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This thread shoulda probably faded away at this point, but... I just realized I'm a bit of a hypocrit. That I actually "contrive" my dialogue to the nth degree. My characters are much more verbose and pretentious and profane than they have any right to be and I elevate their speech because it's fun for me as the author. Because I'm an exceptional weirdo who doesn't exactly practice what he preaches. I think that's something me and dagny can agree on.

Having said that, however; and so far as the rest of you mere mortal Next Big Writers go? Do as I say, not as I do, and don't "tarnish" your characters' dialogue with unnecessary authenticity. You gotta let them talk, but you also gotta force them to talk unnaturally. Unfettered by ums and uhs and stutters, I mean. If that makes any sense.

John

I'll be damned, Linda, but your assessment of my "style" is 99% on the nose. Whether my "process" is right or wrong, good or shitty, I just never thought to articulate or defend it that way. So, thank you for that!

Wait... This thread IS all about me, right? Right?

Cheers

Okay, I found a bit of it. In case anybody gives a...
The setting is a wedding reception, family around the table and eating. As if anybody...

***

"Cocksucking Mucka-Ferguson!

Stunned silence. At the tender and enervated age of seventy-five the old sire's once puissant charm has worn thin and been overtaken by his banal and tedious and inflammatory eccentricities of late. He eats his food with his mouth wide open, for instance, and the sight of his green bean and bacon bolus, lolling at the edge of his mouth full of false choppers, is both disturbing and transfixing all at once.

The man suffers from early stage Alzheimer's and a severe case of rip-roaring coprolalia, is the problem. It's a lot like Tourette's syndrome but without the forgivable clinical diagnosis. You'd think by now we'd have learned to tolerate, or at the very least ignore, the explicit tirades and the constant mimicking and sniffling and spitting but he continues to surprise us and make us squirm on a daily basis. It's the reason he spends most of his days confined to the convalescent wing of the Western State mental hospital. Where he can sit around spitting venom and goosing the nurses, enjoying the crass company of similarly afflicted old-timers who can't be bothered to reconcile the post-modern zeitgeist of Progressive sexual and demographic policy with their long-held Conservative logic.

His tics are not entirely involuntary, though. Rather he is periodically overcome by an irresistible urge to perform. Watch closely. You'll witness the man literally tense up and bubble up over time, like he's playing tug-of-war with Etiquette itself, and then explode into an obscenity-laced non-sequitur. For no explicable reason. Like this:

"Tits and spades!"

My mother, younger than her husband by nearly twenty years, sticks around and remains in love with the man for precisely these reasons, I think. She finds his outbursts, while filthy and absolutely inappropriate, are just as likely to charm the pants off of her. If not for his affliction, I suspect she would have left him years ago. But she enjoys taking care of the ogre. She cherishes being the only woman on Earth who can truly endure, understand, and indulge him.

Truth is, Desmond Shuler still holds a level of respect and authority befitting a traditional family patriarch. This despite his career long lack of success financially or otherwise and not to mention the fact that he utterly owes his very existence to my mother's intrepid equanimity. As we all do I suppose.

Look at her. My mother. Skating around the table and dolling out portions of bread pudding with an iron clad smile on her painted lips.

That's when the old man suddenly blurts, "You gotta bury me in the catacombs, bitch! You cockeating jagoff!"

We all jump and then simmer in the uncomfortable silence. My mother, calm and collected as always, reaches down and takes my father's hand.

"Easy, dear," she says. "Which catacombs are you referring to? Paris or Cleveland, Ohio?"

My father shouts, "Cleavage!" and then begins stabbing his plate with his plastic spork. As he violently chases after his vegetable medley, the peas and corn kernels getting away from him and squirting across the table into other people's laps, his frustration increases.

"So how was your day, Pop?" asks my brother Milo, trying to bring things down a notch.

