Tete a Tete
The new Writers’ Journal hasn’t come but I must be patient and wait for O’Reilly’s Dilema to be published there before I can add it to the web page. I enjoyed writing it and it’s what the Sullatober Dalton brand is about – country life and humour. There are several books under that Nom de Plume that I want to rewrite but then issue them under Clarke Kennedy so that people are not misled by the name and get disappointed and annoyed when it’s not what they expected.
I can always provide a link between blogs.
NA Phoenician taleow to short stories. The latest competition in Writing Magazine is for a tale told in dialogue. I’ve tried in and it’s not easy. It’s necessary to get into the mind set of listening to a conversation or being part of a conversation. I find it almost impossible to maintain a single point of view, hence the listener idea. I’ve written one where the narrator was being interviewed by his prospective father-in-law and, even then, the f-i-l took over now from time to time.You can only get into the young man’s head through his speech and can’t add in reactions about his movements and thoughts, his reaction must come from what the parent says, how he says it and the young man’s replies.
I was taught the way to be in charge of a conversation was to ask questions but there’s only so many questions a person can ask without it becoming nothing more than Q & A instead of a dialogue.
I like to write humour and when I want an example of something, I often turn to The Oxford Book of Humorous prose – A Conducted Tour by Frank Muir and in there is a master class example of conversation from Punch written by E. M. Delafield. The participants are discussing the fiance
‘… Would you say it was a perm, or natural, when she took off her hat?’
‘A frightfully good perm.’
‘Well, dear, I can only say that poor Tony won’t be able to afford …’
‘… I think she looks a good deal older than dear Tony.’
‘Six months.’
‘Is that what she says …