Which writing techniques have you come up with yourself?
I'm no writer myself, but still, here is my own silly notions:
S T O R Y
Story is vastly overrated. I see it mostly as a cheap trick to keep the reader hooked. The author tries to engage the reader, not with what's actually happening but by promising that there is a big reveal around the next corner. When the reader gets there, he gets promised that, by Golly, what awaits him a little further is truly fantastic...
I once began watching the tv-series LOST. After several episodes, I realized that I didn't care about the show ... every character could die, I wouldn't mind. The only thing that kept me hooked was that promise that there was this thing that I just shouldn't miss just around the next corner. I quitted the show.
Another time, I started watching WAREHOUSE 13, and instantly one of the leads began going on about how he absolutely didn't want to talk about the horrifying events from his past. And I already knew what I was in for - episode after episode of hinting about his stupid past, before the big reveal. I quit that show too.
When reading a novel called A VISION OF MURDER, I was yet again subjected to that horrible event from a characters past which she didn't want to talk about. And okay, I know the drill - a series of hints, then the big reveal. Not quitting this time, I read on, passed the hints and finally got the big reveal over with.
Newer tv-series tries to give the viewer an illusion of development. But of course, despite the reveals and character arcs, everything stays the same. If there true progress in DEXTER, it would quit being DEXTER after a few episodes.
The story fad is quite prominent, but let us look at some exceptions. There is the slice-of-life genre, where the story thing is ditched to give focus to environment. The SUPERMAN cartoons from the fourties shows a impressive disregard for any kind of progress or story, each and every episode being an exact carbon copy of the same formula. The way certain elements were repeated seemed almost like a ritual. The tv-series KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER and COLUMBO also downplay the story. Each episode had a murder/monster, but the main attraction was the protagonists verbal duels with the other characters.
The Tintin comic THE CASTAFIORE EMERALD dared to show that the story isn't all that important - it is the ride that matter, the destination is just a silly excuse.
W I S H F U L F I L M E N T
There is in comic books a peculiar tradition for showing characters enjoying food with extreme joy.
GARFIELD has his lasagna, LIL ABNER has his po'k chop. The kiddie version of the super hero parody TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES had the heroes eat pizza. A member of Disneys BEAGLE BOYS has a great appetite for sweets. Dagwood Bumstead from the BLONDE strips had his fameous sandwiches - giving name to the Dagwood Sandwich:
http://images.google.com/search?tbm=...gwood+sandwich
SERGANT SNORKLE represent a special sub-trope in in food-related comic book tropes: The Jovial Fat Guy Who Loves Food, also seen in LES 4 AS and LITTLE LOTTA.
Wish fulfilment doesn't have to be about being a milionaire or having super powers. A good writer can write about a character eating a meal in a way that makes the reader take part of that characters enjoyment. The crime novel TOO DARN HOT, about a female detective in the fourties, has the protagonists enjoyment of food as a running theme throughout, generously using half a page to let her enjoy a cup of coffee and a nesselrode pudding and when interviewing the parents of a missing girl, she is very much focused on the hors d'oeuvres.
The first PHRYNE FISHER novel runs wild in wish fulfilment - the protagonist is super rich, good looking and clever. She has no obligations and becomes a detective just for the fun of it. She buys new dresses constantly, have sex with everything and surely, our heroine needs food:
http://thefabulousmissfisher.blogspo...ine-blues.html