What is biter bit




















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Username Please enter your Username. Password Please enter your Password. Forgot password? Don't have an account? With this information, the boy rushes down to the Bible-owner's room and starts bargaining to buy the Bible from him. After considerable dickering, the Bible is sold for ten dollars. When he finds nothing, he returns to the seller's room.

A biter-bit story is usually told from the point of view of the eventual victim, who throughout the major part of the story seems to be the perpetrator of the joke, swindle, etc. At the close of the story described above, another biter- bit might begin. It would deal with the attempt of the sister and brother to cheat still another college student. At the story's close, they would find themselves undone by another party even shrewder than they.

The biter-bit has two component parts: first, a fairly original situation in which one man is doing another dirt; second, an ingenious reversal whereby the dirt is done the doer. Think over four or five jokes you've heard recently.

Probably two or three of them are really biter-bit stories. In a sense, that is all the writer need know about the form. Essentially, the biter-bit is an extended joke or anecdote. Just as in so many jokes, there is the non-malicious aggression and then the sudden setback for that aggressor. As in the joke, too, the story first sets up a taut situation and then explosively loosens it with an unexpected reversal.

As with a successful joke, also, the good biter-bit must have a spark. It is an exceedingly common story-form, not difficult to write. Consequently, what the editor pays for is the idea, the gimmick, the switch. Really original biter-bit ideas are not easy to come by, either for writer or editor. Therefore, a good one will probably sell, even if it has been manhandled in the exec ution.

That is how popular the type is with readers! An Inadequately written biter-bit which contains a sound, new, amusing gimmick will often elicit a request for a rewrite from an editor. Here's a neat example of a biter-bit idea which received quite plain, breadlike handling. The idea was the one valuable component of the story.

Two truck drivers are told by their boss to drive a load of dynamite to a certain destination. En route, their brakes go bad while coasting down a long hill which leads into a small but densely populated town.

In order not to endanger the townspeople, they risk their own lives in bringing the truck to a safe stop on the edge of a cliff. They call the boss to tell him of their heroic action and close escape. The boss is amused and confesses that the truck actually contained eggs.

He had said the load was dynamite to assure careful driving. The drivers tip the truck over the cliff and then call to say they're sorry, but they couldn't save the truck.

It slipped off the cliff. There is a very cute and appealing type of biter-bit which achieves a nice circular effect. A recruit, taking basic training, goes to a camp dance and finds himself the object of the attentions of a lovely WAC. The recruit's training sergeant discovers them and is coldly dismissed by the WAC.

The sergeant has it in for the recruit all through his training. And for the sake of sheer survival, the recruit turns himself into an A-1 soldier. When at last basic is over, the recruit has done so well, he is made corporal by the company com- mander and becomes a training officer himself.

That evening, when he goes to look up his WAC friend at the service club, he locates her exactly where the sergeant had originally discovered him. She is with a new recruit, saying the same things to the recruit she had said to him



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