My mum used to say: The film was wonderful, I cried my eyes out.
I have enjoyed many novels which brought tears to my eyes, and I've suffered some of the following which touch cinema goers and readers' hearts.
1. A sense of always being on the fringe while observing everything around.
2. The death of a loved person or animal.
3. Being forced to part from a loved one, an animal or a place.
4. Loneliness.
5. The misery of being misunderstood.
6. Rejection.
It's some time since I re-visited my notes on writing, so, as I made this list my imagination took wings. I could write and probably will write more than one scene based on each of the above list.
Wednesday, 11 June 2014
D is for Dialogue
Wednesday, 11 June 2014
D is for Dialogue
Over the years I have made many notes on creative writing. Amongst them are the following, but, unfortunately I did not make a note of the source so I can't attribute them.
Every line of dialogue in fiction should:
1. Convey essential information.
2. Move the tale forward.
3. Reveal the character and mood of the speaker.
5. Establish the relationship between characters.
6. It should be consistent with the character's historical period, geographical origins and social class.
I write historical fiction so I use dialogue to indicate class distinctions. The upper class use very few contractions -mostly don't to avoid the cumbersome do you not, the middle class use some contractions and the others always use contractions and, sometimes, dialect. However, dialect shouldn't be overdone. I've critiqued several unpublished novels for members of groups I belong to and the worst fictional dialect is a pseudo Scots one. The authors are addicted to ye, dinna, etc, and they don't distinguish between Highland and Lowland Scots and everything else in between.
These basic principles are so simple but sometimes my characters waffle on and need to be controlled.
Every line of dialogue in fiction should:
1. Convey essential information.
2. Move the tale forward.
3. Reveal the character and mood of the speaker.
5. Establish the relationship between characters.
6. It should be consistent with the character's historical period, geographical origins and social class.
I write historical fiction so I use dialogue to indicate class distinctions. The upper class use very few contractions -mostly don't to avoid the cumbersome do you not, the middle class use some contractions and the others always use contractions and, sometimes, dialect. However, dialect shouldn't be overdone. I've critiqued several unpublished novels for members of groups I belong to and the worst fictional dialect is a pseudo Scots one. The authors are addicted to ye, dinna, etc, and they don't distinguish between Highland and Lowland Scots and everything else in between.
These basic principles are so simple but sometimes my characters waffle on and need to be controlled.
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