On Rhyming and Referencing · 4:47am Dec 6th, 2012
"The measure is English Heroic Verse without rhyme... rhyme being no necessary adjunct of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off lame matter and wretched meter; graced indeed by some modern poets... but much to their vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise and for the most part worse than else they would have described them." - Milton on rhyme, The Verse
You can blame Milton for my love of the comma.
I have included this quote from Milton's The Verse because I completely agree with what he says in that work; and also because I vehemently disagree with it. A professor of mine once pointed out that rhyme does just what Milton says in most modern pop songs, it "sets off wretched meter and lame [lyrics]." But I was born on Dr. Seuss and suckled on Shell Silverstein rather than breast milk, so I can cannot take this theory lying down. Rhyme, I say, is necessary. Many find references hackneyed and ugly, like rhymes. They evince "ughs" from more savvy and cynical readers. As this is a fan fiction site, and one in the age of memes, the writer's right to reference must be defended. References are necessary, I say, because they give the reader that little 'kick' of recognition. It is in part that spritely feeling one gets when one recognizes a catch phrase or an 'I see what you did there' that makes reading fan fiction so much fun.
References do make one go "ugh!" oftentimes though. Why is this? If a reference is forced, if it doesn't fit where it is put, if it is tortured out of it's own shape and context so that it is either barely recognizable, or we wished we did not recognize it, then it evokes a facepalm; and oh how many red finger marks there are on my face... If you want to make a reference, and you do want to (I have never been able to write a fic without one), then you must do it right. You cannot toss it in willy-nily. You cannot directly quote. You have to tastefully alter the the image or quote so that it fits into your story; you have to put where-in the story it aught to have been anyway even had you not altered it. You must be creative with it.
You will note that I have said nothing wise here. For what does the word creative mean anyway? Damned if I know; that word is the least objective object in the known universe. Now I will say something wise. I will answer the question "how does referencing work?" It works, I think, the same way that rhyme does. Referencing works by repeating an image or phrase just as rhyming works by repeating a sound or syllable. The jingle-jangle, sing-songy quality of rhymed writing is exactly what Milton hated, but it is that jingle-jangle that makes a jingle so unforgettable. It is that sing-songy quality created by references that makes a work with references as unforgettable as a song.
Have you ever forgotten a rap song (if you're into that sort of thing... )?
It befits my point to note that Milton loved Spenser, "His body monstrous, horrible, and vast,/ Which to increase his wonderous greatness more,/ Was swolyn with wrath, posyn and with bloody gore" (The Faerie Queene 1, 11, VIII, 7-9); And it is also fitting to note that this is Milton;
"How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stoln on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on wtih full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near" (How Soon Hath Time, 1-6)
This is a comment from someone else "Something else to remember about putting in references: Some people will *not* get them, no matter how popular the meme. Your reference needs to be able to stand on its own two metaphorical feet (or four metaphorical hooves, if it's a pony), or after several such missed references, the reader will start to wander (most likely, wander away). I'm *horrible* about this, I had my own son reading through one of my fics ask "Why is Cloud Kicker such a flirt?"" It really deserved to be in here.
It's made me consider revising my statements here...
Very wise words, if this is the type of thing you're gonna keep posting then I'm overjoyed to follow you!
Also, what I thought of when I got to the jingle-jangley part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZqx1H-Y2Us
551813 Big Band Swub..
So, that PMV's just perfect. Faustus needs to consider putting some swing-- swub-- numbers in the show.
As an aside, a bluegrass number would also be nice
I must post a warning here: Poetry is fine, but Zecora will consume your soul if you start writing dialogue for her. I made the mistake of writing about a page worth of Zebra dialogue for various fics, and when Pen Stroke's "A Zebra In My Bed" came out, my inner muse got a blackjack, rope, and a branding iron and went to work on me. *ALL* day while I was at work, I had these little verses pop up, and dragged out a tattered envelope to inscribe them. (No, work was not my inspiration. Server patches doth not the muse awaken) By the evening when I came home, I managed to seduce the muse into a coma by typing them all up and putting them into my "Foals Tales" chapters. I now live a life surrounded by oranges, just in case it returns.
We don't write because we're crazy. We write to stay sane
578838 You do realize the blog wasn't about poetry, right?
Well, good point anyway. I admit that once I start writing in rhymed verse I have a tough time stopping but it doesn't usually just come to me like that. What does just come to me, and frequently, like you said, are ideas for fiction. I have pages upon pages of notes for different stories. I will probably never write them because of how big those stories are.... The pieces I've actually finished were all written right off the top of my head.
Yep, my proofreader would have kittens editing Milton. (Comma splice! There! Kill!)
Something else to remember about putting in references: Some people will *not* get them, no matter how popular the meme. Your reference needs to be able to stand on its own two metaphorical feet (or four metaphorical hooves, if it's a pony), or after several such missed references, the reader will start to wander (most likely, wander away). I'm *horrible* about this, I had my own son reading through one of my fics ask "Why is Cloud Kicker such a flirt?"(*)
It is possible to use poetry as a scene-setting mechanism (I tried it in To Sleep, Perchance to Dream with mixed results) or to "set" a reference, but for the love of all that is holy, keep it short! I hit one fic that dropped into prose and didn't leave for three pages.
(*) The Life and Times of a Winning Pony by Chengar Qordath currently sitting at 76k total chapter views
(edited. Yes, I footnoted a comment. It's an addiction. Help me.)
579198 My professor said that Milton was completely grammatically correct, though I never checked myself.
I don't know myself; why is Cloud Kicker such a flirt?
You are certainly right (and relevant) about the referencing thing. It's going into the blog!
That's a good point about the poetry but it's only relevant to me as an author and not to this post of mine....
The second chapter of my first published story doesn't count, but for the most part I only put in bits of a song or a nursery rhyme into my fiction, to give a character something to hum or make (what I thought) was a really cute ending to a certain fic
Incidentally, I've you've made me think of something and notice something else: references have to be used sparingly (especially overused FiM references), and references to the musical numbers of MLP seem to work really well whenever I make them.