Literary Tricks · 4:46am Dec 13th, 2015
I dunno why, but I'm kinda in a bloggy mood today. This'll be number three.
Anyway, I just read an old blog post by Kwakerjack where he mentioned a POV trick he'd used in one of his stories, and that got me of thinking of little literary jokes I've played in my stories.
I'm not talking about the big stuff, like Lipogram Day (which is, technically, a lipogram, even though I cheated because that's how I roll). I'm talking about the little stuff, the things that get put in as a writer.
For example, while a bunch of people caught me saying in one chapter that Lyra was "a little hoarse," nearly everybody missed when I mentioned her appearance as 'drawn' or 'animated.' Likewise, the reference to Shining's armor went by unnoticed.
One of my mentors in Ring of Steel mentioned doing this on stage. He said that in every routine, you need one joke for yourself, and you don't care if the audience misses it, and I think those are wise words. After all, if you're not having fun writing, why are you doing it? Isn't for the paycheck, unless I missed an important memo.
So how about it, guys and gals? Do you ever stick some amusing turn of phrase or some obscure puns in your stories as a personal joke?
Okay, here's another:
"Your prose is clunky, you make too many meta references, your premise is absurd, ignores canon, and your characters are out of character. And you shouldn't begin a sentence with 'and.'
Scootaloo and Celestia: Adventures in Twilight's Gall Bladder
Hell yeah I do! I'd be... hard-pressed to remember one. But I will tell you that I've had several times where like one reader noticed it and commented and it made my day.
Yes
I can't words right now sorry. Wisdom teeth are gone, drugs are circulating thoroughly.
but yes
Actually it's pretty easy for me, considering my avatar.
I'm blessed with a couple of pre-readers/editors who are a lot smarter than I am. They leave little notes about "wouldn't it be funny if..." that I tend to consider, waffle, see where they fit, warp, and slip in where it looks like it would work. Anybody who has read a lot of my work knows that certain phrases from Lois McMaster Bujold tend to pop up when least expected. For example, in my last story I used 'darling blastocyst' (the phrase stuck with me for some reason) to describe a growing embryo, which is the same phrase that Gregor uses to Laisa in A Civil Campaign when talking about any possible genetic deformities that might have to be fixed in the kids (Gregor was natural-born, Laisa was a replicator baby)
Gregor grimaced, but then took his fiancée’s hand and gripped it, and smiled at her. “I’m sure Laisa’s would be just fine.”
“Well, of course it is,” she began. “My parents had it checked before I ever went into the uterine replicator—”
Gregor kissed her palm. “Yes, and I’ll bet you were a darling blastocyst.”
I've tried in drafts, but I don't think any stayed in.
My story Hygiene Matters was nothing but a setup for a rather transparent pun. I fear, however that it was outshone by the smiley-faced band-aid...
Random note: Source for the Twily-Pic would be this blog post (and this artist, although the image doesn't appear on that dA-Account).
I love to saddle my literary pony stories with all the equine comedy I can think of. No pun is too horse. And yes, my stories have plenty of personal jokes, written just for my own, or sometimes my pre-reader's amusement, which I'm pretty sure nobody else has ever noticed.
Every time I write "Sunset (verbed)," I find myself compelled to use a verb that starts with S. Sunset says, shrugs, sighs, shivers, shudders, and a whole bunch of other alliterative actions. It's something of a personal running gag.
I do have a running gag that I think has appeared in two, maybe three of my published fics? I kind of keep forgetting about it. :B
3615158
Thanks! I'll edit it in when I get home. For some reason, I can't edit blog posts on mobile.
3614858
That's the best feeling. 'Cause you were probably snickering as you wrote it, and then you're looking through the comments and nobody says a thing, and all of a sudden, there it is. Somebody was paying attention.
3614879
Yay? I've still got my wisdom teeth.
True, true.
3614920
I get that sometimes and it makes me happy. One of my prereaders suggested that where Featherbrain studied slugs was Siput. Nobody's caught that joke yet.
3614943
You've got to leave some in. Just for you.
3615131
Having recently read said story, I agree. The joke would have been better on its own; the smiley-face bandage kind of overshadowed the pun. Having said that, the image of the bandage is . . . well, conflicting. The kind of thing that I feel I shouldn't find funny, but do.
3615191
I frequently make fun of myself in joke form, or in what the characters do. Some of those, my pre-readers have noticed; others have gone right by them. Actually, a running joke in my blogs is whenever I give my height (over 6 feet), I claim that's 10 meters.
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I'll have to check through my Sunset stories, because suddenly I feel that is something I should do.
3615370
I don't think I have any running gags, although I'm not sure. Oh! Noteworthy getting suckered into pulling a wagon. That's happened in a few stories.
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It is a great feeling when that happens. This is especially true when nobody gets the joke at first and it just sits there until you've forgotten about it yourself, and then someone comes along and points it out. And I'd thought nobody would ever get that Doon reference I left in Tastes Like Heresy.
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I don't even know what Doon is, so I'm not going to be the one to find it.
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It was a National Lampoon book parodying Dune. Instead of producing the Spice on the desert planet Arackis, they exported beer from the dessert planet Aruckus.
It is a rather silly book.
3678252
Ah.
There was a Star Trek parody series once upon a time. I think I have a couple of them somewhere. Can't remember what they're called, but I think the Enterprise is drawn on the cover as a teacup.