02-26-2023, 08:28 PM
Todd's keyboard wrote:
[quote=Janit]
Another issue is that this is a joke, which is a performance rather than a formal piece of exposition.
Ah, time for another confession. I'm working on a how-to book on comedy writing. The working title is currently Writing Down the Funny Bones. A small sub-section on Tom Swifities is included in a section on puns and wordplay. Janit, along with a clear explanation on comma usage, also understands the tension between text that is meant to be heard, rather than read.
Once again, thanks to all,
Todd's ChatGPWhat? board
The adverbial Swiftie is the purist form and is based on the overabundance of adverbs in dialogue tags in the original books. Part of the punch comes from the simplicity of the construction.
Extending the joke form into other forms of dialogue tags requires some thought in order to make the joke concise. The shorter the joke, the more powerful it is.
Consider this revision of one of your offerings above:
"I'm of two minds about this," Tom said, being Frank.