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"Said Bookisms are boring," she snarled.
by Puddin'
For reasons of my own, I have a treasured copy of The Said Book by J.I. Rodale and Mabel E. Mulock. While I've never actually studied it, I think of it from time to time because it's so infamous amongst writers that it has it's own catch phrase, a "said bookism." Go ahead, google it, you'll see.
It's so familiar that one often sees it abbreviated to the simpler "bookism," what might be called a euphemism for a particular style of purple prose in which the author elaborately avoids the use of the word "said" in favour of other, seemingly more descriptive verbs.
--- she laughed.
--- she cried.
--- she sighed.
--- she expostulated.
--- she lucubrated
The trouble with these verbs is that the first three aren't actually speech, and we must presume that they take place either before or after an act of speech, so they're really leaving the most cogent information being conveyed — the simple identity of the speaker — by the wayside and then haring off on a more-or-less lovely meander. The next two are just elaborate verbs that may or may not be easy for a reader to understand. They get in the way of understanding the story, and might as well be Sanskrit for many people.
These "descriptive" verbs aren't actually all that descriptive, don't serve their intended purpose of breaking up long and terminally-boring stretches of unleavened dialogue with evocative descriptions of the scene or the behaviour of the speaker, and are almost certain, in real life, to cause an acquisitions editor to toss a manuscript containing more than one or two per chapter back into the slush pile, if not to hurl it against the wall in disgust.
The advantage of "said" is that it's nearly invisible, nearly as invisible as the word "the," and takes up almost the perfect amount of visual dwell time to correspond to a natural pause in speech, like a comma. "Asked," although technically a "said bookism," is usually not counted amongst them, but the pair of these words is almost always sufficient for dialogue spoken without too much ambiguity or sarcasm.
Here's Hemingway's short story, Hills Like White Elephants as an example of the depths of subtlety possible, even within the span of these two simple verbs:
Note that the attributive verbs used are "said" and "asked," and that even these are sparsely distributed. Dialogue is quite often understood from context, and the flatness, sometimes anguished desperation, of the woman's speech lies hidden under the bland surface of the written dialogue like a strong current under the placid surface of a river.
Hemingway was a proponent of not saying everything possible, and of deliberately leaving some things unsaid, because the reader would become aware of them despite their seeming invisibility, so we quickly figure out that the "operation" in Hills Like White Elephants is actually an abortion, that the man is a fatuous and irresponsible fool, and that the whole scene is as dreary and oppressive as the flat landscape and heat.
He said once that he wrote one page of masterpiece for ninety-one pages of shit, and that he tried to put the shit in the wastebasket, an excellent motto for the aspiring writer.
Dialogue can indeed become boring, but the best solution is to introduce more evocative prose, not a single verb.
Instead of " 'Fred!' she cried," one might try "She fell sobbing to the ground, lifted up her face toward her husband, and slowly wiped the tears from her eyes. 'Fred!' "
Raiders of the Lost Ark, the movie, doesn't start with a narrative description of the dubious career of Indiana Jones and then talk about a fabled treasure he might like to look for whilst everyone is sitting around a shabby table in Podunk, Oklahoma. It starts with a cliffhanging episode of tension and catharsis which *shows* us what Indiana is like before the first line of dialogue is spoken.
Dialogue is easy, l'esprit d'escalier, the sort of thing one has running through one's head at times, "...and then I should have said...." Capturing the soul of a moment, a series of moments, picking and choosing which moments to describe --- possibly including dialogue --- and then retain and which to toss away is hard.
Here's an excellent discussion of Said Bookisms:
Cheers,
Puddin'
----------------------------
The first draft of anything is shit.
--- Ernest Hemingway
Comments
Podunk
Is in New York, if you please, not in Oklahoma. :-)
KJT
"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Actually...
...there are several places called Podunk in the USA, one of them is (or was) in Oklahoma. Another *was* a town in New York and is now a hamlet within the larger town of Ulysses. I used the one in Oklahoma since it's now an uninhabited ghost town and would be less likely to offend any ghostly resident, most of whom lack Internet access. One imagines that most ghosts have relinquished pride of place in any case.
Cheers,
Puddin'
----------------
I long to talk with some old lover's ghost
--- John Donne
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Actually . . .
