TITLE: LOVE'S BOUNTIFUL BULGE
GENRE: Humor (romance novel parody, or fauxmance novel)
She was beautiful, except for the hemorrhoids. The morning sun dawned, glorious and bright, upon the silken, porcelain visage of Princess Zelizabeth. Resplendent, the lithesome lady perched upon a velveteen chaise in the Royal Waiting Room, at the top of the tallest tower, beside the petting zoo, adjacent to the Corridor of Gruesome Tapestries, inside Zwindsor Palace, its turrets sparkling in a golden shower of, well, golden, of course, and vermilion splendor. One particularly playful ray reflected in her sapphirine eyes, whose color had been described as the most splendorous in Zengland, yea, even all the known world!
"F*****g A, Clumpetta! Shut the f*****g curtains," spake Zelizabeth. Her dulcet tones roused her faithful maidservant. With a sigh, Clumpetta rearranged the window-dressing. She should stop staring at the gleaming towers anyhow, for they always brought to mind giant, turgid, erect --
"Holy c***s, I'm hung over," the princess groaned. "And itchy. Fetch my ass cream."
"Miss, let us hurry." The servant girl clumped to get medicinal salve (her manner of walking due to an unfortunate mismatchedness in lower-limb length), and discussed the plot, er, their present predicament. "The Prince's Bruncheon Ball will start soon. You must a-marry him, or you'll end up... " she heaved a steadying breath, "poor."
Zelizabeth crossed herself. "A fate worse than death. Urgh, I'm gonna spew." Whereupon she did. Clumpetta managed a spectacular catch in her handy porta-puke bucket, and considered that "quick at hustling vomit" would look excellent on her resume, if unworthy peasants were allowed to change jobs.
Okay, I am laughing myself silly over this submission and, after reading the first sentence, cleaning coffee from my keyboard.
ReplyDeleteHooked. After I got past the deluge of adverbs/adjectives in the first paragraph, I understood your cool intro. BUT be careful to end it there.
Drop the ‘dulcet’ ‘faithful’. Go on an extended adverb/adjective diet. Swear off them for at least the first page. It makes the first paragraph stand out and gives the reader a break.
Cliché alert in the last paragraph, might want to make up your own phrase for ‘a fate worse than death’.
I would trim a little (just a little) of the archaic speech, again to give the reader a break. Example: “…shut the … curtains…” (Next line) “Thus spoke Zelezabeth, rousing her maidservant.”
Or something like that.
Good Job! Loved it.
Funny!Totally get the parady and love it!
ReplyDeleteThe only "humor" entry that has made me laugh.
ReplyDeleteLove this! The parody is awesome but I would tone down the "Zelizabethan" speak just a bit. Would absolutely read more! Great Job!
ReplyDeleteThis was funny, but I think after reading a few chapters it would probably wear me out. However, if it was this funny and written well, rather than deliberately bad, I don't think I'd have a problem reading on.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Barbara; I think I'd get worn out, too. Maybe this should be a screenplay... a freaking hilarious screenplay.
ReplyDeleteI read this early this morning and laughed about it all day. I don't think you should tone down anything...the grating Zelizabethan speak and excessive adjectives are the whole point. I agree that reading too much at one time would be exhausting, but God, I LOVE to laugh! Absolutely loved it.
ReplyDeleteThe authors here --
ReplyDeleteThank you all so much for commenting! We're uber-pleased (or zuber-pleased, in Zelizabethan) to have made you laugh.
The first paragraph is so hideous and flowery in order to jump-start the parody. We use a lot of different techniques to bring the romance-y funny in the book, purple prose is just one. No other part of the book is quite that florid. The rest reads much more like the subsequent dialogue and such.
Your comments have made our day!
Sincerely,
Lucy Woodhull & Fellatia Langley
Funny stuff that would be great in a short piece. I just couldn’t leg out a whole novel of this. I’d bet this would make a great Pythonesque sketch or two. Maybe even a television series, but I’d get tired of it in novel form - a funny but tough read I'm afraid. Very creative and funny though.
ReplyDeleteLove the twisted sense of humor, I wouldn't change anything. It looks to me like the beginnings of a fully realized world for your characters to inhabit, and that is a rare thing. I would love to see more
ReplyDeleteYou had me at the title.
ReplyDeleteHooked.
This is very funny – a clever parody of all that is bad and formulaic in the romance genre. The title is brilliant. But like some of the other commenters, I worry that it won’t sustain my interest over the course of an entire novel. For that, these characters (particularly Princess Zelizabeth) need to come alive as people as we can really care about, not just laugh at. So I have reservations about how well this will work as a novel, but as an opening, it hooked me in.
ReplyDeletethe title is so dang funny, which made me wonder if this was a spoof, and i then i read it is.
ReplyDeletei think this would work as a mel brooks film, not sure as a book.
I get that this is a parody, but it's not appealing to me at all. I didn't laugh... I almost didn't finish reading it. Not hooked at all.
ReplyDelete