Specific and Particular 2

Yet another “two”. They may not be AI indicators. The most recent book I read used “particular” a lot. Perhaps it’s regional? British maybe? There were also a few “sorted” as in “resolved/straightened out”. Americans don’t say that.

There were enough Archmage Reborn that they caught my attention, but I didn’t make explicit note of them (i.e. no example). I also noticed places where it could have been used and was not.

The very first sentence of The Unranked Healer

The evaluation hall smelled like chalk dust, old ambition, and the particular kind of desperation that collects in rooms where people’s entire futures get decided in under three minutes.

That was easy to find to quote.

I’ve only read the first sentence – it pushed me to write this – so I do not yet have an opinion about whether the book is AI. I’m pretty sure Archmage Reborn is not. It is getting more and more difficult to tell, but the author does have a voice, which most AI stuff does not.

There’s also a feedback loop. One discovers interesting phrasing and reuses it. It’s entirely possible that AI generated stuff is affecting authors. I know that I’ve stolen (but not yet used) the emotion-as-sense phrasing. “The rations tasted like dried sawdust and regret.” I really like it. I don’t care if it is an AI artifact or some author being clever.

Perhaps some authors just like “particular” and “specific”.

Update: I think this one is AI. Possibly just a new writer who is picking up style that way.

Most of the notices were standard. Supply runs. Courier work. A missing cat named Biscuit whose notice had faded from long neglect. A dungeon clearance request from a party of three who needed a fourth member, any class welcome, experience preferred.

There are five periods, but only one sentence. English has the mechanisms to handle this properly:

Most of the notices were standard: Supply runs; courier work; a missing cat named Biscuit whose notice had faded from long neglect; a dungeon clearance request from a party of three who needed a fourth member, any class welcome, experience preferred.

Noah stood on the stone steps and looked at the city and thought, with the careful precision of someone who has had a lot of practice at this particular thought: what now.

The double “and” instead of a list (Oxford comma optional) could just be a grammar failure. I’ve seen worse (and walled the book). “careful precision” is another AI flag. I’m not sure why, but it definitely pushes me that way. And of course the gratuitous “particular”. Proofreading the post, does the comma before “with” belong there? I think not, which makes it super simple to fix:

Noah stood on the stone steps, looked at the city, and thought with the careful precision of someone who has had a lot of practice at this particular thought: What now?

There seems to be a WordPress bug that doesn’t allow the insertion of plain text between two quotes. Ah. One de-quotes the whole thing then requotes the quote part. Anyway, that fixed the grammar. To de-AI it:

Noah stood on the stone steps, looked at the city, and thought as he had many times before: What now?

I’m detecting a trend: My edits shorten things. Perhaps it is a word count issue? The author thinks more words are better.

“It means,” the evaluator said, setting down his pen and giving Noah the look that people give when they are about to say something honest that they know will cause harm and have decided to say it anyway, “that the…

That also says AI. That pattern. I can’t quite describe what it is, but the HFY AI stories are full of it. “Doing the thing that people do when <insert caution> and do it anyway”

It was a terrible idea. He knew that with the clarity of someone who had made many terrible decisions and could now recognize them quickly upon arrival.

That would be fine without everything above. Considering everything above, it also reads AI. I _think_ it’s the “upon arrival” and the ‘distance’ between “he” and “someone”. The book is close 3rd person. “He” is the intrepid hero and we’re _almost_ first-person close. “someone” feels distant. In fact, I think the first-person version reads better.

It was a terrible idea. I knew that with the clarity of someone who had made many terrible decisions and could now recognize them quickly.

“clarity” is problematic. How would I write it? I’d probably stop at “It was a terrible idea.” Assuming I felt the need to elaborate – this is early in the book so adding subtle background is a good thing – maybe this…

It was a terrible idea; having made many terrible decisions, he recognized this.

I’m not set on the semicolon, which should probably be a period, but I like semicolons.

The subjunctive “could” needs to be imperative. Just because he “could” recognize it doesn’t mean that he actually “did” recognize it. I didn’t catch that until I rewrote it.

I’m on page 14 (end of chapter1). I don’t think I’m going to make it past the first few chapters of this book, which is sad.

Update: And I’m done. From the third paragraph of chapter 2:

The interior was dim, warm in the wrong way, and smelled like spilled ale and the specific sourness of a mop that had not been properly wrung out in several days.

The “specific sourness”, eh? The verb construction doesn’t work with the list, either. The initial “was” covers “dim” and “warm” (was dim, was warm) but doesn’t extend to the third (was smelled). The easy fix is incredibly awkward (was scented of). The hard fix:

The dim interior was warm in the wrong way and smelled of spilled ale and the sourness of a mop that had not been properly wrung out in several days.

I like the mop detail. The sentence as a whole is just dreadful.

I wonder if this should go in the My Competition series, too.

Update: A counter-example (from Return of the Strongest Healer).

She asked questions that were precisely wrong in ways that showed she understood the shape of the right answer.

vs the “particular” version

She asked questions in that particular way that showed she understood the shape of the right answer.