Guest post by Erastes
This is what I told Wave to say when she asked me about this week’s post. “Just say that,” I said. I didn’t explain myself to her either, so she’s probably written me off as a loony. Actually, that was probably a long time ago…
I want to talk about nomenclature. I love that word.
First of all, I want you to imagine you are having a long conversation with your other half, or your best friend. Imagine the entire conversation, both sides, then write down the number of times that you actually call each other by each others’ names.
I bet it’s not very many, is it?
The thing is that we don’t constantly call each other by names. There are obvious times when we do of course. When we are angry or relieved:
“Oh for God’s sake, Susan, you just aren’t LISTENING!”
“There you are, John – where have you been?!”
or if we are out of sight: “Dad! Dinner time!”
But in general conversation, you’d sound like an idiot (and several hundred years old) if you went on like this:
“The captain says he has not been well, Constance, and does not wish us to catch his malaise.”
“You should see if there is anything we can do, Christopher. His eyes look so sad.”
“Perhaps he has lost someone too, Constance.”
“I don’t think so, Christopher, for we spoke at length of his family.”
That was taken from Standish, and the names have been added in. And it sounds AWFUL.
We don’t talk that that – I bet that if I were with a friend all day, I wouldn’t mention their name once.
So I don’t see why so many people do this in dialogue! I wish more authors listened to how people actually speak!
I can understand it (just) in radio shows where you need to establish quickly that “Bill has entered the grocery store to speak to Jim” but with books you will have written “Bill came through the door.” So you know he is there – plus you’ll be using dialogue tags “said Bill” – to confirm who is speaking. But time and time I read books where the characters use each other’s names over and over and over throughout the dialogue.
HATE.
The other thing regarding names that winds me up like a wind-up thing is EPITHETS.
Epithet: noun. any word or phrase applied to a person to describe them.
Oh I hates them, precious. I hates them to peeces.
One rule with epithets. LESS IS MORE. Scatter your epithets sparingly through your prose, writers, because your writers will be gnashing their teeth after more than three.
I think many of the most egregious uses of epithets come from fandom, and while I was in Harry Potter Slashdom you’d see so many of them–I’m sure it was the same in whatever fandom you may have experienced.
Writers seem to think that either mentioning the character’s name in description, or merely using the word “he” is BORING and so they dream up the most amazing alternatives rather than using either of those. Heaven forbid! Don’t believe me? Check out this website which lists them by fandom and Potterdom definitely wins the prize.
- the blonde
- the lanky blond
- the hunk
- the dark-haired virgin
- the blond teen
- the blonde teen
- the brunette teen
- the dark-haired teen
- the tow-headed teen
Just for a few….
I’ve read sex scenes with so many of these used that it appeared like there were about 15 people in the bed.
As far as I’m concerned you only need to use an epithet BEFORE you know what the man’s name is.
For example.
“A man came out of the woods. A stranger, dressed all in black; his hair and eyes as black as his cloak.”
“Who the devil are you?” growled Nathaniel.
The stranger moved no closer and said nothing.
“Answer me,” Nathaniel ordered, “or by God I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
With a wry smile, the dark-haired man turned and walked away.
I just wish authors wouldn’t think that “he” is boring. It is true with m/m that “he” and “him” CAN be confusing, but if you re-read your text carefully, say it out loud, give it to others to read and critique then you’ll soon work out a way of incorporating the character’s names in within description without describing every part of his body (except when necessary!) and sounding silly.
Of course when it comes to “the hugely endowed man”… that’s an epithet I’m not going to complain about!!!
Any thoughts, my well-meaning readers? (see what I did there? Oh please yourself…)
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And here I thought this was going to be a post about the abnormally high percentage of green-eyed men in m/m fiction – far beyond what one would find in the population at large.
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No argument about the overuse of names in conversation – it’s as bad as not using contractions. Very awkward indeed.
I suppose unusual coloured eyes is a bit of a trope.. (hides away her first ever piece of Mary Sue fanfic with the girl with violet eyes… called Violetta… OH THE SHAME….)
Wow. That’s very brave of you to admit, Erastes!
Do we get a link to the story Erastes so that we can critique it – maybe even review it on the site?
Not in a BILLION years!!
