Taken from the TV Tropes page:

A third-person Narrator who narrates in an eccentric, bizarre, or otherwise unconventional way. This may involve expressing opinions about the story's proceedings, going off on asides, breaking the Fourth Wall, hanging lampshades, deadpan-snarking, choosing to focus on unusual details or just describing things in an odd way.

The trope's name, in case you're wondering, is taken from Daniel Handler's famous pen name Lemony Snicket, of A Series of Unfortunate Events fame. Obviously, as the quote above shows, a Lemony Narrator can get very outrageous to the point were it can become an unreliable narrator, or practically turn into it's own character.

I considered using this style with one of my own stories at one point, but decided not to, as to avoid potentially making the story too meta (and thus failing moderation). But what's your opinion? Would a narrator like this work in a fic, or would it be too overbearing?

It depends on your skills and ideas - obviously almost every trope can be handled badly or well.
Also, it might work better in comedies, though it shouldn't be impossible to use it in othe genres.

904938 Obviously such a narrator has been used before, and to great effect. Though it is best reserved for comedies.

Also, for another example of a Lemony Narrator, you can look to the videogame "The Bard's Tale".

Depends on the fic. For a more comedic fic, sure but for something serious I'd stick with something more 'normal'.

904938 I love this type of narrator. It's what makes A Series of Unfortunate Events one of my favorites.

904938 I'll have to admit I have a tendency to do that, and I made it in. Or maybe I was tame, by comparison.
That kind of narration works, under certain circumstances - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one example I can think of.

904938

I am more wondering what you would call a mix between Lemony narrator and First-Person Smartass

904980 Douglas Adams.
(Admit it, you knew that was coming)

904983

Considering I am not well-read in English literature, no, I didn't.

Depends on the narrator I guess. It would work great if it was Discord telling the story! :D

I find that such a narrator works best when the story is meant as a comedy. The narrator to The Unexpected Love Life of Dusk Shine is one such example. Having Pinkie Pie narrate the story would also count. There's quite a few methods of doing this.

I LOVE lemony narrators. My favorite versions are the ones found in any book by Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams.

I love the ones that use disimiles and punny metaphors!

904938 thank goodness you were talking about something else. When I first saw the word "Lemon" in conjunction with fanfiction, my mind went straight to the gutter, and I don't like that particular gutter. please be careful with that word in relation to fan fics.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who went there.
On the bright side you got me to read your post!

905016 I'm fairly sure I saw a fic like that, but I'm not sure if it was here or on FanFiction.Net.

905080 I wonder how it would work with a serious (or semi-serious) fic though. It would have to be toned down quite a bit, though.

905220 Lol, quite a deceiving name, isn't it? Though one must wonder what a clopfic would be like with this kind of narrator...

905230
It would be simply hilarious to read a clopfic this style....hmmmmmm....

905426 That seems like something Bronystories would likely write... But regrardless of who writes it, it would be fucking hilarious if done well.

I just realized this would be PERFECT for Pinkie Pie...
I may have new plans.

905230
Isn't The series of unfortunate... supposed to be somewhat serious, though the character's lives seem to have just been really, really "dafaq?"

906257 Yeah, but with a narrator like Snicket, it's can be fairly easy to overlook the seriousness. In my opinion, anyway

906257

I haven't read them, but from what I've seen or heard, they are pastiches of a particular kind of classic-style childrens books. Pastiches are sorta like parodies with the volume turned down, a gentle ribbing rather than outright mocking.

A feature of pastiches is that it's sometimes kinda hard to judge just how serious they are supposed to be. It's done, as a swede would say, with a twinkle in the eye.

One of my pet-peeves is when a particular style or trope is discussed and most people say some variation of "Well, it depends on how it's used...", thanks for the insight, oh wise one.

More interesting, I think, would be to actually get into what the potential pitfalls are and the promises. As has been already mentioned, it's great for comedy, and it also gives the story something of an old-fashioned tone, since it used to be more common back in the days.

It gives you a good opportunity to develop your own narrative voice, but it becomes extra important that the story you're about to tell matches the tone. (How do you know when a story and it's tone matches or not? Well, you don't. If we did, writing would be a science, not an art.)

An example of how a narrator can clash with the story being told is the big lebowski, altough in thatm ovie it's 100% intentional. The joke of that movie seems to be that nearly EVERY character are right out of a different story, and the narrator in particular seems to be under the impression that this is a spaghetti western.

This sort of exogamy works GREAT in fanfics by the way, what happens if you narrate AJs daily life like a western? or Twilights daily life...

904938

A third-person Narrator who narrates in an eccentric, bizarre, or otherwise unconventional way. This may involve expressing opinions about the story's proceedings, going off on asides, breaking the Fourth Wall, hanging lampshades, deadpan-snarking, choosing to focus on unusual details or just describing things in an odd way.

Wow.
This thread really speaks to me.

904938

I considered using this style with one of my own stories at one point, but decided not to, as to avoid potentially making the story too meta (and thus failing moderation). But what's your opinion? Would a narrator like this work in a fic, or would it be too overbearing?

As a note, the site rule against metafiction is specifically for the style of metafiction that's about about either the website or its users. IE: you can't have a story about Twilight Sparkle trying to get into the feature box (anymore), or write a story about ThatWeatherstormChap meeting a nice lemon to settle down with and start a family. You can still write stories about stories, or storytelling, or breaking the fourth wall or whatever.

4592715

IE: you can't have a story about Twilight Sparkle trying to get into the feature box (anymore), or write a story about ThatWeatherstormChap meeting a nice lemon to settle down with and start a family.

Tis a shame, alas.