That was never a real town, just what a short-loved settlement was called, because it was away from the town proper.
The phrase "Podunk" which originated in the theater, refers to Podunk, New York. If you weren't playing in New York City, you weren't in the big time. So it became known as playing in Podunk. Which term has now become semi-synonymous with small towns anywhere. Which is why that settlement was called podunk, same as saying the sticks. I grew up in Oklahoma when we were in the States, and have heard all this several times.
KJT
"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Podunk
>> The phrase "Podunk" which originated in the theater, refers to Podunk, New York
I daresay one meaning of the word does, and I'm very familiar with it, having made my living in the theatre for many years, quite some time ago, albeit in San Francisco, where we were more attuned to high culture than the mere flash and brass of Broadway.
But the word is Algonquian in origin, referring to a marshy place or mire, and is most closely associated with the Connecticut Valley, where the Podunk Indians lived, and it seems likely that Podunk, New York, was so called because it was on a river and near a marsh, not because someone thought up a brand new trademark for a town. There are quite a few places named Podunk in Connecticut which predate the founding of Podunk in New York by half a century or more.
Many places are called Podunk in humour, due to the popularity of the name in American literature. Mark Twain joked about it, and before him an author of children's books, who used the New York location as an exemplar of idyllic village life and the simple honesty of the people who lived there, a literary precursor to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
In its day, Podunk was as famous as "Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga" became during the Jack Benny Radio Programme, when the names of these Southern California towns were announced purely for the sake of their odd (by American standards) names.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Somewhere Puddintane
Somewhere,W C Fields is wondering how you decided to mention Jack Benny when he proceeded Benny by many years in using inherently funny words, including town names. Of course, he'd rather be in Philadelphia.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
WC Fields...
...was preceded in this art by Cicero, who predates him by rather more years than Fields predates Benny, and whose skill in this art, amongst others, eventually led to his murder by those who couldn't quite cope with free speech used well. I do commend him to your attention, as he's quite a bit better at this sort of thing than many of us.
I didn't suggest that Benny was the only comedian who made people laugh by using silly names. Indeed, the popularity of Podunk, even to this day, is due to the shape of the name in the mouth and its sound in the ear, and predates both Benny and Fields. I just happen to like Jack Benny, whose humour was more self-deprecating than that of Fields, whose comedy quite often contained a streak of cruelty I didn't much like, and whose celebration of drunkenness irritated me, although he was a master juggler, a skill I do admire greatly. I highly recommend The Great McGonigle juggling scene, a part of The Old Fashioned Way (1934), as an exemplar of the juggler's art.
Cheers,
Puddin'
----------------
Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius
nisi insipientis in errore perseverare.
Anyone can err, but only the fool
persists in his error.
--- Cicero, Philippicae orationes
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
How to do it
Instead of
Write,
The first is a said-bookism, especially since it includes an exclamation point, nearly always a no-no in commercial level writing. The second is simple exposition, non-purple prose that conveys facts and lets the reader infer, and therefore feel the emotions themselves. If the scene involved has been properly set up, the characters defined, it works much better and is more memorable.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Punctuation
Without changing the punctuation from an exclamation point to a period, it's not at all clear that the improved sentence isn't merely a mistake in capitalisation, so it would likely be *seen* as a bookism even though it technically isn't. I wouldn't count on getting away with too many of them.
Exclamation points and question marks are perfectly acceptable in commercial prose, as long as one doesn't use too many of them, and the proper "she said" for such a sentence isn't capitalised. On the other hand, if one substitutes "Karen" for the generic pronoun, one can't actually say whether the sentence contains a strict bookism or not. If it looks like a duck... better to rewrite it and avoid the easy "fix." One "fixes" cats, after all, and it's difficult to say whether they feel better about themselves after.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Nope.
Again, I strongly disagree. This is how it's done. Take a book off the shelf and look. My example was purposely ambiguous to illustrate the difference, likely I would have rewritten it but to say that punctuation doesn't change things is -- well, just silly. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Hemingway
“Now!†he said aloud and struck hard with both hands, gained a yard of line and then struck again and again, swinging with each arm alternately on the cord with all the strength of his arms and the pivoted weight of his body.
