Snick's cranky writing tip of the day

[snick_backup]

It drive me crazy when a character is described as 'snarking.'

"Whenever I'm down in the dumps, I buy a new hat," said Liesel.

"I always wondered where you got those hats," snarked Ettie.

See? If the dialogue is actually snarky, then I the reader know without being told; if it isn't, then being told it was just points up the author's failure to deliver and/or self-evaluate. Plus it feels self-conscious, and in most cases self-consciousness in humor is fatal.

Same goes for "she quipped," "he joked," etc. (Except, snark feels even just a little bit worse because it's colloquial and relatively new, which makes it stick out even more.)

Comments

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

i feel the same.

[snickfic]

*nods*

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

it makes me feel like the writer thinks i'm stupid. i can understand context. really! years of stupid standardized tests have shown i excel at comprehension.

[snickfic]

Hah! Yes.

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

to be honest comprehension , history , reading, writing and english were really the ONLY things i excel at so i feel extra proud about them. heh.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Huh. It doesn't bother me, mostly because I feel like it's the writer trying to use a more ~vivid verb~ than "said," which I relate to. ;D But I can see why it irks you so.

[snickfic]

I'm one of those people who falls into to the "'said' is a perfectly good word" camp. Usually dialogue tags need to be invisible rather than vivid, and 'said' is nicely invisible.

Thank you for your sympathy. :)

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

random comment is random. have i told you how much i love that icon?

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

You have!

[gigi-tastic.livejournal.com]

well I still love it. XD

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

That stuff (using descriptive speech tags) doesn't bother me usually - unless it's totally overdone. But I can understand the "don't tell me what I just read for myself" part of it being annoying. I'd say "he joked" or "she quipped" was a bigger offense because if a joke or a quip wasn't funny, saying that's what it was isn't going to make it so. However, snarking - which I equate to sarcasm - is something that may or may not be meant seriously and I can understand an author wanting to be clear about the speaker's intent. Makes sense?

[snickfic]

However, snarking - which I equate to sarcasm - is something that may or may not be meant seriously and I can understand an author wanting to be clear about the speaker's intent.

I do see how you're distinguishing them. However, for me, at least, sarcasm and snark should be obvious from the text itself. If it's a question of needing tone or facial expression or something to flag sarcasm, then I'd rather the author do that. Telling me it's sarcasm robs the actual sarcasm of its effect on me.

Also, if it is a question of a character's intent, then I'm liable to get picky about POV: if it's the POV character's intent, then again, I think there are better ways of conveying sarcasm than to tell me directly; if it's the intent of some character other than the POV character, then I'm seeing it through the POV's character's perspective anyway, and any interpretation of sarcastic intent is being filtered through the POV character's own understanding.

All of which is to say, I'm probably more finicky about this than a lot of folks. *g*

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

LOL - good point, that facial expression or something could be used to indicate the intent. That would probably be my preference too.

But, I was thinking, in your example, if the first speaker was somewhat oblivious, and we didn't yet know anything about the second speaker, then "I've wondered where you get them" could be snark, but it could also have been a serious response to the "hat" part of the original comment, rather than the "dump" part. If Cordelia said it, we wouldn't need a tag; but if someone less snarky *g* and perhaps somewhat sweet and not too bright was speaking... Agnes, say from "Business as Usual"... then both characters might be speaking honestly. Hmmm that's actually not a good example, because it would be so unlikely for Anges to be sarcastic that a tag like that would probably throw a reader out of the story. Never mind! LOL

[snickfic]

That isn't the clearest I could have reproduced the joke, either; I'm pretty sure there's a more succinct way to get the second speaker's exact meaning across.

And also, I'm okay with some readers just missing the joke entirely. I'd rather have some readers get it and laugh and the others roll right over it, than have some readers laugh and the others be annoyed by me pointing the joke out to them

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

*nods* point. Don't write down to the reader. Think I said that somewhere recently in reference to similar writing styles. My bad. Should read my own journal. lol You're right to be bothered by it. *tiptoes away* :)

[snickfic]

Aw, you don't need to tiptoe! Discussion always welcome around here. I hope you don't feel like I squashed you.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, no. I'm tougher than that. *g* But it is silly that I had written something for RRU recently that dealt with the importance of not writing down for the readers just because some of them might not get it. And that's exactly what you were saying - so bad me for seeming to disagree. :) although I stand my my not being overly bothered by it as much as some people are.

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Um, that was me. No idea why I was logged out.

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I totally agree.

[snickfic]

*nods*

[shapinglight]

Snark isn't even a word this side of the Pond.

[snickfic]

Hah! I am further justified. *g*