http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html
I can't wait to see the beautiful dance of the re: memos.
Anyways, I hope most of you woke up super refreshed and remembered that it WAS April Fools Day and were not subsequently fooled by the bajillion weird things to hit you while doing your morning surfing. Really, boingboing? I'm going to have to pay for the bananas you make me look at? But I digress. Hope that you were sharper than me, which--at 7 in the morning--isn't saying too much. Hee!
Yesterday while showering (TMI? I feel like this isn't a TMI thing among writers. Isn't that were we do our best thinking? So I was showering. It's like two CEOs saying to each other, "So I was brainstorming about this new merger." Anyways. I was showering.) I was practicing some conversations.
Sidebar: when I was a kid I practiced conversations all the time. I wasn't the most outgoing teen and boys scared the crap out of me so I had to practice some of the more crucial conversations that I imagined that I might have that day. Despite my hard work, I did not give the perfect comeback to any tormentors, nor did I ever kiss a boy using the exact same dialogue between Han and Leia in Empire Strikes Back. (There it is, there's the TMI.) End sidebar.
So anyways, I was showering and I was practicing witty retorts just in case a guard at the Navy base stopped me for wearing a "Pete's UK Fish and Chips" shirt. And I thought to myself, "This is exactly how I write dialogue, isn't it?" Most every line of dialogue in my manuscripts is spoken aloud for authenticity's sake, just to make sure it flows naturally like conversations often do. Of course, in revising, I have to take out a lot of "of course"s and "well"s and "I guess"s...but that's why revising is our friend. Our horrible, mean friend.
Well, I guess where I'm going with this is: how do you write dialogue? Do you keep a journal of phrases you hear from everyday life? Do you write in silence or speak everything out loud? And, most tangentially, are you showering while you do so?
(On second thought, don't answer that last one.)
3 comments:
Dialogue is tricky for me so far. Really I just imagine two people having a conversation in my head, and write down what they say. I don't think too hard about it and it feels more natural.
Also, remember my shiny idea I had in the shower a few weeks ago? Yeah, I totally know what you mean. You can do what I did and use the steam on the shower door to write notes. Just hurry when you get out and grab a pen and paper before it fades away!
"Revising is our friend. Our horrible, mean friend." LOL! So dang true.
Keri! I was trying my darndest to remember who had told me they had thought of a WIP idea in the shower and written it in the glass. You! I would have mentioned you by name, but my colander-like brain forgot who told me that. :D So funny!
And Vicky, may our horrible friend be nice to you in your next round of revisions. Thanks for stopping by!
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