Admittedly, he only used one exclamation point in the story, but he used it properly. Opinions may differ amongst experts, but a difference of opinion doesn't necessarily make one or the other wrong.
It's a difficult call, because both question marks and exclamation points obey different rules than full stops do, inhabiting a sort of Twilight Zone between a proper stop and a mere pause, depending upon rather vague considerations of style and personal habit. By treating an exclamation point as a comma-equivalent, it loses a bit of its force, and so becomes less objectionable, even to "bang purists."
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
mea culpa she wailed
I must admit to using these a lot, I'm not terribly confident writing dialogue, and dislike long passages of speech, so my characters laugh a lot, or do stuff not entirely related to what they're saying. They do sometimes ask, answer, reply or inform though.
Great, something else to worry about :)
Eau dear!
Must be a Welsh thing! Can I plead insanity? she said.
Angharad
Angharad
Insanity?
Wot, insanely good? ;-)
KJT
"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
The *!* is taboo?
Good lord!
Karen_J wouldn't be able to write a thing if they ban the exclamation point.
Ouch!!! Stop hitting me.
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. "I resolve never again to use bathroom humor," said John flushingly.
John in Wauwatosa
I know one
There is at least one on here who would agree with you. She sent several chapters back to me with a significant number of exclaimation points replaced. She told me people don't talk in exclaimation points; I replied, "Really!"
Oh, John, that would read better like this:
"I resolve never again to use bathroom humor," John said, flushing.
KJT
"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Proofers, aaaaak!
Itinerant, Holly and now you correcting my posts.
I tells ya it's mortifing!
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. That was my crude attempt to paraphrase Jimmy Durante
John in Wauwatosa
>>> I replied, "Really!"
>>> I replied, "Really!"
There's even a special punctuation mark for this sort of sentence, the Interrobang, of which there is a lovely discussion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrobang
I personally am in favour of it, as I like the freedom to choose, but it's difficult to use on the Web, as many fonts don't contain it.
Here's a sample if you'd like to check your own default fonts: ‽ -- ampersand#8253;
It works on my machine (a Mac), but I have it quite deliberately set up to display almost every Unicode character properly, as it annoys me when my display turns to garbage when it encounters Chinese or Georgian or Arabic or Hebrew or whatever. I really like typography, and like to see it unfiltered.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Welsh thing...
>> Can I plead insanity?
Probably! Why not? I'm part Welsh and half-mad myself.
Puddin'
-------------
I hold a beast, an angel and a madman in me,
and my enquiry is as to their working, and
my problem is their subjugation and victory,
downthrow and upheaval, and my effort is
their self-expression.â€
--- Dylan Thomas
Names are not always what they seem. The common
Welsh name BZJXXLLWCP is pronounced Jackson.
--- Mark Twain
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Once Again Puddintane Is at Least a Foot off the Bullseye
Your premise that "we must presume that they take place either before or after an act of speech" isn't necessarily true. The three attributes you mention are perfect examples of actions that can and do occur simultaneously with speech, making them a form of "speech" every much as correct as "said".
While I agree with your overall sentiment and applaude the effort, both you and Erin are wrong -- and right on this one.
The proper way to write the sentence(s) depends on the intent of the author. If you mean the action to occur simultaneously with the dialogue, the laughing, the crying, the sighing occuring as she speaks you write it as a normal attribution. If you want the action separated from the dialogue it is written as two sentences -- as Erin has stated.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Another alternative
You can use a phrase as an adverb. It's not ideal but it can be done and done sparingly, it's not hideous.
Got to be careful, used too often this technique looks stupid. :) If you do it three times in a novel, you probably haven't overdone it.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I'm not comfortable with them myself...
...in fact, I call those "Snagglepuss phrases": "Exit, giggling all the way, stage right...."
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
>>> The three attributes you
>>> The three attributes you mention are perfect examples of actions that can and do occur simultaneously with speech
Not quite, although they do often occur in close proximity to separate acts of speech, which by definition consists of distinct productions of a uniform set of sounds and sound patterns with particular meaning and referents within a given language.
Laughter, sighs, and cries are universal human sounds which form a part of no language, since they are not distinct and do not communicate ideas, but rather emotions, and have no grammar. These three actions precede the acquisition of language and are seemingly instinctive rather than learned.
