Quick question: does this make sense?

[Juliana]

Is it clear what my character is doing here in the section I've underlined? (He's trying to annoy his sister, by the way)

“Tris can handle it,” mimicked Luke, making a puppet mouth from his fingers. “Ooh, Tris, you’re so brave, kissy-kissy, mwah-mwah.”

 

[HareBrain]

It does to me. You mean using the thumb as the lower jaw? (But I don't suppose it matters whether the reader envisages it exactly the same.)

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Makes sense to me! Even if one were confused for a second over that, it should come clear with the "kissy-kissy, mwah-mwah" bit.

 

[Juliana]

It does to me. You mean using the thumb as the lower jaw?

Exactly. Good! Thanks. It's a surprisingly hard gesture to describe!

 

[Ursa major]

It's a surprisingly hard gesture to describe!

...unless one uses the medium of mime....

By the way, I knew what you meant.


As an aside: does your unease about how clear it is partly derive from the suspicion that there may be a better (or more accepted) way of saying this? I can't think of one, but I've never heard the phrase, puppet mouth (with or without fingers), so I was wondering if this action had been described before, but in a different way. (Not that I've heard any examples of this either....)

 

[HareBrain]

I wonder if "with his hand" might be clearer than "from his fingers"? But no biggie.

 

[Juliana]

HB, it originally read 'with his hand', so I may go back to that, thanks.

Ursa, I tried googling it, I really did. Figured this has to be a common image people want to describe, right? But all I got were loads of hand puppet sites.

 

[HareBrain]

Figured this has to be a common image people want to describe, right?

Isn't it one of the things banned in Leviticus? Maybe check there.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

No probs for me.

 

[Juliana]

HB!

Thanks all. Hand puppet thing stays, then.

 

[paranoid marvin]

How about 'fashioning a pair of pouting lips with his hands'?

If you leave it as it is it sounds fine though.

 

[Phyrebrat]

It's fine, don't change it. Anyone who doesn't get it probably doesn't get it because they don't have an opposable thumb and are therefore as dumb as a bag of soup, celery soup.

pH

 

[ParallaxBrew]

I would rewrite it as:

“Tris can handle it,” Luke said, forming a puppet mouth with his fingers. “Ooh, Tris, you’re so brave, kissy-kissy, mwah-mwah.”

More often than not, writing "said" instead of another word (like "mimicked") will force you to describe the action in a clear way.

 

[jastius]

With instead of from... And that is hillarious, juliana!

 

[tinkerdan]

Hand puppet yes I believe that's what Señor Wences (Wenseslio Moreno) called his on the Ed Sullivan show

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It makes sense to me. Is he repeating back what someone said before ("Tris can handle it")? That's what "mimicking" would suggest to me. Otherwise, maybe something like "mocking" would work better. Although as ParallaxBrew says, a saidism isn't necessary; the dialogue and the gesture work fine without. Still, we're all allowed a few saidisms for seasoning, and it depends on what you are doing with the other dialogue tags in the scene.

 

[tinkerdan]

Yes once and a while::

It makes sense to me. Is he repeating back what someone said before ("Tris can handle it")? That's what "mimicking" would suggest to me. Otherwise, maybe something like "mocking" would work better. Although as ParallaxBrew says, a saidism isn't necessary; the dialogue and the gesture work fine without. Still, we're all allowed a few saidisms for seasoning, and it depends on what you are doing with the other dialogue tags in the scene.

:: too often though and we might think they are said-omasochistic