flickr (ip)

questions:

if I have a long part - I want to separate it into paras, to make it easier to read. does it still make sense that it's all said by the woman? Or do I have to put quotation marks the whole way?

does it sound a bit melodramatic?

grammatically - I've missed out question marks in places because they aren't really questions. eg: Yes back to that and guess why.
She's making a statement - her voice wouldn't rise at the end, but strictly speaking, its a question - does that read ok?

thank you for the suggestion - I really enjoyed trying

It's an interesting read with a strong story line but it does seem as though they are speaking for the benefit of an invisible audience. I'm not sure why. There's something a bit forced about it...'you know what they said at the clinic', 'After the scan?' doesn't sound natural somehow. Not weary enough. Maybe they should be having the conversation over breakfast?

(Trying to help)

THANK you for helping - really grateful

Avoid the radio-play trap:

'Oh! I see you have a gun and are pointing it at me, Herbert!'

that's what ewan said this morning and I guess I haven't. It's hard to get the story in without saying all those things though

Could be as writers we are all too aware of the tricks. Maybe the average reader doesn't notice that stuff?

My thoughts exactly - dialogue on its own is very difficult as you always try and insert the 'this is what's happening' stuff into speech - and we don't say these things, we see them. That's why you need to do dialogue inside a story. It makes it harder too - the he said, she said thing - this is a tough one to master.

Having said that, it's a darn good start. Listen to conversations for the next few days. Hear how people don't finish sentences, how they cut across each other, how they don't describe what's going on in front of them - and imagine writing that conversation into a story. How would you describe the action, the setting, the build up, the denouement?

Believe me, they often notice something's not quite right, although I admit they won't know why.

'Stop shouting. Ok. I’ll tell you what the fucking problem is. You haven’t got over it have you? You can’t hack the idea that she’s not perfect. Not the little princess you imagined. You still wish we’d gone down the other route don’t you? Remember? After the scan?'

Take 'remember' out and read it again.

In the light of her later long speech, you could take out 'after the scan' too. Don't reveal too much, too early.

Punctuate. If she talks for more than a paragraph, as follows: 'no closure of quote mark at end of para but new para needs initiating quote mark'.

You moved the story along briskly and got a lot of information in.

Keep at it. It's fun anyway, isn't it?

Tony's right. Interruptions and ellipsis, that's the secret of faithfully recording how people speak. That works against trying to tell your story with just dialogue, and that's why it's a good exercise, but not something you want to try as real 'writing'. Whatever that is, LOL.

thank you tony and ewan - was going to explain that your suggestion had been dialogue only - hence - well hence the dialogue only : )

it was hard to make a story using those rules, but fun! And seeing what you wrote today - a mix of dialogue and story - it looked less - heavy (if that's the right word) - and it read much better.

thanks also for punctuation help

I'll have another go! xx

What happened to the gun? Bring it back. Sorry. Dialogue just bores me.

http://mario239303.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/gun.jpg

xxxx there you go

cute. I like that.

I can strip that one down you know! Trouble is I could never hit anything with it. A great friend once told me I'd have been better off throwing it.

...did you ever try?