One can intersperse laughter with speech, laughter may make it difficult to talk, as most people know, but unless one possesses two heads with their associated vocal tracts one cannot perform both actions simultaneously. The same issue arises with sighs and cries and the same analysis applies.
Here's an interesting and accessible discussion of laughter, as an example only. The literature is extensive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughter
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Your Very Own Said Book
Whilst not nearly as compendious ss the printed volume, for those authors feeling deprived through not having their own copy, here's a digital alternative with two hundred said words:
http://www.scarlett-archer.com/otherthansaid.html
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Tom Swifties
We use to play a silly word game related to this topic, called Tom Swifties.
"I'm off to the races," Tom said hoarsely.
"Don't stay out all night," his mom said darkly.
"If you do, don't walk past the graveyard," his brother said spookily.
Get the idea? :)
The point of the game was to crack everyone else up while keeping the imagined silly conversation going.
It's named after the Tom Swift books by the ghostly Victor Appleton, actually a stable of staff writers who may have sneaked such zingers in on purpose. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Yeah, those!
I remembered Swifties, but for the life of me I couldn't remember any examples! In spite of having read nearly all the books when I was a kid.
CRS!
KJT
"Being a girl is wonderful and to torture someone into that would be like the exact opposite of what it's like. I don’t know how anyone could act that way." College Girl - poetheather
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Adverbial said bookisms, more or less...
I used to produce the announcements in my high school homeroom and Swifties were a regular feature, along with shaggy dog stories, the history of yoyos from Babylon to the present, and the poetry corner, all of which were meant to be humourous, although I have to admit that they didn't go over all that well at times. I did manage to get yoyos banned from high school, though, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
"I failed my electrocardiogram test," said Tom heartlessly.
"I've misplaced my breastforms," Tom said flatly.
"I managed to get nine cups of tea from this one bag," said Tom weakly.
"We're completely out of water," said Tom dryly.
"I have multiple personality disorder," said Tom Frankly.
"I really like my new sports bra," said Tom firmly.
"I want more money, too," Tom agreed.
"Fire!" said Tom alarmingly.
"I'm a little confused about this Heisenberg fellow," said Tom uncertainly.
"I want all the oysters," said Tom selfishly.
"Where can I apply to join the BBC Singers?" Tom inquired.
"I'm coming out," said Tom gaily.
"I was in the Navy once," said Tom fleetingly.
"My welfare cheque is my only income these days," said Tom dolefully.
"I'm trapped under a tombstone," said Tom gravely.
"I've gained quite a bit of weight," said Tom stoutly.
"That robber took everything but my underwear," said Tom briefly.
"This will be my first experience with the electric chair," said Tom warmly.
"Living in Antarctica has been difficult at times," said Tom frostily.
"I'm allergic to sunblock," said Tom rashly.
"I'm a dedicated athletic supporter," said Tom upliftingly.
"Do you think I've used too much rouge?" asked Tom cheekily.
"My father decided that he wanted to be a woman," said Tom transparently.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Doh!
Those are really good. I mean they're so awful they're good. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Doh...
...and especially-designed for Big Closet, many of them, although a few I just remembered from the olden days. I probably rewrote them. Artists never finish a work, they abandon them, but they're fun to fiddle with in the interim...
"Six of one, half a dozen of the other," said Tom bisexually.
"I'm reading my own mind," said Tom self-consciously.
"Darryl's becoming more skilled at controlling his gift," said Tom insightfully.
"Marcie's still on board," said Tom amazingly.
"I can't be bothered with dormice," said Tom uncaringly.
"I've been selected as Queen of the Tournament of Roses," said Tom afloat.
"Being the Queen is harder than I thought," said Tom distantly.
"I fell off my bike," said Tom easily.
"I'm just getting ready to rebuild my bicycle wheels," said Tom untiringly.
"I'm down to the hubs," signed Tom unspokenly.
"I've finished the wheels at last," said Tom tiredly.
"I've resolved my gender confusion," said Tom ambiguously.
"I'm teaching at the University," Tom professed.
"Cobblers!" bawled Tom.
"I've taken up needlework to calm my nerves," said Stella cruelly.
"I'm an only child," said Tom oddly.
"I'm an only child, too," said Tom evenly.
