Monday, January 05, 2015

Being fair to Trollope, and other stuff

I decided I wasn’t being fair to Joanna Trollope in my last post by making something up as an example of her fractured dialogue. So here is an example from her Sense and Sensibility

“I seem,” Elinor said, “to be just as bad at reading people as I ever was.”

and here’s another -

“John and Fanny,” Elinor said firmly, “are family. We had to come.”

and one more -

But,” said Elinor quietly, “that’s what Fanny wants.”

Enough!

I am currently trying to develop the voice of one of my male characters before I begin to actually write the screenplay (up to now I’ve been planning it.) As research, I turned to About a Boy by Nick Hornby (whose dialogue, and its appearance on the page, is immaculate). I opened it in the middle, because I saw the film and know the story, and before I knew it I’d finished the thing and no notes taken. Then I went back to the start and read to the middle. Excellent stuff. Now I need to look further afield and continue to ponder on my character’s voice.

Another thing is that Episode 2 of the third series of Last Tango in Halifax was on last night, and this morning (time currently 6.55 a.m.) it is available for people with no tellies (such as me) to watch on iPlayer, and yet here I am, writing my blog. That’s how much I love you guys.

Actually…to be truthful….it’s how strong my work ethic is. (But I do love you guys.)

I tried again to capture the full moon at teatime yesterday and realise now that I need a tripod to do this effectively, and I’m not going to buy a tripod, so the moon will always be out of reach.

IMG_8545

moon 

Whereas an ON Christmas will be back in two years…

goodbye

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't say I mind the fractured style but my pet hate is when a lazy writer puts the character's name at the beginning of almost every sentence. There are other ways to show who and what... I've been known to abandon a book for this reason alone.

Hope you had a great ON Christmas and Dave enjoyed the time in his own way. I'm still trying to imagine what it's like for the other person and it's tough. It's a novel solution to what must be a fairly common problem. Happy New Year, btw.

Sue Hepworth said...

Thanks, Chris(?) Happy New Year to you, too.

Dave did not enjoy Christmas at all. But was immaculately behaved while the decorations were up.

re the book thing - it's really interesting how personal is our response to the writing of others.