Beware the Authorial Tic
One scudding cloud is enough already
A reader writes:
In the novel I’m reading, the clouds are always scudding. Before I was even halfway through the book, I had encountered perhaps half a dozen clouds, and every one of them scudded. If I see another scudding cloud, I’m going to hurl this book across the room. Can you explain how a single word could send me into this kind of rage?
— Annoyed in Akron
Two things, dear Annoyed. First, your author has a tic.
Authorial tics are very common. One day a writer lights on what seems just the right word or phrase—something specific and vivid (writers are everywhere advised to be specific and vivid). But having used this excellent expression once, the writer can’t resist (and may not even be conscious of) choosing it again the next time a similar opportunity presents itself.
Because it’s impossible to observe one’s own behavior objectively, authorial tics are often difficult for the infected writer to spot. Fortunately, copyeditors routinely check for tics.
A good copyeditor, in reviewing the manuscript of this novel, would ideally have flagged all occurrences of scudding after the first one and suggested politely to the author that a different descriptor would reduce the risk of the reader’s being distracted by a relatively unusual word popping up so frequently.
We shouldn’t be too quick to blame the quality of the copyediting, however. Many a copyeditor’s recommendation has been overruled by the author, who typically has the final say.
This novel’s copyeditor might very well have queried (asked the author about) every recurrence of the word scudding, even suggesting possible alternatives, only to have each proposed rewording stetted. (The old hard-copy equivalent of declining a Tracked Change in a Word file was writing “stet” in the margin. Latin for “let it stand,” stet means, No, don’t make that change. Sometimes it means, Leave the text exactly the way I wrote it, because that’s the way I want it, and I’m the author.)1
And what exactly is so wrong with all those scudding clouds? A word or phrase that adds color on its first use in a book can have all its distinctiveness and even its meaning depleted after just one or two repetitions, quickly becoming a cliche and a distraction.
Which brings us to the second issue. Your urge to give up on the story and hurl the book across the room, dear Annoyed, is thoroughly justified. This author’s willingness to lean on a cliche rather than spend the extra bit of energy and time required to come up with a fresh description proves he does not respect you.
Whatever the content of a work, the writer’s first and most important job is to hold the reader’s attention. If the writing fails to keep the reader engaged, any idea or story or argument the writer aimed to convey becomes irrelevant.
Your author has violated the Attention Maintenance clause of his contract with the reader, so you are well within your rights to plead abandonment, exercise the reader’s prerogative, and just stop reading.
I should point out that the vast majority of authors are not combative about proposed rewordings. Most authors are lovely to work with—responsive and professional and grateful for the copyeditor’s input. They understand that the copyeditor’s job is to help the text get as close as possible to what the author intended, that the author and the copyeditor want the same thing. But I have my doubts about this scudding fellow.
Would you have been at all tempted to mark the *first* occurrence of "scudding clouds"? Or would that be too heavy-handed? I have always assumed that "scudding clouds" was essentially a metaphor implicitly comparing clouds racing across the sky before the wind like ships, and I confess a slight irritation with the phrase on first encounter because it seems like a dead metaphor, even a cliché.
I checked the OED to see if my sense was accurate, and apparently not--"racing or hurrying" is the oldest documented meaning (1532), with the nautical usage following at a gap of some 50 years. "Scudding" for the movement "Of clouds, foam, etc....driven by the wind" comes later, but still quite a long time ago (1699, though "scud" as a noun for such clouds or foam is dated 1609). So now I feel less irritation--I guess because it seems less like trying to be clever or poetic, and more like being just...accurate, as long as not overused?