I actually did a study of this on about 200 books Chris and compared it with some on-line data about eye colour. (In a mostly North American or European context.) It’s at Kris’ somewhere. And to be honest there were a few too many blue-eyed blondes and a bit more green than normal to on the whole the mix was fairly well distributed. I expected the results to be way more skewed. I think hazel-eyed guys got the short end of the stick. But we probably just note it more when an usualy eye color/hair combination comes up. It’s easy to skim over “brown hair, light brown eyes”. Blah blah blah, same old same old, so we don’t note it. Although I’ve read a few total whack colors that I’m pretty sure are only found in novelty contact lenses.
Wow, a scientific study of this – why am I not surprised that you and Kris would be involved in such a thing, Tam?
It’s the same with the het romances – I don’t think that m/m writers should feel guilty about making their men impossibly handsome or with gorgeous colour eyes – it’s something the romance industry has been doing for decades and we aren’t fetishing gay men for doing this, merely following a tried and tested tradition.
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I am pleased to say that, although both David and Jonathan have unusual eye colours in Transgressions (David: honey coloured with brown/gold flecks which move to greenish in certain lights or emotions, and Jonathan: light grey with a black ring around the iris) they are both eye colours taken from people in my family!
Now I’m not much of a writer, but I do spend a lot of time doing m/m roleplay these days, so I thought I’d comment on about epithets.
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I mostly use them so that the over-use of he and him doesn’t get confusing. When you’re describing a sex scene with two men, it can be hard to get a handle on who is where if you’re not careful. Since roleplaying is done on the fly with no editing and little planning, I often use epithets to make my writing as clear as possible without spending twenty minutes on a post.
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I stick to the same few epithets though. I’m currently doing a roleplay that takes place in feudal Japan between a tailor and a student, and one that takes place in the modern era between two musicians. M, who is in feudal Japan, is described only as “the younger man” or “the student” while S in modern times is described as “the vocalist” or “the shorter man”.
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While roleplaying, repetitions of names or the words he and him can seem much more glaring, since you’re only writing one paragraph or less at a time.
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I wonder if some of the fandom stories you’ve read had started out as roleplays and morphed into stories rather than having been originally planned as something you would read as a whole instead of one post at a time.
I don’t know – I did roleplay for years and I hated the epithet even then. I don’t think he and him IS confusing written carefully–granted you don’t have the same leisure of time in RP. But even so, such things should have been edited out if fanfic was converted into books, which we know happened/happens.
Oh it absolutely should have been edited out, I agree with you on that. As I said, I only use it so that I’m not repeating a name fifteen times on one post to make it clear which ‘he’ I’m referring to. I type up multi-paragraph posts in under 10 minutes, so clarity and speed is essential.
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However, if my rp partner and I decided to turn our most recent game into a book, everything would be re-written from the top to bottom, because books just don’t read the same way RP does.
I’m not sure I have ever met anyone with eyes the color of green I often see described. Shades of blue, gray, brown, gold, hazel and even black but the only green has been a muddy olive shade. Neither have I seen aqua eyes.
Overuse of names is something that can irritate me no end. As can overuse of epithets. I can see using them frequently in the beginning of a story to build a description of the characters but don’t pound it in! We probably got it the first time. It tends to move me into skim mode.
LOL – exactly – WE KNOW HE’S GOT GREEN EYES please to be not telling us a billion times!!
I agree with you completely. The use of names in dialogue gets quite distracting because it’s not realistic. I was with a friend for hours the other night and never said her name once while we talked back and forth. Why would I need to?!?
Unless I don’t know the character’s name, I don’t want to read epithets in a story. An author can maybe slip in a couple here and there, but too many and I’m not a happy reader. If I’ve already been told a character had blond hair, I do not want to constantly read him being referred to as “the blond man.” It’s redundant and annoying. I *know* he’s blond, I was already told that detail and I didn’t forget it ~ I don’t need to be reminded over and over again. Please, just use the character’s name.
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Epithets are a pet peeve of mine and I think I hate them almost as much as you do.
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The use of “he” and “him” isn’t boring for a reader from my standpoint, but it can be confusing. The problem is that too many authors don’t understand how to use pronouns properly to eliminate confusion over which character the “he” or “him” belongs to in a paragraph. It’s really an important tool for authors to learn, especially when writing within the LGBT genre.
Oh I’m so glad people agree with me – I worry at times that I’ve got all these likes and dislikes and one day everyone’s going to say “no – it’s just you.”
