15 October 2005
What Are You Talking About?
Have you written a story before? I remember in first grade, I wrote stories all the time. We would type them out on the type writer at school and then form our own binding too! The binding was a simple sheet of wallpaper over cardboard. The glue we used to stick the two together smelt so wonderful (and harmful) and contributed to my first years of authorship. Well, in any case, the following are a few tips on writing stories, mainly dealing with dialogue. This is taken from the book The Complete Guide to Writing Fiction and Nonfiction by Pat Kubis and Bob Howland. I suggest purchasing it for the sake of increasing your amazon.com points, but it is up to you.
The Short Story-Remember, when writing a short story, you want your characters to be real, like you and me. They can speak differently, walk differently, spit differently, but a reader must be able to identify with them. Your plot should be something the reader can relate to; that's what keeps the book in his/her hand! The next few examples are NoNo's for writing dialogue.
Definition: Tag: A tag is a simple way of identifying who speaks (ex. he said, she said...)
example 1. Overuse of Adverb Tags:
"Don't shoot!" he said fearfully.
"She released the safety and said threateningly, "I've wanted to do this for years."
"I know." He smiled wonderingly. "It's always amazed me."
Her eyes glinted vengefully. "Has it?"
"Don't you care about me at all?" he asked feelingly.
"No," she said murderously. And she pulled the trigger.
Outrageous...
example 2: Overuse of Tags
The window opened, and the young man looked up, startled, as she swumg inside. "Hello," he gasped.
She laughed. "We meet again."
"Yes," he trembled, white faced. "I thought-" he began.
"We all think," she murmured.
"No," he growled, "I didn't mean that."
"Of course you did," she hissed.
"Please, " he wimpered.
"Be quiet," she whispered, taking the German Mauser from her purse.
"You're going to kill me!" he shrieked.
"What makes you think so?" she chortled.
"Good grief," he coughed. "Please, I want to live," he faltered.
"You should have thought of that before!" She shouted.
"Oh my lunch," he groaned.
"It's over, isn't it?" she moaned.
"Yes," he intoned, "it really is..."
Ridiculous
example 3: Irrelevant Dialogue
"My Goodness-the fire is starting to spread! Get that hose over here!"
"Right away. Say, did I tell you I won twenty bucks at poker last night?"
"No kidding? What kind of hand did you have?"
"Four Jacks."
"Lucky guy."
....
example 4: Contrived (Forced) Dialogue
"Why Leon, I haven't seen you since high school-right after your parents were killed in that air crash in San Diego, when a Navy jet flew into that 747 and 250 people died, and you have to go to work selling vacuum cleaners and so were precented from going to medical school."
"Yes," said Leon, "it was terrible I could not pursue my education at Johns Hopkins, to specialize in pediatrics. I lost my job selling vaccum cleaners and ended up in sowing machines. But I was fortunate to marry Susie Edwards and have four fine children, and we now have a nice home in Brentwood, a new Datsun, and two Irish setters."
who speaks like that in everyday life?
Well, there's the run down. I hope you enjoyed the examples. Honestly, there was no real purpose to this page (not even to sharpen your writing skills). I thought the examples were hilarious and wanted to share them with you =) Have a nice day! -Hoy
