Faye (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
said_scarlett) wrote2008-07-11 10:24 am
said_scarlett) wrote2008-07-11 10:24 am
On Issues With Dialogue - The Crackover Chronicles Continue
So, I broke out Crackover this morning, because I'm still flowing with creativity.
But I'm hitting a roadblock of the purely technical sense. Dialogue. Specifically, Our Hero's dialogue.
As things get worse and worse, and Our Intrepid Hero heads deeper and deeper into the hell that is Silent Hill (Albert in tow), he's losing his grip more and more. So his speech is becoming a bit less controlled, less poetic, less rigidly structured. And this is on purpose.
But! It's become harder and harder to keep his expletives and the like IC. We've moved beyond the realm of snappy jive slang, because the deeper into Silent Hill we get, the more the mind goes. And let's be honest: Our Hero has a mouth on him. Half the time you can't understand what he's saying because he uses counter-culture specific terms and phrases and euphemisms from the late 50s/early 60s, but now that he's more or less....not thinking, obviously he's going to lose a lot of that.
But I can't figure out a good set of curses and the like that fit him. Sure, he's a rebel bad ass type, but he's also a genius and a very well educated man who has Very Set Opinions when it comes to 'gutter talk'. Even in bed, his dirty talk (unless asked, of course!) tends to be reciting counter culture poetry. It just doesn't seem right to have him wail on monsters while screaming 'eat shit and die, motherfucker'. Unless he was being derivative and quoting something. Something such as pumping a monster full of lead while exclaiming 'yippy kye aye ay, motherfucker' is completely different, because it's referential.
We've come upon the first 'Boss Battle', so to speak, which is why this is coming up. It's not going well for Our Hero, and he's losing it quickly. And his dialogue (both internal and external) needs to reflect this. It needs to be raw, but it needs to be fitting and it needs to still reflect who Jack is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And now that I've whined on about my ridiculous dialogue issues, it's discussion time! How do you decide on a dialogue set for a character? How much does background, gender, ethnicity and location influence how you decide to structure a character's dialogue? Have you ever had an idea of how a character would sound before writing them, and then discovered their 'voice' is completely different?
(Obviously, this is heavily biased towards original characters existing outside the realm of fa fiction, but since around half my Flist is composed of actual writers, I don't think that's a problem.)
Watched that VH1 documentary The Drug Years last night. My sister recommended it to me, and damn was it good. An unbiased, factual look at the evolution of drug culture in America, with an emphasis on the drug culture in the music industry. I found it fascinating, especially episode 3 'Teenage Wasteland', which touched heavily on the reckless and almost all-consuming use of marijuana in the 70s. The perfect example of something taken too far, too much.
It's still beautifully gray and stormy out today, and I'm going to bake some cookies and get started on a ham dinner. And I should get started on laundry while I'm up and about.
No more lazing about, enjoying myself with non-stop video games and RP, I'm afraid. At least not until tomorrow. ;)
But I'm hitting a roadblock of the purely technical sense. Dialogue. Specifically, Our Hero's dialogue.
As things get worse and worse, and Our Intrepid Hero heads deeper and deeper into the hell that is Silent Hill (Albert in tow), he's losing his grip more and more. So his speech is becoming a bit less controlled, less poetic, less rigidly structured. And this is on purpose.
But! It's become harder and harder to keep his expletives and the like IC. We've moved beyond the realm of snappy jive slang, because the deeper into Silent Hill we get, the more the mind goes. And let's be honest: Our Hero has a mouth on him. Half the time you can't understand what he's saying because he uses counter-culture specific terms and phrases and euphemisms from the late 50s/early 60s, but now that he's more or less....not thinking, obviously he's going to lose a lot of that.
But I can't figure out a good set of curses and the like that fit him. Sure, he's a rebel bad ass type, but he's also a genius and a very well educated man who has Very Set Opinions when it comes to 'gutter talk'. Even in bed, his dirty talk (unless asked, of course!) tends to be reciting counter culture poetry. It just doesn't seem right to have him wail on monsters while screaming 'eat shit and die, motherfucker'. Unless he was being derivative and quoting something. Something such as pumping a monster full of lead while exclaiming 'yippy kye aye ay, motherfucker' is completely different, because it's referential.
We've come upon the first 'Boss Battle', so to speak, which is why this is coming up. It's not going well for Our Hero, and he's losing it quickly. And his dialogue (both internal and external) needs to reflect this. It needs to be raw, but it needs to be fitting and it needs to still reflect who Jack is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And now that I've whined on about my ridiculous dialogue issues, it's discussion time! How do you decide on a dialogue set for a character? How much does background, gender, ethnicity and location influence how you decide to structure a character's dialogue? Have you ever had an idea of how a character would sound before writing them, and then discovered their 'voice' is completely different?
(Obviously, this is heavily biased towards original characters existing outside the realm of fa fiction, but since around half my Flist is composed of actual writers, I don't think that's a problem.)
Watched that VH1 documentary The Drug Years last night. My sister recommended it to me, and damn was it good. An unbiased, factual look at the evolution of drug culture in America, with an emphasis on the drug culture in the music industry. I found it fascinating, especially episode 3 'Teenage Wasteland', which touched heavily on the reckless and almost all-consuming use of marijuana in the 70s. The perfect example of something taken too far, too much.
It's still beautifully gray and stormy out today, and I'm going to bake some cookies and get started on a ham dinner. And I should get started on laundry while I'm up and about.
No more lazing about, enjoying myself with non-stop video games and RP, I'm afraid. At least not until tomorrow. ;)
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