John Hamler wrote:I really like that passage, dagny, especially the last line, but... I wasn't trying to debate the efficacy of "my style" so much as to show that dialogue in literature (the stuff between quotation marks) doesn't hafta include the ums and uhs and errs that are, let's face it, a part of natural speech patterns. That's what this thread was about. I think. I mean, it's a book, after all. Not an audio recording. As long as you describe the character beforehand (spits when he talks, talks when he eats, etc;) you can trust the reader's imagination to embellish the dialogue accordingly. Or not. I dunno. We can debate that either way but just know this: The profanity itself was never up for debate.
Cheers
John,
I didn't say it was. I just thought if you were going to describe dialogue, describe it all the way. Putting said dialogue into the description defeated your purpose. According to you, describing the way someone talked was preferable to using their speech patterns, but you went ahead and used the speech pattern anyway.
You can't have it both ways. Or can you?
That might be the happy medium, John. Relax your standard to include description of the dialogue as well as a few examples of that speech pattern, much the way you wrote Tourette's grandpa at the wedding.
PS BTW...tarnish was your word. I used it because you used it. Personally, Um, Uhs and Ohs do not bother me, in fact it helps me keep characters straight when more than two people are talking. But I would never say those words tarnish anything, you did.
