Kristofer Paoleninei

“So, you want to know about dialogue, do you?” asked the man in the tattered fedora, leaning back in his worn velvet chair, the putrid green of which practically shot daggers into Miriam’s eyes —

WRONG. NO NO NO. COPULATING NO. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU STUPID, WORTHLESS PIECE OF MECONIUM.

Sorry. I guess I should explain a little. My name is Kristofer Paoalilinei, the infamous author of the great Inheiritance Cycle. I’m here to tell you idiots a little bit about how to make dialogue real good. Like what I do.

Lesson 1: Do NOT favour long descriptions. I know you think it sounds really cool to give your reader a full description, complete with eight-thousand adjectives and each character’s every motion down to the twitching of a booger lodged firmly on the protagonists nosehair as he exhales grittily, his mind swirling with — NO! STOP ME NOW! DO NOT MAKE ME! deep breath Okay, better now. A reader has to know what’s going on, but not EVERYTHING that’s going on. Sure, sometimes it’s pretty cool to throw in a little bit about fiery cigar ashes being flicked and that sort of thing, but the key is NO BOXERS. Why? Because you’re keeping it brief. Yeah, I did.

Anyway, one must break up the description so that it flows naturally and adds to the dialogue, rather than detracting from it.

Lesson 2: If there is a joke, DO NOT EXPLAIN IT TO YOUR AUDIENCE. THEY EITHER GET IT OR THEY ARE MONGOLOIDS. Mongoloids, haha. It’s funny because it’s racist and offensive! Er, offensive independent of its inherent racist offense. Or in combination with. You know what, forget it.

Lesson 3: FLOW FLOW FLOW. You must GO with it. YO. Okay, that rhyming’s lame, I KNOW. …Curses and damnation. Point being, if your dialogue is either a) too short and choppy, or b) too long and boring, it will either feel like a five year old is writing it, or like a mediocre fantasy author is writing it. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, in terms of literary quality.

Lesson 4: MAKE UR PEEPLE TALK REEL GUD. LIEK SRSLY. While most people are too coitusing stupid to be able to speak in a manner that lends itself to writing and storytelling, and thus must alter their patterns of speech for their literary creation, it is important that the literary mode be broken in the dialogue portions so that it sounds like human beings are actually talking, and not drunk teenage girls at the Dickens Fair. “Thou corset it coming off, hahahaha! hic“

Now, an example. Let’s see how it comes together — hopefully like me and your mom last night.

“So,” asked John, looking her over incredulously, “you’ve decided to become an official llamaphile?”

She hmphed impatiently and flicked back her hair. “You know I’ve had these leanings for a long time now, it’s just time that I…” she paused to think. “It’s time that I embraced myself, you know? And by embracing myself I mean embracing them.”

“We always did say there was a little llama in you,” replied John, half-grimacing, half-laughing.

Brett eyed the floor uncomfortably, and instinctively reached into his pocket where his cigarettes used to be.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked John, turning to Brett.

“I… I…” the shame and sense of self-loathing was clear in Brett’s eyes. “I’m a liberal.”

The utter silence that filled the room seemed to Brett to be louder than the simultaneous “You vagina!” blurted by Mary and John.

As you can see, description is interjected into the dialogue at different points, for different lengths, and the physical description is slipped into actions (like the hair being flicked back) so it feels like something is happening, rather than merely being exposited.

In addition, this mixing and brevity (but appropriate detailedness) of the descriptions, the natural (if intentionally campy) flow of the conversation, made it seem like real people were talking.

Finally, the humor, while admittedly crass, was not explicated, even where a fast reader might miss the “llama in you” remark. Again, if a reader does not get that, they deserved to be an exception to my policy of Pro-Life.

You may have noticed me favouring the English spellings of various things. Despite the apparent inappropriateness of said language, I prefer it to Americanized English because it feels more sincere and unnecessarily voweled. The only reason my tomes are not spelt in a similar manner is that my publishers felt it might not work out so well with my largely American, largely eight-year-old audience. Knopf wasn’t sure how confused they would be by the alternate spellings — scheol, my assistant editor was sure anyone dumb enough to buy “that piece of feculence would just have to put the book down and go straight to Merriam Webster before their brain exploded all over the walls of their rectum.”

