Symbolic hams stuck into random spots in your story is not the way to spice things up or gain critical literary acclaim for your wicker basket-like use of symbolism and hammish metaphors. No, there are no shortcuts to literary brilliance.

Well, except for one. So far, every novel that I’ve stuck wicker biscuits into has gained endless critical acclaim. They’ve become bestsellers, appeared on tons of best books of the year lists, and have made me a billionaire.

But that secret (wicker biscuits) is going with me to the grave. My reputation as a serious author relies on two things. One is keeping my writing secrets. The second is not revealing that sticking a simple item into my books is what made them as great as they are. People need to think that the rest of the book was brilliant and worthwhile reading, and that it wasn’t just the wicker biscuits that did it.

So don’t bother asking, because I won’t tell you.

But I will give you the same advice for fixing your waylaid reputation that I gave you back in the first paragraph: enough with the symbolic hams! I don’t know if real hams would help out, or if you need to mutate them into slithering hams that kill by squealing. Or mutant monkeyed hams who use their army of squeegee pigs to attack hapless motorists.

See, these are all awesome ideas, especially compared with what you’ve already been writing. No offense, but it’s terrible. It’s ratted and antiquated and reminds me of what a beached flounder would write as it floundered away on the beach, desperately trying to use a pen that’s too big for a flounder to write it’s final thoughts out for posterity. Your writing is a lot like that.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.