HBO Fan Fiction

[baneofdeath]

Alien Dialoge Syndrome:
When an Elite talks like modern day humans, or when a human talks like an Elite. EX: Marine saying "It seeks to evade us" or an elite saying
"Hellz yeah"
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One must take responsibility for their actions, which is why i take no action.

Wow player, level 80 warrior on durotan, named: Baneofdeath

[SYSTEM]

RTFB - Read The Fucking Book (alternatively, RTFM may stand for "Read The Fucking Manual" or "Read The First Message.")

ITSM - In The Source Material
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SYSTEM | HBOFF Administrator | "Anytime, Baby!"

I apologize to anyone I have not offended yet. I will get to you shortly.

[kr1]

Not really jargon, but this needs to be posted somewhere.

The Elements of Style - Fucking read it, new guys. You won't regret it.
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[eb4642]

Chekhov's gun: Something that is introduced early on in a story, but whose significance is not fully revealed until later. A good example is Arabella Figg in the Harry Potter books: she's introduced in book 1 as the minor character of Harry's crotchety old neighbour, but in book 5 it is revealed that she is a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and she becomes a lot more involved in the story from that point on. Generally, this is quite a good plot device, as long as it is not over-used.

The name comes from Anton Chekhov, who said that, 'one must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.'

Dream world: Where a character finds themselves in a world that turns out to be entirely inside their head. Should be used sparingly, e.g. to demonstrate that something is inside their mind, or they are going mad/hallucinating. Nested dream worlds, or dream worlds chained one after the other, are a pain for the reader to understand.

The Dream Ending, variously known as 'and then I woke up. It was all a dream!', deus ex somnium and That Fucking Dream Ending: A subset of both deus ex machina and the dream world. Where a writer discards the entire story (or a significant portion of it: say, several chapters or an entire arc) by stating that it had all been a dream. This is deadly to readers and is the sign of a lazy writer. Practically any primary school teacher will tell their kids to avoid this ending like the plague in English lessons. It's a cop-out, a way of the writer saying 'I can't be arsed to finish this/think of a way to finish this, I'm going to play Minesweeper.' It's also a tell-tale sign of poor planning.

Dream sequences should be short, and if it is a dream, it should be obvious that it is one (i.e. the dream world should deviate significantly from reality). Bottom line: don't use the dream ending.
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The Elitist Bastard | Writing is the business of professional turd-polishing.
"(don't take this review too seriously) If you doubt this is possible, how is it there are PYGMIES + DWARFS??"

[Sterfrye36]