My father relaxes, sighs and shakes his head. "Well, I didn't have to use my AK, if that's what you mean." His tone does not disclose if this is a good or a bad thing, however. The old man immediately resumes hunting his vegetables then, the effort proving fruitless. Eyes bulging, he yanks the napkin from his collar and flings it to the floor.

We wait for it. It's building in him. Wait for it...

"Holy rubber donkey dongs!" he shrieks. "Go and fuck yourselves and all this horseshit, too!"

***

See? I set it up in the narrative and then let the profanity and the weirdness distinguish his dialogue. Without using ums and uhs or stuttering or whatever. Now, whether I'm making the smart move by doing it that way? That's another matter entirely.

Cheers

John

I think it best to pretend those particular syllables --"um" and "uh"-- don't even exist as readable copy. Better to qualify the dialogue with something like *he couldn't find the right words in the moment* than to tarnish the dialogue with ums and uhs. Having said that so imperiously, though... Let's face it, I probably do it too.

Tetralogy, eh? You're nothing if not ambitious, Rachel. I'm afraid that it's been so long (between you and me) that I either forgot or never knew where the heck I'm at.  In regards to your Rhiannon saga, of course, but also in life. Talk to me, woman. Use your words. So I can use my words to make your words even better.

Cheers

John

*I understand that blind Trump hate is very hip and trendy, albeit somewhat justified; but that constant reflex tends to prejudice any true or balanced political discussion.*

Yes, it's very hip and trendy to slam Trump, but it ain't blind. The President "sees" to such imbalance Himself.

NJC: The question should be 'Why do young people in today's society become so alienated that they turn to nihilism?'

Maybe it's because the current laws don't reflect their progressive values and the lawmakers themselves don't represent the changing demographic. You can try to blame video games and social media and whatnot but Atilla the Hun, Adolph Hitler, Ted Bundy and etcetera never played video games or got catfished on Instagram. I venture that most killers are driven by perceived injustice or delusions of grandeur or both. I dunno. I'm talking thru my hat for the most part. As inexcusable as the reason may be, it's still frustrating when a guy like Hitler or the Las Vegas shooter commit atrocities and then kill themselves before they can be interrogated. Hopefully this latest kid will illuminate the pathology but... I doubt it.

The only things --the only reactionable things, that is-- these random American villains have in common are masculinity and access to deadly weaponry. Cut all our balls off or cut off all the ammunition. You make the call.

NJC said (attributed): "Set Your House in Perfect Order Before You Criticize The World"

Well, you-know-who oughta have that stamped on his forehead, doncha think? I saw something on Facebook the other day and it made me think how wonderful it is that conservatives, whether they're beholden to the NRA or not, are so gung ho about disarming obnoxious whack-jobs like Kim Jong Un --who, let's face it, is really just an underprivileged brat trying to join what he thinks is the privileged big boy club of nations-- but not so worried about disarming (or mental-helping, for that matter) our own homegrown lunatics and underprivileged. If people, not guns, kill people, then doesn't it follow, in the same breath, that: "Nukes don't kill people, people kill people."? The hypocrisy is rampant. As is the stubborn stupidity. AKA insanity.

What up, woman?!?
You know Elton John is calling it quits. We oughta collaborate on an essay. An appreciation for the man's musical legacy.

*...except to provide the president with a misleading pretext to fire deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and discredit Robert Mueller’s probe.**

Yup. But what are we gonna do about it? Except get on a forum and complain about if our meager little forum even has the right to exist or contemplate or contextualize or conclude anything...

What if I were to start a forum thread saying that I dropped a lit cigarette in my lap and, as a result, everyone oughta be obligated to write their congressman demanding an extra episode of The Sopranos? Even if the truth of Tony Soprano's fate was forthcoming wouldn't it only spawn forum upon forum debating the veracity of said truth? And, furthermore, Tom Brady and the Patriots just lost the Superb Owl. Why can't we debate the veracity of that result?

Supercool congratulations, Rhia! Lemme know when I can buy a copy. Or two. Or three.