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Absolutely agree with everything you say. What’s worse is when they drag professions into it and you get “the red-haired plumber” “the blue eyed accountant” – it’s a small step then to “the billionaire’s blue-eyed diminutive toyboy.” And that way lies madness.
Funny you mention this. I did a post today talking about how much I hate the overuse of pet names and “darling”. Ugh.
Yes, even pet names aren’t used every sentence. Writers need to listen more to real dialogue. I’m a bit of a spy – I’m always listening to people, I’ve always been that way years before I started to write. On the bus, in the supermarket, in the street, on park benches. And listening to partner’s conversations too, and family.
Oh I’m with you. Although I can’t think of a book I’ve read where they used names a lot, but yeah, it’s weird. Epithets (which is a weird word in itself) bug me when they are constantly used. I read a book recently where the one guy kept being referred to as “the American”. Granted the other two guys were British but I kept thinking “God, I’d hate to be referred to as “the Canadian” in a love scene. You can’t remember my freaking name after “the Italian” and “the German”?” I don’t mind it used once in a while, but not constantly. Older man or younger man are over-used as well. Unless the age difference is extreme (and like Emily said, I’m unlikely to forget if they are 25 years apart), once they get to adult age, who really cares that one is 27 and one is 32? Whatever, the age isn’t an issue. I’m in favour of he.
Or him. Or they. 
God yes – I’ve read books with nationalities too. I’d hate to be called The Blue Eyed Brit. It sounds like a breed of cliff nesting gull.
As always too much is not good. Moderation is better.
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At first I was afraid you had something against green eyes!
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What I think is weird is calling a over 6ft, baby. Baby’s are the cuties drinking milk from a bottle.
I don’t like over affectionate pet names between men myself – but then… I think that we need (Wave? idea for a question to our gay male readers?) to ask the men what they think. I know gay men who do call each other babe and sweetheart – so if I were writing contemps, I’d want to get the dialogue right (for my characters, at least.) I wouldn’t impose my own preferences against what was real. Luckily, with historicals, the best you are likely to get is “my very, very dear” (which makes me go weak at the knees)
Erastes
I agree with you re the name thing and the epithets.
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I asked an author partnership why they kept referring to the protagonists as the blond or the brunette in one of their stories and their response was that they couldn’t call them by name all the time. Another author partnership (isn’t it weird that when you put two writers together they come up with these great ideas) called their characters by these absolutely horrible pet names to avoid calling them Jimmy or John.
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I admit it’s more difficult when you write M/M to differentiate who is speaking, but a bit of imagination should do the trick.
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As for eye colour, since most of my people have brown eyes it would be kind of difficult to call both protags “the brown eyed man.” (chuckle).
Isn’t it odd that writers think that the names are boring? or confusing? I find it much more confusing when the character is referered to as six different epithets because i have to keep remembering who has green eyes…
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A bit of careful editing, and a good beta should generally weed out confusion, that’s for sure.
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LOL – yes! Now that would be funny if all my heroes were the same eye colour. What would I do!!!? Panic!!
“I’m sorry, I know we get along great and have fantastic sex, but there’s no way I can get into a serious relationship with you in this story, because we have the same eye colour, so the writer won’t know how to distinguish between us.”
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“Aw, come on, please! She could say ‘the cool-blue-that-looks-grey-in-some-lighting-conditions-eyed man’ and the ‘blue-with-a-hint-of-green-if-he-wears-a-green-shirt-eyed man’.”
*hides from Lori*
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On the whole, I agree. A well chosen epithet can set a tone for a particular moment (e.g. taking comfort in the big nurse’s arms) but make sure there few of those moments.
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Names are invisible. Said is invisible. Don’t sweat them! Nobody needs to write something like “Give it up,” quipped the wicked dictator. “Never!” thin-smiled handsome hero. “But, darling, I want him to play with,” insinuated the magician, leaning over his beloved’s shoulder.
Hiding? Never say it! Really, I was all about the overuse of the names. Use ‘em, sure. We all do. But it’s not the only thing we call each other, ya know? Occasionally you use a pet name. Occasionally an epithet might be appropriate. Occasionally their real name is good. Occasionally you don’t use their name at all (as is most often the case IRL). Just mix it up, please!
I’m scarred, Angelia. Scarred!!!! Brilliant examples.
Nothing much left to say other than…… “Yes, Erastes, I agree whole-heartedly with your post”, said Sherry F, the middle-aged, highlighted blonde woman. “And such interesting comments, don’t you think, Erastes?”
Thank you, Sherry, and yes – it’s a great discussion!
Oh, this is one of those topics in fiction I can sink my teeth into! Using names constantly in dialogue makes me cringe. I want to write to the authors and tell them to READ out loud, maybe give others the parts like a play and see how it sounds.
Too many epithets in a story will make me back out. Or ones that strive for uniqueness and wind up sounding like a bizarre mutant.
I agree, Merith – as I’ve said above, I think it’s just a case of writers who need to stop and listen to people actually talk. Drives. Me. Bonkers! Thanks for your comment!
Please, please, no “babe.” Not unless it’s used by a playful character who’s addressing a twink he’s fond of. Generally, though, a man calling another man “babe” makes me grimace, and the older the designated babe, the more painful my grimace. I don’t need more wrinkles.
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Terms of endearment and pet names can be sweet and even integral parts of a loving relationship. But they need to be chosen carefully and used sparingly, or else they become cloying.
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And names in every other line of dialogue? Bad. Just ask the Canadians.
I definitely don’t like “babe” or “baby” between men. In fact I’m not even too keen in it from a man to a woman. It kind of implies “I call all chicks ‘babe’ so I don’t have to remember their names.”
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Pet names can be great fun. The more serious or dignified the character the more fun it is to have them given a silly pet name by their lover. Most couples have them, but they are usually unique and meaningful to them, and generally kept very private. (If a guy starts calling his other half “my little pumpkin” in public, like at a board meeting or something, I’m throwing the book at the wall.)
A RL friend once told me that he took a rather pretty young man home and when they got into bed he called him “Daddy” and my friend fell out of bed laughing. However, it does happen I suppose!
I think the “I’m overusing the names” is one of those things that writers sweat about – like “said” – and that the reader never even thinks about until the writer starts overcompensating. I’m sure it is possible to overuse the names, but I can’t think of a single book, story or fanfic I’ve read that made me go “stop using the names so much!” I’ve read plenty that I’ve thought “stop using epithets so much!” “The blonde” and “his lover” are my particular bugbears thanks to certain stories in my fandom.
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I think one reason it bugs me is that “the green-eyed man” is less evocotive than “Bob”. “Bob” evokes in the reader everything they already know about Bob. What he looks like (not just his eyes!) his personality, what he’s done in this story and his backstory. That doesn’t happen the same way with an epithet.
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Dialogue is a funny one, because of course it has to sound natural and yet it can’t be exactly like real speech, or we’d be here all day reading people waffling on in fragments and switching tenses etc. But it also shouldn’t sound like it’s dialogue either! But text has its challenges. If you don’t want to add in a lot of action tags, having someone turn to look at different people as they talk, then a group of people talking can be tricky without dropping in a name. And it can be useful even with just two people with some fast moving ping-pong dialogue. But I’m definitely trying to eliminate as many as possible when I edit.
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One of my colleagues at work sometimes winds people up, on the phone especially, by using their name in every single sentence! It’s useful to listen to, it’s a reminder to me for when I’m editing.
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Great post! Definitely an interest of mine.
I think the “I’m overusing the names” is one of those things that writers sweat about – like “said” – and that the reader never even thinks about until the writer starts overcompensating.
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Exactly right. Said is – as Stephen King says, invisible – and you only notice it when it’s constantly replaced by something else.
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I think the worst example of overuse of the names is within Nick Heddle’s gay historicals. Within dialogue, he uses the name of the person his character is speaking to in every single sentence. It’s enough to make you beat your head with a crowbar.
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“his lover” ARGH! *stabs it *
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Good point. “Bob” tells us all we need to know, as long as we’ve been introduced correctly. Or even if we haven’t – that’s good too – it makes him more mysterious.
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Good point too about the “real” dialogue – it’s a tricky balance!
I think everyone’s agreeing with you!
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I don’t have much more to add, except that the over-use of names was the first thing my beta pointed out to me years ago in my first attempt at writing. Now I see it everywhere and it bugs me every time!
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The same thing with “the green eyed man”. How many times do we see that in HP fiction? Alongside the Potions Master? The younger man, the older man … if I could get a dollar for every Snarry story I’ve read with those words, I’d be rich!
Yes – Gaycrow you are dead right. Potter fic was completely stuffed with them – it was there I started to hate them, and probably makes me more sensitive to them out in the pro-fic world. *shudder *
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Nice to see you, dear!
As a green-eyed person, I object to your wanton discrimination/objectification/scarification/uglification/bippity-boppity-booification of green-eyed people and I am just so mad I am going to come over there and, and, and, spit on your dinner.
And that picture of a wet Hugh Jackman up there won’t help you one bit.
But seriously – yes, I know what you mean and the Harry Potter thing just makes me want to scream. It occurs with astonishing regularity in some of the vampire fandoms – real vampires, mind, not that ridiculous twinkly vegetarian ponce – and is usually written by tween girls high on too much sugar and too many Sweet Valley High books.
I am still going to spit on your dinner.
ha ha! for i WILL appropriate your green eyes and use them for my kinky purposes!
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*squish*
You will appropriate my green eyes…NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
He heh. My Dracula has green eyes. I can’t get away from it.
I like “babe.” And “darling,” too, and “pet.” All my gay friends constantly call me hon or honey. . I constantly call my children sweetheart. In stories, it mostly doesn’t bother me except for the book I just recently finished where the two characters called each other “Baby” and “Sugar” every single time they opened their mouths. That one did drive me nuts.
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L
Nod – as in all things dialoguey less is definitely more.
[...] post this week over at Jessewave’s Blog: Why I hate the green-eyed man. Or the blue-eyed man. Or the sneering, dark-haired latin philanthropist. Do come [...]
Yes, that’s simply really shoddy writing
On the matter of epithets, I remember being told I write like an amateur and urgently need to revise the basics of creative writing because I used one – namely the expression “the pilgrim” in “Deliverance” at a moment in the text when I had so many “hes” in a paragraph I could have started a museum with them.
I guess some editor at “big e-pub” went a little overboard with that pet hate.
Well to be honest, I went and looked and you do have an awful lot of them – many “the pilgrim”s and “the knight”s but, like Standish its an early piece. I’m QUITE sure if I went through Standish or Transgressions I’d find tons of them too, as I wrote them both years ago – but that’s the point of discussion and learning – we improve by making these mistakes!
@Erastes: Yeah, but “the pilgrim” is less silly than “said Guy, whom William didn’t know at this point was his long-lost ex-lover.”
Sometimes, epithets are a matter of POV, too. And are characterising. What exactly does it say about a character if, in his POV, he describes another as “the blond” or whatever? Especially in deep third, that can be an issue.
I LOATHE epithets! They throw me out of a story – whether fanfic or novel – all the time. The only time I find them appropriate is when we don’t know a character’s name, exactly the example you used.
When I think about friends and acquaintances – or even people in general that I know, I never think of them by their attributes first. Sure, if two people have the same name, one might be “tall/brown-haired Bob” and the other “short/blond-haired Bob”, but always “Bob”.
Names and pronouns are not boring; I think it’s that sometimes writers think they have to be fancy and overly descriptive simply because writers are supposed to have (or are perceived as having) a certain facility with language, so they have to prove it. But this is definitely not the area in which to ‘show off’. Describing eye and hair colour (and other apprearance-related attributes) within narrative is one thing. Using it as an adjective is lazy and trite.
(And if you think HP fandom is bad, anime/manga is even worse, because those characters have a tendency to have unusual hair and eye colouring to start with, and the jewel-toned eye descriptions are ridiculously laughable!)
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As for using names in dialogue, I agree with you 100% there, too. _Especially_ if there are only two people in the conversation. Do people not read their dialogue aloud to themselves when they write? I do this all the time, every time. Names, contractions, flow, breathing patterns.
(Not to mention that people don’t just stand (or sit) there speaking. They shuffle, they look at things, they gesture, blink, they might sigh or exhale loudly. They _move_. But that’s another discussion.
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If there are a lot of people speaking to each other, then it’s more appropriate to slip in a name occasionally, particularly if one person is being singled out and addressed specifically, but I still think it’s usually better to indicate direction with narrative cues. (Sometimes I actually draw stick-figure diagrams for group scenes so I know exactly where people are when they speak. With arrows for when they move. Anal? Yup. Helpful? Very! *g*)
I think that diagrams are a very good idea. I tend to act out the scenes out loud, before i write them down, imagining them in my head – that way people don’t levitate through doors, suddenly have things in their arms they weren’t carrying before -a nd as you say – they move about – although too much narrative tags like “he puffed on his cigar” on every line – can be annoying too! Not anal at all dear!