Comment [10]

Disclaimer: this posting contains mature content. Proceed at your own risk.

Hello all. Right, enough of the chit-chat, let’s get down to business. So you, the aspiring historian, are an aspiring historian. Meaning that you want to write history. This is great! or at least okay. Societally acceptable. Legal in Vermont. Whatever.

“How do I write a history, Kristofer?” you might ask me. To this I would reply, “the best way to learn is to observe! The best way to observe is to sit in your room and read things on the internet. This is the way of the samurai.” So, forgetting the last bit, because if you want to be a samurai you should perhaps consult another article which might explicate the ways of the samurai, rather than this article which explicates the way of the historian for the benefit of you, the aspiring historian, the main point to take away from that gem of wisdom is to observe that which can teach you most. Namely, me.

Now, this does not mean that you are to observe me in the creepy, stalkery way, using small cameras in my guitar tuning pegs (yes, I found those, Sly) or in the voyeuristic way (though there are websites for doing so if you are the appropriate age and like intelligent, good-looking men who also write articles to assist you, the aspiring historian), but rather to observe what I do. One is what one does, therefore to observe what one does is to observe one. This is the way of the samurai.

This concludes lesson number one: a good history tome begins with an unnecessarily long and wordy introduction. Thank you.

Also, forgive the title, it was translated from its original Japanese.

Comment [4]

Disclaimer: this posting contains mature content. Proceed at your own risk.

Then in January 1947, President Rabbi Adolf Hitler was inaugurated into office, kissing the ceremonial fish and performing admirably in the traditional dog-eating contest. His election brought up much controversy, mostly from the losing Republicans, who lost due to an unfortunate incident of their entire party being assassinated by blue hippopotamuses in The Mall. Abercrombie and Fitch, established 1892 and apparently the meeting ground of the insurgent Hippopotamidae, expressed regret for this incident; their acting co-assistant to the vice-secretary issued a statement saying, “We deeply regret any death or mauling that may have occurred due to lack of store security – marijuana has now been made mostly forbidden for our employees to consume other than during lunch breaks and overtime. We would just also like to add that our deepest sympathies go out to the families of the deceased, and that the hippos looked fantastic in their ‘Owl’s Head Trail’ shirts.”

Lesson Number Two: If you are writing a history book that is to be read by High School students, they will believe absolutely anything. Anything. Hitler was a Jew, FDR lost his legs at the Battle of Waterloo, whatever, they’re just going to highlight and regurgitate. Try slipping subliminal messages into your tome to brainwash the youth of our generation. In Exempla:

“I live in your eyes.”

“There is no God but God.”

“I shot JR.”

It would later be revealed that, in fact, the assassins were just really cool Opotamuses.

Lesson Three: End every topic with a short summary of what happens later to the people/things in that topic that does an entirely inadequate job of informing the reader of the pertinent events. Teachers should then be encouraged to use these isolated sentences as the topics for important questions on term exams.

President Hitler then passed his famous “ Nye The Science Guy Bill,” which in addition to helping the Irish get back on their feet after the Great Big English Fecker incident in November of ’33, established as a US law that “disco sucks,” securing his popularity then even up til now, into his comedic film career.

Tying it into the modern day makes you seem edgy to the young hipsters what be readin’ yo history. Bill Nye the Science Guy is NOT a dated reference! He is very much alive! Like Latin, he is used in an academic context, an ecclesiastical context, and to pick up really drunk chicks at bars.

Meanwhile Microsoft corporation of Italy was making contact with aliens from the planet Zwaltarg 7, but Italian Ambassador Dick Cheney accidentally shot them in the face. In response to this, he was forced to marry four hairy women, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise when they revealed their ability to make incredibly good cheese (that’s not all they revealed, but international law prevents this historian from going into any more detail, not that I’d want to).

Refer to yourself in the third person. “This historian” is preferable, but your name is fine, too. Ex. “George has surmised that the removal of the Gold Standard by Nixon helped recover the US economy, but may have caused long-term damage that will outdo the good.”

