So it’s project deadline time again, and I’m back into my stories to escape from the responsibility; editing huge chunks that don’t sound like real speech and actions that don’t fit the characters (etc.) and taking out short statements that I was so proud of before, that now make me cringe.
Case in point: I found in one story, first line of the 6th chapter, I had used “When Dawn with her rose red fingers shone once more,”
Now I remember how that made me feel at the time (“woo! Look at me, quoting Homer. It shows I’m cultured and all that. It’s almost like this story is classical literature!”), but now it just seems out of place and trying WAY too hard.
I suppose it might have worked better if there was a character in the story called Dawn, who painted her nails red or something… then the statement would make sense in and of itself, with the fact that it was a reference an added bonus, but changing a character just for that doesn’t seem worth it, and it would probably still make me roll my eyes.
Anyone here get that feeling? Not so much the “did I write this? It’s very bland” but the “I know what I was trying for there, but I think I failed. Hard.”
I also have a problem with overusing ellipses… but that’s another story.