Favorite lines from your own writing

Okay, I have to change my favorite line with this:

You can read the context here. Sure, the story isn't that good, but I kind of like this one.

"He's so bad he could make an angel step down."

- A barkeep

This is a reference to Nigel, of course.

"Okay, somewhere on our way here we crossed a line between using available methods to try to do the right thing and recklessly interfering with things we don't understand. And I'm still not sure exactly when that happened, but in hindsight, I think it was before the point where you decided it was a good idea to blackmail the wilderness."

I am imagining this said either in a Received Pronunciation or Northern Irish accent, which for some reason makes the whole matter extremely funny.

Hee - so, success. :D (I haven't thought to look up what his accent sounds like, though - RP is I suppose slightly possible but very unlikely.)

edited 12th Feb '14 12:36:30 PM by Jinxmenow

"Over the many decades he roamed the earth, the only person to ever successfully steal from the mighty warrior Salvin was a young thief named Wendy Bottles. Salvin proceeded to beat her within an inch of her life, and then beat her several hundred more inches."

I recently came up with this gem for a story where psychic powers are commonplace.

...and...

Whoops.

edited 21st Feb '14 10:57:16 PM by TeraChimera

Psssst...it's negligent.

"How far would you really go for them?"

"I would die for them."

"Meaningless. Would you kill for them?"

Context: The protagonist is looking at a guest list for a fancy Hollywood party and trying to impress his visiting cousin. His friend Steven is more of a social butterfly than he is.

edited 6th Mar '14 11:32:47 AM by Jinxmenow

Mine:

edited 11th Mar '14 4:57:43 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

edited 11th Mar '14 3:28:05 AM by Night

What are everyone's thoughts on the paragraph I posted? Are the humour and the "Cubanness" of the characters clear?

edited 11th Mar '14 5:54:20 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

I don't know why, but I'm easily amused by one of the descriptions of A.I.s in one of my settings.

"Nathan, you are just the worst. You are by far the worst. You make the other crabs look bad. Crabs are now weaker as a species because of you."

"In the end, if all goes well with the world, we all save each other." __ Link, "An Artist in Ordon," A Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess fan fiction.

"Understand this: I am in the military, I am addressed as "Sir" by officers lower than a major. I cannot go girly there. But here, I can finally let myself put on some mascara and eyeshadow and a goddamned plaid skirt."

Major spoilers from the Madoka Magica series in the discussion to follow—hence spoilered.

“You use those bulky silicon computers that run their programs through a digital chipset, don’t you?” Kyubey’s voice is helpful, overly so. “And with the proper emulator program, you can simulate one kind of computer on another. That Gem is a solid-state magical equivalent. Your brain is just an inefficient and vulnerable biological computer, so it’s possible to run its functions through-—”

He gets no further; Geda has grabbed him and slams him against the surface of the table, in sudden burst of shocked understanding, upsetting the empty Styrofoam cups. “You mean her consciousness is in there?”

“Well, you didn’t think it’s called a Soul Gem for no reason, did you?”

I am generally not a fan of long-winded exposition, but that's really well handled, and the "punchline" is great even if one is unfamiliar with the show—although, in full disclosure, I am quite familiar with it...

@Morwen: Post it in the Critique or Random Questions thread.

Thanks.

I do agree on exposition, and it's a challenge to try to get across the information without turning it into a dry, dusty lecture that brings the narrative to a screeching halt. Part of the art of writing is delivering that information while integrating it into the narrative flow. Patrick O'Brian does it masterfully; if you can get familiar with the sea of naval jargon, you'll find that he's very good at integrating exposition and narrative. The example that comes to mind is an enthusiastic Midshipman Babbington spouting off on the dimensions of the HMS Sophie to a distracted Stephen Maturin, who is only half-listening. If you're interested in visualizing what the ship looks like, Babbington's adorably enthusiastic bubbling about his ship will tell you; otherwise, Stephen's internal musings develop his character and his backstory quite poignantly, and form part of the larger narrative about who he is and how he deals with his past. Pulling that off is not easy, but it's a must to avoid indigestible blocks of exposition.

In my particular case, it's given a twist in that I expect the readers to know about the plot twist—part and parcel of writing fanfic. There's no shock value, yet I still have to show the characters learning about it and reacting to it. So I have to present the twist in such a way that it does not disengage the reader's interest, meaning I have to come up with a new perspective on it—after all, that is not how the show phrased it. So I intend to explore the ramifications of Kyubey viewing souls as essentially computer programs, and in the process maybe develop a few theories about the 'verse that aren't explored in the show, hopefully integrating the exposition into the plot while I'm at it.

edited 2nd Apr '14 1:26:15 PM by SabresEdge

One criticism, though, and an important one: The "shocked understanding" bit is unnecessary and a touch redundant. Her actions demonstrate her emotions well enough. There are good and bad kinds of telling, and that particular part is the latter.

edited 2nd Apr '14 8:54:44 PM by JHM

Noted; that makes sense. Thanks.