The United States economy was booming at this time, with stock in hot air balloons, swords, and Pokemon doing particularly well. There are essentially two schools of historical thought as to why this was: the School You and the Old School. The School You generally believe it is due to a dramatic decrease in washing machine fatalities, while the Old School believes it is due to the sales of the popular new genre of music “Country Rap,” with its foremost artist Buck 50 selling over 2 million albums in like, 10 seconds.

Our theme of inadequate summary here returns with the brief description of the historical schools. Information is presented in this manner because it is the most effective way to thoroughly and accurately inform today’s youth. Also revisionists suck.

The United Kingdom was not doing so well at the time – some theorize that this was due to a lack of agricultural support, but most prescribe to the general theory that it was completely exploded by the ill-conceived mixing of Sodium Phosphate and St. Alfonso’s pancakes. Nobody’s quite sure which idiot chose to experiment in such a highly illegal fashion, but we suspect you – the government has had your phones tapped for months, so just give up. Only Ireland remained unscathed, while the rest of the UK was taken over by Fungi, who within several months evolved into bipeds with moustaches, rather like the Toads in the Mario Brothers games – the Scots turned into really angry Toads, and the Welsh evolved into goombas. This evolution caused the great Irish-Fungi war, which is still a case of international security and cannot be disclosed at the present time, even for something such as this, clearly educational and informative, document_ All we are currently at liberty to reveal is that Hamlet was a maraschino cherry, hence the assassination of the biscuit’s crux.

A new economic crisis began to emerge in France, which was a crucial trading partner to the US, Yugoslavia, and (some sources indicate) Martin Short (exporting baseballs and cheese, two decidedly French Sporting Goods items). There was something of a revolt among the baking classes, and the Hommes Claquant D’autres Avec les Patisseries Eventees, with their nuclear laser guns and feared Llama Cavalry, threatened to completely destroy a small Argentinian goat if the government did not comply with their demands.

The Hommes de Patisseries had desired for some time to be granted their own special edition Nintendo console, to no avail – their leadership, including Secretary of Spam John Candy and Supreme Ruler Potentate Paul Reubens, decided it was time to take decisive action.

Luckily, and largely thanks to the ever-relevant wit of Oscar Wilde (now 32 and happily married to Elton John, Catherine Zita Jones, and Jimmy Carter), crisis was averted and a Patisserie de Nintendo was released by August of the same year. The Hommes de Patisseries retreated to their secret underground lair, where they collaborated in the writing of Finding Forrester.

Elsewhere in the world, this exact chain of events was not happening (though in the Bahamas something very much like it was going on, but this is World History, not “Stupid Little Touristy-island Thingymabob History”). In March of ’46 it rained a lot in China.

Not sure what I was thinking there. Lesson Whatever Lesson I’m On: Lay off the crack. I’m gonna hit the skids. Outtie Five-Thousand.

Comment [3]

Disclaimer: this posting contains mature content. Proceed at your own risk.

Then in February of ’47, Japanese pop star John Denver wrote the song that would change the world: “Big League Chew,” a story-song about an English pirate with a habit of biting things, disliked by nearly everyone, with the exception of some pirate wenches and particularly heavy rum-drinkers who thought it tickled.

You’ll probably need to add a reference here so they know who the hell John Denver is. sigh A testament to the failure of our system of education. Thanks a lot, LBJ. (You might want to include that remark in your tome, since it’s moderately provocative, incredibly general, and has no evidence to back it up. Remember, kids, if you feel the need to back up your statements with evidence, you obviously don’t have enough faith in their truth.)

Everyone in the world was moved, touched, and otherwise molested by this fantastic new pioneering thing, which, in addition to revealing the final digit of pi and solving world hunger, has a really catchy chord progression. John Denver was then elected Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, and collaborated with John Lennon on some albums before returning to his Heavy-Metal roots. He went on to tour with Slipknot – he’s the dude with the pins sticking in all over that doesn’t do anything other than set himself on fire at live concerts.

To the Set-Himself-On-Fire-Dude’s credit, said self-ignition is pretty friggin awesome.

