Jokes in story-lines can be terribly distracting. I have three friends who write extremely well, but just when you are becoming attached to characters and plot, wham! they put in something really gross, inappropriate, or just a lame line from a comedy routine. It takes you out of the moment and the action deflates as you gasp at the wrongness of it all. Maybe my gross-out meter is low or something, but I hate it when a story is dominated by bodily functions. Even those ghastly children's books by Paul Jennings were, in my opinion, long on fart jokes and short on story. Cheap devices to get the children of Joe Average buying books and sniggering as they read them. Many adult books suffer from the same fate. And it is a shame when something with potential is wrecked by self-indulgence.
Whew! I realise I JUST made it to 10th April (J).
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