"That will be twenty quid," said Tom tartly.
"Yes, we have no bananas," said Tom fruitlessly.
"How much is that doggie in the window?" Tom barked litarozaly.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Of Course, Puddintane
Proper form dictates that you never put the attribution before the noun. Change your attribution to a more active word and it usually becomes apparent why not.
Great humor -- poor form.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
The original Tom Swift novels...
...were written starting in 1910 and continuing through 1941 by one ghostwriter, more or less, Howard R. Garis, first familiar to me as the author of the Uncle Wiggily stories, and the pseudonymous author of the Bobbsey Twin stories, both of which series I loved as a child.
My very first story was an Uncle Wiggily pastiche, and I followed that with Space Mouse, loosely based upon the movie theatre and television science fiction serials of the time, but peopled (if you'll pardon the expression) with the sort of quirky animal characters I'd loved in the Uncle Wiggily stories and, to a lesser extent, in the Thornton Burgess Old Mother West Wind animal tales, also published in 1910. This second story won a local newspaper prize for my age group, accompanied by a stern warning from the editor that I was not to allow my parents to help me with any further submissions, which indirect accusation enraged me, although I comforted myself with the thought that he was undoubtedly a twit. I was around eight at the time.
Mr Garis wrote in a very distinctive style, and a proper Tom Swifty follows that style as closely as possible, including the typical precedence of the verb. The fashion in writing back those golden days of yore was somewhat stilted by modern standards, and writers were paid by word count, often at a set price per word or, in the case of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, at a fixed price for a finished product with a specified minimum number of words. This economic arrangement ensured that adverbs, adjectives, and elaborated phrases were strewn like wedding rice into every possible nook and cranny, so that the finished product abounded with "fluff" so as to fatten the word count with minimum effort and pay the rent with a little "wiggle room" to spare.
Stratemeyer writers were paid rather generously for the times, around two month's wages for a typical newspaper reporter --- which Garis had been --- per book, and a skillful writer could knock one out in a month or less if he, or she, put their minds to it. Both Garis and Mildred Wirt, the real author of the original Nancy Drew stories --- another favourite series of mine --- made quite tolerable livings from their work.
I've taken the liberty of quoting the first few lines of dialogue from the first Tom Swift book, Tom Swift and his Motor Cycle, or Fun and Adventures on the Road by Victor Appleton (Howard Garis), 1910.
===
"Whoop her up, Andy!" added the lad on the seat beside the driver. "This is immense!"
"I rather thought you'd like it," remarked Andy Foger, as he turned the car to avoid a stone in the road. "I'll make things hum around Shopton!"
"You have made them hum already, Andy," commented the lad beside him. "My ears are ringing. Wow! There goes my cap!"
===
Here's another line from the same book, a little later in the story.
===
"He was?" exclaimed Tom excitedly.
===
You'll note, I'm sure, that it follows the canonical form of the Tom Swifty precisely, and that "said bookisms" are the rule rather than the exception. Fashions change in literature, even pulp products owned by syndicates and written by ghostwriters.
In the above example, the parallelism of "exclaimed ... excitedly" is perfectly delicious, although nary a pun, inadvertent or otherwise, appears as the proper Tom Swifty demands.
I mentioned, I think, that I made a study of these minor literary forms in high school, and am moderately acquainted with their history and proper format, although I freely admit that they are trivial in the grand scheme of things, and not nearly as important as, let's say, the history and varied uses of yoyos, which I'll eventually make the subject of a monograph, one of these days.
Cheers,
Puddin'
------------------
"I would dance and I'd be merry
Life would be a ding-a-derry
If I only had a brain," said Tom
rather sharply.
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
As someone who writes a lot of dialog
First of all, I appreciate this sort of post because it exposes mechanisms that one uses without realizing, and I will keep it in mind as I review my unposted chapters -- at least for this week. A little shakeup is good: it's like telling a dancer they don't lift their feet high enough, or some such thing.
I do get alarmed when I see myself piling up the words "said" and "ask", and do my best to eliminate the repetition. I used "offered" (which I first saw Maddy Bell use) and "put in", "countered", "contradicted", "echoed", which I think do qualify as conversational devices.
