Right now I'm on a kick of finding my own verbal crutches and overused phrases. It's surprising and a bit disturbing to find trends in my vocabulary. If you're not sure what I mean, think of the word, "Like," that gets used so much in regular talking. Take this sentence for instance, "I wanted to go, like so bad." The sentence doesn't need the word at all, but it's stuck in there just because. While speaking, many people will use a variant of "um" to fill in awkward gaps.
In editing, these things are taken out, to make written sentences more readable and kind on the ears (I can't be the only one who reads out loud in the confines of their own head). I've read a few stories which attempt to capture actual spoken words, in quirky dialogue--can't say I'm a fan of this technique--but it does demonstrate how badly we all talk. I do find it interesting how uncomfortable this is to read, while it's fine in a movie. Well, there's a big difference when we're forced to interpret the words ourselves, rather than hearing it spoken--at least, that's my current theory.
And then we come around to phrases. Every culture has sentence fragments which encapsulate entire conversations in spare few words. For anyone within the culture, this makes communication easier and quicker. But, outsiders are clueless--"out in the dark" is how my culture says it. So, it can be dangerous to include these in stories, yet also obviously should be included to match the setting. It's a difficult task to juggle, and is one of the hallmarks of great storytellers.
So, let's see if this lead balloon can fly and knock out two birds with one stone...
- M
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment