Excerpt................

Enough of lengthy descriptions. It is time to introduce some characters into the story. To be more precise, this is a re-introduction. Of course, that said, even more lengthy descriptions are to follow, but that is unavoidable. Witness epics. An epic is always an epic because it contains lengthy descriptions, constricting the reader to a parochial mindset, not allowing them to visualize anything as they see fit. For example, the author always assumes that the reader’s own view of a marvelous, dashing hero will not suffice. It is always a necessity according to him,(in case of ‘her’, the protagonist would have been a heroine, which of course means that I would not be writing this piece. No male shovenism intended.)

According to the dumb author, allowing the viewer to visualize their concept of a hero, which may well be a dashing muscular man, as it generally is. But it may well be a hunchback. Most authors are wise enough to consider the concept of perspective. Someone, somewhere, who is reading his book, may have once been rescued by a one eyed hunchback. Supposing this character is female,( to ensure of course that my feminist critics keep their mouth shut) and she has seen hundreds of charming handsome muscular men, who are, in real life cheating scum. So, according to her, she will lay less stress on the hero’s physical prowess. This is even more obvious, if the reader in question is blind, which of course means that she cannot read it.(Braille has not been invented in this story)

These unfortunate perspectives place a lot of problems for the author. The stupid reader will then be at a loss to visualize how her hunchback hero managed to look at the villain eye to eye. She will then be forced to visualize the villain as a hunchback as well. In fact, she might as well be looking at all the characters as hunchbacks, which will pose problems for her. Furthermore, how is a hunchback supposed to kill a hundred monsters single handedly, unless he can chop of their heads? And a hunchback can only reach up to the monster’s foot. Either that, or all the repugnant monsters have to be dwarfish. How is an author supposed to write keeping such hideous perspectives in mind?


Other than these unfortunate vermin readers, (I am of course in no way pretending not to point a finger at the opposite sex), most other readers are perceptive These readers can always visualize what they want and mold it into the story. For them, a few words will suffice. But if that were the case, then most epics would be less than ten pages long. They would not contain long winding sentences as they normally do, but merely phrases. Like:

Prince lives in palace. Sees Princess in forest who is a witch. Follows. Gets eaten. End of Story.

What about the details? What about how everyone mourned his death? What about how he was cooked, eaten raw or boiled in oil? What about the story of revenge where the queen herself promises to avenge her son’s death and heads off into the forest with a hundred soldiers, to get eaten herself, in the process?

But these fiascos prevent writers from the fits in lyrical passion that they frequently have, which is why epics are epics, and this story contains long descriptions. Before going into the story of course, I must warn my female readers that if they find further such examples in the book, which have utilized females as objects of ridicule, they may as well, forgo this literary enterprise.