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apocalypsosIf I make a list of rules of stuff that bug me about fic sometimes, one of them is going to be that I'll give any pairing a chance if it's written by a good writer or looks like it's an interesting plotline, even if I normally loathe the pairing with a passion, but not if you're going to be an abject snot about me usually hating it.
And I'm getting really damn annoyed by picking up a paperback and bringing it home only to find out that the dialogue is terrible. Like, no one in their right mind would speak like this. I'm willing to let it slide a little more in fanfic because I didn't go out and pay for it and if the rest of the story is good I'll let it go somewhat. And fantasy usually gets a bit of a pass for a few phrases because some things are really just not going to be things that normal people say. But I hate getting a book home only to find that once you get into it it's patently obvious that the writer has never been informed his or her dialogue is ridiculous and unnatural and/or has never bothered to read it out loud to see if it sounds like real conversation.
I don't know ... dialogue's one of my strong points. It's the first thing I write when I write a story, because it feels like an outline. I can hear the voices better that way, which brings out the characters in my head. And I mean, it's one thing to be a little off. It's not that hard to know when your dialogue doesn't work in a real-life capacity. If you read it out loud and it doesn't sound normal speech, fix it.
And like I said it's one thing when it's fanfic. I've got a bit of a tendency to let people slide anyway since a lot of writing fanfic is practicing and getting better at it over time. After a while most people work the kinks out in their writing through fanfic. But right now I've got a paperback sitting on my nightstand by an author with more than a few published books already and the dialogue is driving me up a wall, particularly how the main character speaks. We're talking about an educated, analytical female character and ... look, normal people use contractions. They say "yeah" and "well" and "okay" at the beginning of sentences occasionally. Unless you're on a superhero team in a 1950s comic book you're unlikely to use ludicrously silly and outdated declarations of surprise. And I have known some highly intelligent women in my time -- God knows that when I was in DC I was up to my eyeballs in very smart chicks -- and none of them were this level of consistently verbose as if they had ingested a thesaurus every morning for breakfast just to prove they could. And they were writers. This character isn't.
I mean, if you're complicating a sentence about a trip to the store for bread with an announcement to the other characters that involves more than one word with two syllables, perhaps you should tone it down a bit.
*rant over*
Sorry about that. I just really had to rant about something. I've spent the past few days feeling like bitching about something and I haven't been precisely sure what just yet. So, you know, that's one thing. :)
Okay, now I am going to throw on some clothes and run to the Chinese restaurant for food before this stupid storm comes and I can never leave my house again.
And I'm getting really damn annoyed by picking up a paperback and bringing it home only to find out that the dialogue is terrible. Like, no one in their right mind would speak like this. I'm willing to let it slide a little more in fanfic because I didn't go out and pay for it and if the rest of the story is good I'll let it go somewhat. And fantasy usually gets a bit of a pass for a few phrases because some things are really just not going to be things that normal people say. But I hate getting a book home only to find that once you get into it it's patently obvious that the writer has never been informed his or her dialogue is ridiculous and unnatural and/or has never bothered to read it out loud to see if it sounds like real conversation.
I don't know ... dialogue's one of my strong points. It's the first thing I write when I write a story, because it feels like an outline. I can hear the voices better that way, which brings out the characters in my head. And I mean, it's one thing to be a little off. It's not that hard to know when your dialogue doesn't work in a real-life capacity. If you read it out loud and it doesn't sound normal speech, fix it.
And like I said it's one thing when it's fanfic. I've got a bit of a tendency to let people slide anyway since a lot of writing fanfic is practicing and getting better at it over time. After a while most people work the kinks out in their writing through fanfic. But right now I've got a paperback sitting on my nightstand by an author with more than a few published books already and the dialogue is driving me up a wall, particularly how the main character speaks. We're talking about an educated, analytical female character and ... look, normal people use contractions. They say "yeah" and "well" and "okay" at the beginning of sentences occasionally. Unless you're on a superhero team in a 1950s comic book you're unlikely to use ludicrously silly and outdated declarations of surprise. And I have known some highly intelligent women in my time -- God knows that when I was in DC I was up to my eyeballs in very smart chicks -- and none of them were this level of consistently verbose as if they had ingested a thesaurus every morning for breakfast just to prove they could. And they were writers. This character isn't.
I mean, if you're complicating a sentence about a trip to the store for bread with an announcement to the other characters that involves more than one word with two syllables, perhaps you should tone it down a bit.
*rant over*
Sorry about that. I just really had to rant about something. I've spent the past few days feeling like bitching about something and I haven't been precisely sure what just yet. So, you know, that's one thing. :)
Okay, now I am going to throw on some clothes and run to the Chinese restaurant for food before this stupid storm comes and I can never leave my house again.
