[BP] No-Point Lad and the Dismal-Hope Kid #5

[Martin Phipps]

drtimphd at yahoo.com (drtimphd) wrote in message news:<58265bf5.0410191038.33d3969f at posting.google.com>...
> 
> AUTHOR'S NOTES:  Hmm... another one that took awhile.  Four days to
> write and eight days to type and whenever its posted.  I don't know
> about this one.  It feels... maybe... average.

Interesting.  The quality of your writing is inversely porportional to
your assessment of it.  Your first issue was declared your "creative
vision", the second issue was described as having "lost something" and
this one was described as you as "average".  If you write #6 and think
it is "total shit" then by all means post it because it will mean you
are on to something. :)

> I did add a
> better description of the COSMIC DRIVE-IN's sign and signpost.  It
> was, to start, a crappy single sentence.

Which helps to make the setting and, hence, the situation seem real. 
Me, personally I don't bother with long descriptions.  Why?  Partly
because I am lazy and partly because if you are trying to be humourous
then long descriptions only serve to delay the punch line.  The
exception, of course, is when the long description is the set up for
the actual joke.  I actually did study humour writing formally for a
while so I would consider this an informed opinion.

If, on the other hand, you are trying to create suspense then long
descriptions are appropriate.  With suspense you take the opposite
approach to humour: people held in suspense need to be held there for
as long as reasonably possible, almost by definition.

Having created suspense, you can feel free to tone down the humour for
a while.  Dare I say that there is "no point" trying to be funny if
people are interested in where the story is going.  You can save the
humour for later if you feel the story is getting too intense and you
need some comic relief.

Martin