Upon hearing the song, the Governator of Saudi Arabia (successor to Patrick Swayze, who inherited the title from its originator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who starred in the hit film Casablanca) was inspired to finally make peace with his arch-enemies, the Australians, and resume his illustrious career as the World Tiddlywinks Champion.

Tiddlywinks are awesome. That is all.

In 1948, the entire world and even Canada was shocked when Michael Jackson bought the Boston Red Sox and renamed them “Snuggles and the Sparkle Monkeys,”

Best. Team Name. Ever.

causing much controversy among the players until they won the World Series that year (the first of 23 that the Snuggles and the Sparkle Monkeys would win under Jackson’s ownership).

The Cubs, on the other hand, could be bought by the Pope and be renamed the “Win Every Game Because the Vatican is Threatening the MLB Owners With Excommunication“s and still manage to choke in the playoffs. Hey, listen, I’m Academia’s Jeff Foxworthy: “You might be an ancient historian if you’re writing about the last time the Cubs won the World Series!” No historical advice here, just Cub-bashing. Because I can.

Mel Gibson’s pet sheep, Ogie Ogelthorpe, had just been elected as premier of China in its first ever meritocractic election – the council of electors consisting of Ozzie Osbourne (who went on the record as calling premier Ogelthorpe the “fucking greatest fucking fucker of a fucking premier what I ever fucking fucked in a fucking fucker. Fuck!”), James Stockdale (“GRIDLOCK!”), Antonio Banderas (“He is, ah, how you say…? Ahhhh yes, the good.”), Blackbeard (“YARR, Davy Jones’ bones and a bottle of rum, how in Cap’n Kidd’s cold codfish did I get here? Too much rum! Yar, my head hurts. blourgh“), and chairwoman Robin Hood (“no, look, they got the plaque wrong, it’s chairMAN. Yes, I know I wear tights. Oh, shuttup you limey wanker. Oh, is this on record? Um, er, give to the poor, and all that… bullocks. Oh, am I still on record? Ahahaha, only a little joke Little John and I share. What?!? No, Little John’s john is not little… I mean what, how would am I supposed to know?” When Little John himself was asked about this, he grinned and yelled “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAYAH!”), clearly the best to determine control of the world’s second-most Chinese country.

Out-Chinesed only by America, because we have more of their stuff than they do. Also note the confusing nature of the list: it is best to give your students these sort of snippets in a jarred, nearly impossible-to-follow fashion so that they only remember the names while having no idea what happened. After all, this is the point of history, no?

Premier Ogelthorpe would go on to make several ground-breaking laws – perhaps his most famous is the Ground-Breaking Act. This act did basically nothing, but got the media up in a frenzy while he secretly had an affair with – well, we don’t really know who, so I suppose the media frenzy worked. Premier Ogelthorpe also passed the “Clothe the Naked, Feed the Hungry, and House the Homeless Act,” which housed the hungry, fed the naked, and clothed the homeless. Then he invented the vegetable-oil-powered car – unfortunately, this was destroyed after he invented the vegetable-oil-powered bazooka. Overall, they taught the world one thing – sheep, drugs, and rock n’ roll do not run a nation.

Quick, you’re starting to get too much into the boring stuff! The kids won’t pay attention to this! Think of something!

This lack of organized leadership in the Chinese government made room for the infamous world takeover by Overlord Sean Connery.

…That’s more like it. Alllll right. Giggity.

Comment [3]

Disclaimer: this posting contains mature content. Proceed at your own risk.

Now you’re entering the most important part of your historic text: the action bit. This is the part where you can either redeem your crappy dialogue with some sick lasers and stuff, or else make your audience go from somewhat indifferent distaste to chock-full-of-vomit uproar at “those totally cheesy computer effects.”

Overlord Connery made his first move towards world domination in September of 1947 when he bought the entire Soviet Union using secret funds that he had acquired through his ownership of several large oil companies and his invention of the iPod. Connery then instituted his ideology, known as Conneryism, into the Soviet government, as well as renamed the country the Commune Of No-Nonsense Ecstatic Republics, Yeah!,

Should be “da,” but then the acronym wouldn’t work, and your students will be too ignorant to know the difference.

just because the acronym struck his funny bone. Unfortunately the striking of the funny bone caused major corporations in the CONNERY to collapse. This caused Overlord Connery to have to entirely outlaw both acronyms and Glittery Shoes, or GS for short. Short indeed was this no-name period in the Conneryist republics, for Connery soon put his war machine into motion – and after that, feeling much relieved, began to move his armies on an expedition of conquest.

