: Re: "Stealing" jokes In one of my stories, I have a character who is a bit of a smart ass, always cracking jokes at the expense of others and sometimes even himself. I often get inspired by

There's an old joke about two Vaudevillian Comedians (often George Burns and Jack Benny, who were very good friends, and Benny's character was notoriously cheap):

"George Burns, you dirty scoundrel," Jack Benny shouts as he entered the room, "I heard your elephant joke from last nights show. That's my joke, you stole it from me!"

"Jack," Burns responds, "I stole that joke from the local paper. How could I possibly steal it from you?"

"Because I stole it from the early edition!"

Moral of the story is that comedians do this all the time. Depending on the nature of the joke, or the riff, it can be pretty nebulous. Puns would definitely be immune to this scenario, but if you're going to take it from a stand-up, or the joke was famously attributed to a comedian's act, better be ready to do an attribution. "Who's On First" is probably the most famous routine of Abbot and Costello, but the routine was not used by them... they just had the best known version. Expect any routine of any similar theme to have some reference to Abbot and Costello. You can even have your characters know the reference and make fun of it's lack of originality from the character who told it.

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: Re: "Stealing" jokes In one of my stories, I have a character who is a bit of a smart ass, always cracking jokes at the expense of others and sometimes even himself. I often get inspired by

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: The posters here are absolutely right, the first thing you should do is look to an alternative income source. Making money from novel writing is a long-term goal and takes decades, not months

: Capital letters in copy-written material I am presuming this is a style question, and that it has a name. I presume there is a place to learn about it, such as 'Elements of Style' however

: How can I state what is written on a sign? Is it okay to write: "Shop Name", read a sign hanging above the shop. Should I use italics for the shop name or use any other type of formatting?

: How to deal with Infalliable Narrator issue? So, what I'm writing is a novel where I'm the narrator who describes life events of my another self. The whole story revolves around this character.

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