And I did take a look at the Hemingway piece, but don't think it's well done. It reads more like a sketch for an idea than a finished piece. Maybe at the time it was revolutionary, but that time is past.
My favorite rendering of dialog was in a translation of some French novel -- I can't remember which, but every line of dialog started with a dash. There were no quotation marks at all or saids or asked or so on. Like this (the text is just random junk):
It only works with two speakers, obviously.
I often long for the play/screenplay style:
Not to Worry Kaleigh
There is that theory that suggests most reader's eyes slide right over "said" without it registering. The greater harm is to disrupt your flow with a strained attribution that breaks the reader's sense of suspended disbelief.
"A ghost," she horrified, as she sailed out of the room.
Of course, there are many best-selling authors who break every rule in the book.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Breaking the rules
Talking about authors breaking the rules reminded me of an argument I'd had with my art teacher. She was trying to teach us the rules for creating realistic figure drawings, and I said I didn't need to learn that because my art style broke all the rules. She then told me I needed to know what the rules were before I could break them properly.
At first, I thought she was just saying that so I'd shut up and stop interrupting the class. Perhaps she was doing that, but I learned something important that day. Anybody can break the rules, but to break them in really interesting ways, it does help to know what the rules are. I think the same can be said for writing, or any other creative endeavor.
Hemingway...
>>> And I did take a look at the Hemingway piece, but don't think it's well done. It reads more like a sketch for an idea than a finished piece. Maybe at the time it was revolutionary, but that time is past.
It's much too stark for modern tastes, but it's a masterpiece none-the-less, despite the fact that I don't actually like Hemingway's style overall. (One can probably tell this from my own writing style...) It was a huge innovation from the florid styles that came before, much as Expressionism and Surrealism and then Abstractionism were a reaction to the academic art which preceded them. Hemingway can be traced straight from Einstein's two theories of relativity and Freud's theories of the unconscious, which is part of what drives his desire to show differing viewpoints and motivations without ever naming them, letting them well up in the reader's mind like a breakthrough in psychoanalysis.
Notice the parallelism between the woman's isolation and the bamboo curtain that separates her from the barista, the only other woman present, from whom she seems to be separated by language as well. Most of the exposition takes place within the reader's head, as almost everything of interest is either unspoken or vaguely alluded to. Toward the end of the story, we discover that there are people behind the curtain who have escaped our notice, since we are meant to identify with the woman, not the man who knows these things all along, who is keeping track of where to go and how to achieve his goals whilst she's being pulled along his tracks, which are on the other side of the station.
Most people who haven't entered the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest probably don't know that there was a real novel, Paul Clifford, written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, which starts out with the original cliche of purple prose:
>>>> It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
Like Bulwer-Lytton, Hemingway spawned his own his own Bad Hemingway contest, officially known as the International Imitation Hemingway Competition, which probably qualifies both as Best of Breed. It's fairly easy to parody both, but both had critical success as well as tremendous popularity among their contemporaries. It's very hard to write as well as they did, because their surface appearances are not all there is to them.
>>> I often long for the play/screenplay style
It places heavy demands on the reader, and is hard to bring off well if your audience isn't familiar with this format, so it's awfully easy to lose half your audience within the first few pages.
It's hard for the author as well, since it demands more discipline in separating dialogue from parentheticals, actions from shots or stage directions, and general notes from transitions and everything else. I recommend Final Draft if you want to get serious, as anything you submit will have to be in that format before anyone will look at it. It's available for both Macs and Microsoft PCs. Montage for the Mac is cheaper, and supposedly exports Final Draft files, and it does have some nice features that are somewhat more accessible than Final Draft.
Cheers,
Puddin'
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
James Joyce...
...and many other writers used or use this format, and it's perfectly useful when accompanied by attributions as well. It's more or less a standard form in French, Swedish and Greek, and other writers have preferred it, though its use in English is still idiosyncratic. There's a special Unicode character for a quotation dash, ― ampersand#8213;
Here's a short discussion which includes other works you'll find them in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark%2C_non-English_u...
Cheers,
Puddin'
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
said
I don't like said. I usually skip attributions altogether, but I'll throw in a description of an action before a piece of dialogue when the speaker wouldn't be obvious.
Here's a love scene from one of my stories, which might be an example of your bookism: