill to make the creeping psychosis of absolute fucking tedium as riveting as a high-speed chase scene. A swing and miss here? Camping. Bring the marshmallows.

Test (tweeps, you can disregard)

This entry is to make sure that my crossposted entries can automatically go two places using If This Then That monitoring the RSS feed of my 'crosspost' tag as the glue. Twitter is known to work. Now let's test Elsewhere.

The Girl Who Owned a Library

In which I rediscover something about The Girl Who Owned a City, by O.T. Nelson, that failed to stick in my head from 2009, in #yuletide:


[22:42] <azurelunatic> ... oh dear god.
[22:42] <azurelunatic> I think I hate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Who_Owned_a_City even more now.

[22:43] <strixus> and why Azz?

[22:43] <strixus> i can think of plenty of reasons why to hate that book

[22:44] <azurelunatic> Okay, so there's this really juicy post-apocalyptic story about a girl who manages to craft a well-armed civilization out of the wreckage.
[22:45] <azurelunatic> And I'm 12, very invested, and then she discovers this WONDEROUS BOOK THAT CONTAINS ALL THE LESSONS THAT SHE WILL NEED TO SOLVE HER PROBLEMS, and of course I'm very curious what it is, and then it never says and I become furious.
[22:45] <shati> i liked the girl who owned a city when i was a young girl who knew nothing of ayn rand
[22:46] <azurelunatic> I re-read it as a 20-something, and fly into a pagan-agnostic rage, because clearly it's the Bible.
[22:46] <shati> ...IT IS?
[22:46] <strixus> oh god
[22:46] <azurelunatic> AND NOW I LEARN THAT IT IS AYN RAND WHICH IS WORSE
( In which alternate books are suggested and discussed. )

All this talk of books results in yet another cracky title that gets dropped into my NaNo to get it out of my head:

[23:12] <azurelunatic> so there's "The Dangerous Book for Boys", and "The Daring Book for Girls" --
[23:12] <azurelunatic> They were hanging out in Chad's room again, Max sprawled out on Chad's bed, and Chad kicked back in the desk chair reading "The Poorly-Behaved Book for Tiny Psychopaths".
[23:13] <alexseanchai> hee
[23:13] <Chokolatte-1955> lol

22 tweets for 2012-11-24

In the last 24 hours, I posted the following to Twitter:

• Saturday, 0102: My fitbit #fitstats for 11/23/2012: 5,234 steps and 2.3 miles traveled. http://www.fitbit.com/user/23LLYD
• Saturday, 0123: I would say that while it's not the worst pain in the world, a jar of Noxzema to the instep in the shower is at least *unique* pain.
• Saturday, 0153: @afuna @nichronomicon The part that particularly delights me is the detour into detection of actual photographs.
• Saturday, 0201: DW entry: Test (tweeps, you can disregard) http://azurelunatic.dreamwidth.org/6959704.html
• Saturday, 0241: I'm going to have to say that perhaps https://t.co/lnfY17og was a tactical error due to what my knees are saying right now.
( read the other 17 )

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