(ack! sorry about the text walls – I did type it with paragraphs! I’ll use physical dividers next time!)
>>>The use of “he” and “him” isn’t boring for a reader from my standpoint, but it can be confusing. The problem is that too many authors don’t understand how to use pronouns properly to eliminate confusion over which character the “he” or “him” belongs to in a paragraph. It’s really an important tool for authors to learn, especially when writing within the LGBT genre.<<<
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THANK YOU, Emily. Pronoun confusion is a pet peeve of mine. It’s almost worse than the overuse of names and epithet, since you can skim over those. It’s an essential skill, agreed. It always surprises me how many authors get it wrong.
Exactly – and that’s part of my point – editors should know better than writers (in the main) and should be weeding out both the epithets and the pronoun confusion. A good beta is worth its weight in gold, too.
Oddly enough, I’ve had many an editor (and proofreaders, as well) tell me that I need to change “he” or “him” because those words are allegedly confusing in m/m stories.
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To be fair, every now and again, they might be right, but on the whole, I find myself declining their advice with no complaints later from readers.
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Epithets are fine with me, if used sparingly. The occasional “the actor smiled” or “the goth smirked, lined eyes sparkling merrily” doesn’t bother me. As with anything, it’s a question of moderation. *hee* Hopefully my usage of such terms has become less profligate than in the past.
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Oh, I’m another who is offended by your spurious and capriciously cruel dislike of green-eyed lovelies. For I AM green-eyed and lo, I am lovely. In my own mind, anyway. *hee*
~Tis
Exactly – less is more -but I would look askance at an editor who wanted me to add epithets, that’s for sure!
i wish i had green eyes. When I was in NY years and years ago they had tinted contacts for $20 – i wish i’d got them.
[...] she talked about nomenclature and the common mistakes authors make in this area, here’s a link to the post. On the plus side there is a lot of emotion between Christian and Jonah, and the sex [...]
Oh my God, THANK YOU! I’m not a writer (except for myself – my one attempt at HF must never, ever, see the light of day) but an avid reader of particularly HF, as well as some fanfic. I’m seriously allergic to both epithets and name overuse in dialogue, the latter of which I call telemarketer syndrome: you know how they call you Ms, Mrs or Mr Whatever – or, if they’re particularly bold, your first name – at least once every sentence because they think it’s “friendly” or “best practice customer interface with key stakeholders”? ARGH! Seriously, those types are the only people I’ve ever met who talk like that in real life.
I think the worst epithet example I came across recently was in a fanfic (H/D – suppose I shouldn’t be surprised), where Draco, our first person narrator, refers to Harry as “the raven-haired boy.” Now THAT’s just embarrassing. The author’s response to reviews which critiqued this rationalised it thus: “I like using the descriptions to add to the visuals.” This despite the fact that anyone in HP fandom who didn’t know Harry’s or Draco’s hair colour by now would have to have been living under a rock. (And don’t get me started on the school house affiliation epithets, especially when the story is set 20 years after they left school. I have to think hard to remember which house I was in, because as an adult it’s beyond irrelevant.) In first or limited third person, using hair or eye colour epithets is not realistic. The narrator’s not going to be thinking of his or her friend, lover, whatever as “the green-eyed [this]” or “the sexy effervescent [that],” nor of himself as “the Irishman,” as occurred (at least once every few paragraphs) in one HF book I attempted but couldn’t finish.
When I think of friends or family members, I don’t mentally describe them by physical characteristics, because those are least important; similarly, if I think of a particularly toxic work colleague, I’m not going to think “the dark-haired woman,” it’s more likely to be, “there’s that psychotic bitch.”
In summary, this is my run-on, tl;dr way of saying: brilliant, spot on post.
Thanks, Rachel – I agree with everything you said here!
Glad you liked the post, dear.
I find that with e-books, sometimes the formatting is so bad that putting in the name or something to mark who is talking is a big help. There is usually no problem when I buy a book at Amazon for my Kindle but sometimes even when I buy a non-secured book that specifies it’s mobi for Kindle, they are just awful. No new line & tab for a change in the character speaking so you have to read back and try & figure out who is saying what. Ruins the flow. That’s really the only problem I have with the Kindle books though.