Tag: The Art of Writing

Dialogue, The Art of Verbal Action for the Page, Stage, and Screen

by Robert McKee  

Book Review and Commentary  July 26, 2017

The art of dialogue. How does a writer get it just right to be effective, yet original, dramatic but not too dramatic, captivating and satisfying, and most important of all convincing? Nothing marks a writer faster as a rank amateur than a story full of bad dialogue. Robert McKee is probably the No. 1 expert on the craft of storytelling (Story, Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting, 1997, and even though Story is written for screenwriters, those of us who are novelists will benefit greatly from this comprehensive manual of wisdom. No one has a better understanding of story process and design than McKee.)

In Dialogue, yes, there’s plenty of instruction and guidance about how to write great dialogue (also examples of bad…

2011 Shaunessy Ashdown – One of the best stories ever to win. This is the full audio 2011

Have you heard where fuck comes from? For Use of Carnal Knowledge. No, um, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. No, wait, Fornication Under Consent of King. No, it’s…

…It’s Frankly Usage Crank “Knowledge,” Only For Fools. Or FUCK OFF for short.

Sorry to shit on your party trick – don’t worry, it won’t Ship High In Transit, because FUCK OFF – but no swearwords ever in English (or probably any other language) have been created from acronyms. This is for two reasons:

1. Acronyms are intrinsically euphemistic. They are used to camouflage rude, offensive, or otherwise unendurable things (often just unendurably long).
2. Acronyms have only really been used to generate words since the mid-20^th century.

Jan Priddy

by Jan Priddy

Some years ago in a writing workshop, twelve people sat around a broad conference table arguing about the word “whispered.”

The text we were looking at had a dialogue tag of “he whispered.” That was a problem. Our instructor insisted we avoid words other than “said” to attribute dialogue. If you have attended a writing workshop at any time in the past thirty years or so, you know this rule. The variations on “said” my fourth grade teacher once suggested—averred, argued, contended—are today often viewed as authorial intrusions detracting from the message. The dialogue itself should indicate the emotion without attendant “shouted” or “demanded.”

In the case of this particular “whispered,” the writer said his character’s words were spoken softly even though the words themselves did not indicate volume. The group sought alternative wording to eliminate “whispered,” but “said softly” or “said quietly” were also…

After having audience attendees leave during the screening and boo the film after it ended, to call the Cannes Film Festival run of Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon tenuous would be an understatement, especially given the similar reaction to his previous film Only God Forgives. Almost as a point of contrarianism to the attention his film Drive was given, Refn seems to be climbing further and further into the deepest reaches of art house expressionism and The Neon Demon appears to be the culmination of that intended apex. Critics have been chastising his work for being pretentious, masculine, and dull, but this hasn’t faded his process, on the contrary, it has further motivated him to explore a neo-Kubrick cinematic style that is only enjoyable by the hardened cinematic enthusiast, a style which forces the viewer to defragment a puzzle instead of seeking entertainment. While I cannot…

By Alyson Faye

The shadow creeping across Lizzy’s bedroom bent over her. Giant shadow fingers, thick as tar, stroked her face, then her lips. Next morning Lizzy couldn’t speak.

“We need to weave a willow web,” her mum announced.

They went out harvesting the willow wood early at dawn. It was dewy and bendy.

“We must wrap strands of your hair around the willow.”

At one a.m. the shadow thief came insinuating at the windowpane, pushing against the willow. Its long, black, inky arms reached in, grabbing at air. In fury, it roared. Glass shards descended.

Lizzy found her voice, yelling in triumph.

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 Finger’s Breadth Book Excerpt

by M. Christian

Looking from the window of the coffee shop. Watching from the windshield of a parked car. Staring from the glass of a very rare unbroken bus kiosk. Glaring from the side of a passing bus.

A brief summer rain had painted the city that night in reflections. Fanning saw himself everywhere, and everywhere he saw himself his expression said the same thing—Why haven’t you caught him yet?

In his ear, a Bluetooth bud whispered the Officer Wertz inquiry’s soundtrack; in his pocket, the video was playing on his phone. He didn’t need to hear or see it. No one would, but if asked he could probably rattle off every verb, every noun, every linguistic bit from when Knorr started it to when he stopped it. Knorr was good at what he did, just like the lab mice who studied crime…

Once again I was browsing what to watch and I’d seen this one a few times but never pressed play. After a quick read of what it was about, I thought why not give it a go. The concept sounded unique and I love a film that’s mostly set in one place.

EXAMINATION

Misery is probably my favorite of the movies based on Stephen King’s novels. It is a taut thriller with no supernatural elements, which is uncommon for his adaptations. My favorite scene is the one where Annie serves Paul some soup as she discusses his latest manuscript. When she gets overwrought over the book’s profanity and spills a little soup on him, it makes a powerful bit of bloody red foreshadowing that always gives me chills.

Warming up a can of soup can do wonders for fending off the chill of a long winter’s night, but I always imagined that Annie, knowing how much she admired her best-selling author she was nursing back to health, would cook no ordinary tomato soup. Rather she’d serve him up a hearty tomato bisque.

Traditionally, tomato bisque tends to be tomato soup that was cooked with ham and cream added. I think most people who…