Narrate every scene in a matter-of-fact tone, no matter how exciting


At this point, the dragon, which was larger than a single-decker bus but smaller than an articulated lorry, breathed some fire out of its mouth (or, more properly, exhaled a mixture of flammable gas and liquid which was ignited by a spark from a gland in its throat). This burned several people quite badly, although the knight who is the subject of our story remained largely unharmed.
Naturally, this incident caused a reaction of fear and surprise amongst the local population. It also caused a not insignificant amount of damage to property, which would take local residents many weeks to repair. Aside from this immediate inconvenience, the subsequent disruption caused by reconstruction efforts would also have an adverse effect on the local economy in the medium term. The knight then hit the dragon with his sword, killing it, which was probably for the best.

20 comments:

  1. This is quite possibly my favorite entry yet :) Thanks for the laugh Joel!

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  2. This is pretty much how they write over at The Onion isn't it?

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  3. Douglas Adams used this disinterested style to great effect.

    "The huge golden space ship hung in the air in almost exactly the way a brick doesn't."

    "In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

    But most writers are not Douglas Adams.

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  4. Too funny. And I LOVE the humor in the Douglas Adams line -- there definitely is a way to make that style work. Problem is, most people can't.

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  5. I'm afraid I do this all the time.

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  6. If there's one thing I've learned since starting this blog (and, amazingly, there does seem to be), it's that Douglas Adams was able to take every example of bad practice and use it expertly, all the while maintaining a bullet-proof fluid prose style. He was just that damn good.

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  8. Love it! Thanks for the laugh!

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  9. Jolly good show! Stiff upper lip, eh what, old chap.

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  10. The last line of this is magic. Sheer friggin' magic.

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  11. hahaha I'm reading Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude and yeah, that's pretty much it right there

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