i love that charles dickens got paid by the word. like i cant even be mad when he’s boring and long-winded bc i would do xactly the same??? i wouldnt use contractions or colours at all. want to say the word red? too bad. we r now only using “the colour of freshly-spilled blood on snow; the hue of the horizon when the sun sets over the deserts of sub-saharan Africa” BOOM guess who can afford 2 eat now: me and my boi dickens
What I love about Alexandre Dumas, in contrast, is he got paid by the line. So it’s not really wordy, it more like 80% dialogue which makes it sound pretty modern but also ends up like-
“Where are we going now?”
“We are going to the city.”
“Which city?”
“Paris.”
“We are going to Paris?”
“Yes.”