Impossible prose
Nov. 30th, 2022 06:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petrea_mitchellThe latest sourcebook about the main Pathfinder setting is Impossible Lands, covering a chunk of the world roughly equivalent to east Africa and parts of the Indian Ocean. It contains detailed writeups of several nations which are all distinctly different from each other with no generic RPG lands. It's full of fascinating details on people, places, creatures, and even a few recipes.
But good grief, the actual prose. Try this sample:
The book is has tons of sentences like this. Either the authors were struggling to make their wordcount at the last minute and didn't have time for another editing pass, or the editors had a tight deadline and didn't have time for it.
Does anyone know a term for this particular sort of style collapse? I've come across it in other contexts and it would be handy to have a shorthand for it.
But good grief, the actual prose. Try this sample:
A facade of order isn't quite accurate to describe Ecanus's culture, but the city's tight choreography is tenuous, and its recent misfortune hasn't calcified any sustainable harmony. On the contrary, recent troubles have exposed the city's derelict conceptual wounds.
The book is has tons of sentences like this. Either the authors were struggling to make their wordcount at the last minute and didn't have time for another editing pass, or the editors had a tight deadline and didn't have time for it.
Does anyone know a term for this particular sort of style collapse? I've come across it in other contexts and it would be handy to have a shorthand for it.
