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​I feel quite distraught

13/7/2018

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Thoughts inspired by my reading

    Oh dear, oh dear, I feel quite distraught. Someone just ejaculated in front of me. Really. Right there on the printed page.
     It’s not as though it hasn’t happened before, but I still find it poor practice. Yes, I realize that authors of some classic works of the past did it. Victor Hugo for one. And Charles Dickens was an inveterate user, with his characters given to ejaculating on right, left, and centre of his pages. Messrs Smallweed, Mantalini, Brass, Pickwick, and Richard Swiveller did it, as did other ‘gentlemen’ including Sir Leister Deadlock and Lord Frederick Verisopht. Even the kind-hearted Miss Betsey Trotwood was wont to let forth an ejaculation from time to time.
     So really, perhaps I shouldn’t be so squeamish, but when a book’s characters squeal, shriek, remonstrate, intone, or spit, I can’t help wishing they’d take hold of themselves and simply ‘say’ something. 
     I’m a little mollified to find I’m not the only one to object to all these variables which are, to my mind, on a par with the adverb. 
     I’ve never read any of Elmore Leonard’s books – westerns, and crime fiction not being my usual reading fare – but he must have had something going for him, and I am more inclined to do so since I read that the third of his 10 Tricks for Good Writing was “Never use a verb other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue.”
     It’s a shame he died a few years ago. I feel I’d like to write and ask him what he thought about the habit of Mr Pickwick et al.

 😊 Bronwyn Elsmore
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I'm not alone - staunch readers wanting books

3/7/2018

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Picture
   Oh, have I been waiting for this! Or something like it. Anything that addresses a complaint I’ve had for a long time. And, unfortunately, one that seems to be a growing concern.
    I’m a book buyer, and for some time now I’ve been more and more picky about what I spend my ebook-purchasing dollars on, and what I read. Murders – not for me. Serial murders – definitely not. Especially when it’s a case of women as victims.

    Now I find I’m not alone. At times I thought I must be, but today I came across notice of the inaugural Staunch Book Prize, that is open to thriller genre books in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered. 
    The  website elaborates –
    “We launched the
Staunch Book Prize because we felt that there’s just such an overload of violence towards women in fiction. When women in the real world are fighting sexual abuse and violence, or being murdered because they’re women, the casual and endless depiction of  women as victims sits uneasily alongside their fight.”
     Bravo to the Staunch organizers. I’m looking forward to seeing the shortlisted titles, then the winner in November. You can be sure some of my book-buying budget will be directed their way.
     More details of the book prize here - http://staunchbookprize.com/about
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