Comments on How can a writer point out the merits of his or her own work?
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How can a writer point out the merits of his or her own work?
It is generally taken that if I tell you a joke, then have it explain why it's funny - it's not probably not funny.
I continually return to one of my own short pieces. If I submit it I believe it will be viewed as a 'nice' , 'pretty' piece of literary fiction. But I also believe it is extremely clever. But if I have to explain it . . . maybe not so much?
I've had to edit this because I sent you guys way off base. I'm only talking about flash fiction. It's rooted into the culture of story-telling (verbal vs written). A deal of comedy is rooted in misunderstandings, particularly the audio aspect of dialogue. Ergo, it doesn't matter how it's spelt the recipient hears the same word.
e.g. A woman goes for a job interview.
"Wait," says the receptionist, busy filling a form. "You can't ask me that!" objects the woman. "Okay . . . so I put on a few pounds over Christmas but . . ."
Expanding this theme, I wrote a short piece in which the true meaning only becomes apparent when it is read aloud.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/48643. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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One of the things that every writer has to accept is that they pay far greater attention to every aspect of their work than any reader ever will. Sure, the writer can set up a joke on page 7 and give the punch line on page 349 and think the result is hilarious. No reader remembers the setup, and so they never get the joke.
So much of what writers think is clever about their work is simply too subtle of too remote for the reader to notice. A big part of the craft of writing is understanding the nature and extent of the reader's attention and memory and knowing how and when to make things plain to the reader and to recall things to the reader's mind. The management of the reader's attention is one of the writer's most important tasks.
Then again, there are things that the writer thinks are clever that just aren't. That includes 99.375% of all puns.
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