Nerd alert: I confess one of the things I love most about being back in Indy is the 24-hour NPR. There's this one show "A Way With Words" (link) that I think is just the bee's knees.
I had it on Saturday on the way to my hair appointment, and they were talking about unusual words. The word in question was gazump, which means to swindle someone at the last second before signing a contract--usually in real estate.
For example, you agree to buy a house for $200K, but then at the last minute, right as you're about to sign, the seller says, "Oh, the trees on the property are worth more than I thought. That'll be another $20K."
Gazump!
Then they went into a discussion of how to indicate sarcasm in text. This piqued the writer in me, as I'm always looking for creative ways to avoid adverbs in dialogue tags. My little writer-ears perked up.
Apparently there's this site sartalics.com that's promoting left-leaning italics to indicate slang. (She said, not sarcastically.)
The problem is all the typefaces will have to be redrawn (or whatever) to make that work. Too bad, because I think that's a great idea.
Digression: While searching for sartalics, I also found the Sarcasm Society's website (link), which is worth a look. Hilarious.
Back to Sartalics! It raised a problem I've encountered in my writing before. I mean, I'm pretty good at indicating the way people are delivering their lines based on what's gone before and body language, but sarcasm is tough.
How do you guys indicate sarcasm in dialogue without resorting to adverbs? I'm just curious.
In the meantime, have a great weekend, reader- and writer-friends! If you're celebrating Halloween, have fun and be safe.
I'll have a special TREAT for you on Monday. Til then~ <3
I had it on Saturday on the way to my hair appointment, and they were talking about unusual words. The word in question was gazump, which means to swindle someone at the last second before signing a contract--usually in real estate.
Gazump!
Then they went into a discussion of how to indicate sarcasm in text. This piqued the writer in me, as I'm always looking for creative ways to avoid adverbs in dialogue tags. My little writer-ears perked up.
Apparently there's this site sartalics.com that's promoting left-leaning italics to indicate slang. (She said, not sarcastically.)
The problem is all the typefaces will have to be redrawn (or whatever) to make that work. Too bad, because I think that's a great idea.
Digression: While searching for sartalics, I also found the Sarcasm Society's website (link), which is worth a look. Hilarious.
Back to Sartalics! It raised a problem I've encountered in my writing before. I mean, I'm pretty good at indicating the way people are delivering their lines based on what's gone before and body language, but sarcasm is tough.
How do you guys indicate sarcasm in dialogue without resorting to adverbs? I'm just curious.
In the meantime, have a great weekend, reader- and writer-friends! If you're celebrating Halloween, have fun and be safe.
I'll have a special TREAT for you on Monday. Til then~ <3
