History Literature / WelcomeToNightVale

** A lot of the Night Vale weirdness in general. When something is actually explained it's just as likely to be Night Vale weirdness as it is a completely unrelated Night Vale weirdness, or even just something completely normal that sounded like Night Vale weirdness. [[spoiler: For example, the Sheriff's Secret Police's origin is surprisingly mundane and really was a desired and welcomed change to the Night Vale Police force. While only half of Jackie's Pawn Shop Rituals were standard weird[[note]]like washing your hands while chanting[[/note]] and the other half were added on as a result of broken time distorting Jackie's memories and thus were actually arbitrary.[[note]]She only falsely proposes the price of 11$ for everything because it happened to be the value given to an item when she was first learning how to watch the shop. She retained the action but not the reason so she just does that for everything before the real value comes to her.[[/note]]]] It's just all a part of Night Vale always keeping you on your toes.

** A lot of the Night Vale weirdness in general. When something is actually explained it's just as likely to be Night Vale weirdness as it is a completely unrelated Night Vale weirdness, or even just something completely normal that sounded like Night Vale weirdness. [[spoiler: For example, the Sheriff's Secret Police's origin is surprisingly mundane and really was a desired and welcomed change to the Night Vale Police force. While only half of Jackie's Pawn Shop Rituals were standard weird[[note]]like washing your hands while chanting[[/note]] and the other half were added on as a result of broken time distorting Jackie's memories and thus were actually arbitrary.[[note]]She only falsely proposes the price of 11$ for everything because it happened to be the value given to an item when she was first learning how to watch the shop. She retained the action but not the reason so she just does that for everything before the real value comes to her.[[/note]] It's just all a part of Night Vale always keeping you on your toes.

** A lot of the Night Vale weirdness in general. When something is actually explained it's just as likely to be Night Vale weirdness as it is a completely unrelated Night Vale weirdness, or even just something completely normal that sounded like Night Vale weirdness. [[spoiler: For example, the Sheriff's Secret Police's origin is surprisingly mundane and really was a desired and welcomed change to the Night Vale Police force. While only half of Jackie's Pawn Shop Rituals were standard weird[[note]]like washing your hands while chanting[[\note]] and the other half were added on as a result of broken time distorting Jackie's memories and thus were actually arbitrary.[[note]]She only falsely proposes the price of 11$ for everything because it happened to be the value given to an item when she was first learning how to watch the shop. She retained the action but not the reason so she just does that for everything before the real value comes to her.[[\note]]

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: The Voice of Night Vale Chapters shift the narrative from that of an omniscient narrator, to that of Cecil Palmer, and aren't even counted in the overall chapter numbering system. To make them even more different, in the audio book version, they are produced like a podcast episode instead of like an audio book, while in the printed version, they're written with a distinct font.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: The Voice of Night Vale Chapters shift the narrative from that of an omniscient narrator, to that of Cecil Palmer, and aren't even counted in the overall chapter numbering system. To make them even more different, in the audio book version, they are produced like a podcast episode instead of like an audio book.

* BrickJoke: Throughout the novel, people commend on both Diane and Jackie having migraines, which the two of them both deny. Near the end of the book, Cecil reminds everyone that last month the definition of migraine has been changed to mean "a giant scorpion on the hiding on back of your neck that you would have no awareness of until someone points it out".

* TheCameo: Steve Carlsberg, Carlos, Old Women Josie and the Angels, John Peters (you know, the farmer), Faceless Old Woman, and Mayor Cardinal all show up for about a chapter.

* CallBack: Jackie buys the "KING CITY" for $30 and an idea about time. [[Recap/WelcomeToNightValeEp55TheUniversityOfWhatItIs it had been previously mentioned that the pawn shop had a surplus of ideas about time]], so she is probably still trying to get rid of them.

** The lawn flamingos dropped off at Jackie's shop in the beginning, [[spoiler: send people to other dimensions, which makes them the only way to get to King City. Somewhat downplayed as by the time this is discovered, Old Woman Josie has already taken the flamingos back]].

* ThirdLineSomeWaiting: The Voice of Night Vale chapters feature an ongoing weather report about a man haunted by visions of a dark planet, lit by no sun.

* TwoLinesNoWaiting: Jackie and Diane's stories until they team up. In general, the focus alternates every chapter.

* ChekhovsGun: The lawn flamingos dropped off at Jackie's shop in the beginning, [[spoiler: send people to other dimensions, which makes them the only way to get to King City. Somewhat downplayed as by the time this is discovered, Old Woman Josie has already taken the flamingos back]].

* SpamAttack: [[spoiler: The KING CITY papers were meant for Josh. Since he is a shape shifter, The Man in the Tan Jacket gave papers out to everyone he could find, hoping one of them would turn out to be Josh.]]

* TwoLinesNoWaiting: Jackie and Diane's stories until they team up.

* ChekhovsGun: The lawn flamingos dropped off at Jackie's shop in the beginning, [[spoiler: send people to other dimensions, which makes them the only way to get to King City]].

Eventually Diane and Jackie's stories intersect. The novel is regularly interrupted by segments from Night Vale Community Radio, sometimes to talk about events related to the main plot, oftentimes to report on unrelated or parallely running stories.

Diane Crayton is a single mother who lately been feeling pressure from her shapeshifting son Josh, who wants to know more about his missing father. Diane wants Josh to have nothing to do with his father, which gets complicated when Diane starts seeing him everywhere. To distract herself Diane starts looking for her coworker Evan, who disappeared and no one remembers.

Eventually Diane and Jackie's stories intersect. The novel is regularly interrupted by segments from Night Vale Community Radio, sometimes to talk about events related to the main plot, oftentimes to report on unrelated or parralelly running stories.

* MesACrowd: [[spoiler: Why Josh's father Tom can be seen everywhere. He somehow made multiple copies of himself so he could be helpful to everyone.]]