Lesson Lithuania: Innuendo is professional. Just do it.

Connery began with a surprise strike at Teletubbieland, formerly a German province, and captured it within a matter of hours, the executive Noo-Noo announcing that it was “Time for Tubby Bye-Bye.”

If you want to be really informative, this is the place to smoothly slip in a 10-page diatribe on why Tinky-Winky is gay.

The bunnies there were a most valuable resource – when burned, they made for a fuel twice as efficient as regular gasoline, which also meant that, while Connery’s own oil stock went up now that Tubby-Bunnies were no longer exported to the world, Connery himself could provide his army with cheap fuel.

Obviously, the main expected obstacle for Connery’s war machine was Denmark.

By this point in time, Denmark had been repopulated from the time that Bill Shakespeare killed everyone in the whole bloody country. Horatio doesn’t count.

Denmark, ruled with an iron fist by its President, Paris Hilton, famous for her brilliant defense strategy upon the invasion of P.J. O’Rourke and his sarcastically gifted Welsh army. The world was soon shocked, however, to find that Connery had won the war against Denmark without a single military engagement. Connery himself sneaked into the Danish Royal Castle, disabled several guards either through crafty spy technique or shot them with crafty trigger-pulling technique, and made his way to the bedroom of President Hilton. Therein he seduced her, and reportedly (these being of somewhat objectionable historical accuracy, being transcribed by a leprechaun living in the bedpost)

I made a mistake here. Lesson Blue: You are the writer, therefore you are never wrong.

she offered him free passage across her lands,

See Lesson Lithuania

upon which Connery grinned maniacally, shouted, “The day is mine!”, slapped Hilton, and then threw her out the window and into the moat, which was filled with alligators – upon escaped the moat, with one less arm but even more determination, Hilton accidentally wandered into her cage full of jungle cats, and emerging from that, with one less leg and slightly less determination, fell into one of her own death trap pits with spikes in the bottom – then ironically died of cancer six months later.

With the fall of Denmark, the entire world, previously occupied with the flamboyant homosexual affairs of Duke Jesse Jackson of Worcestershire,

His mistress was Tinky-Winky.

had its attention abruptly – look, the sentence above this one! – redirected suddenly, not unlike yours was just now, to a fall in Middle-Eastern light bulb production. However, when the source of the infamous Bulb Depression of ’47 was discovered to be Rick James, who had a dastardly plot to put the light bulbs on the moon in an arrangement so as to spell out “I’M RICK JAMES BITCH!,” the world turned angrily upon Overlord Connery (James’ adoptive father) and his army, which by this point had been mutated into robotic Velociraptors – historical records conflict as to what his army was before this, due to Connery’s policy of “leave no schurviversch!”

President Rabbi Adolf Hitler declared neutrality, and as a token of peace sent Connery a gigantic cookie – a copy of Connery’s reply was found in his personal archives, saying, “You can take your cookie and schove it up your arsche, you emo-fag. Read a book!” This might have swayed the war in favor of the A-CUNT (Anti-Connery Union of Nations with Tanks), but the reply was sent by letter, as was Overlord Connery’s preference, and this was intercepted on the high seas by the Dread Pirate Inigo Montoya, and so the precarious neutrality remained.

The status of The Princess Bride as one of the greatest movies of all time is widely agreed upon in the historical community.

The rest of the world, however, was inflamed, but with the invention of E-Z Skin Creme by the creators of Sesame Street, this condition did not last for long. The world was broiling, baking, frying, searing, simmering, grilling, steaming, and other various methods for child care, in light of Overlord Connery’s aggressive advances, and upon his military conquests as well. If A-CUNT was to have any hope, A-CUNT would have to act quickly against Overlord Connery.

Cheap humor may not be pretty, but it gets the job done. Like your mother. Heyo! Somebody gimme some skin. …Anyone? My arm is getting tired… Crap. sigh

Comment [3]