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Names and figures of speech

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timelord1963

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I am trying to make my dialogic better Whispers erect helped a lot but I still have some questions.

In one of my stories I have three teddy bears. I named them 'Teddy', 'Bear' and 'Cubby'. ' Is that correct? No one is actually saying their name. It is just to distinguish one bears name from another.

How do you mark figures of speech when it is in narration form? If you mention scum of the earth but no one actually says it, then what?

I am trying to become a better writer but it is a long slog.

One other thing , when you describe something is it best just to use one adjective to do that so you do not have six or seven commas in one sentence?

I am sure He said, "It was a bright, glorious, cloudless, sunny, summer day." can get to get ridiculous.

TL 1963
 
timelord1963 said:
I am trying to make my dialogic better Whispers erect helped a lot but I still have some questions.

In one of my stories I have three teddy bears. I named them 'Teddy', 'Bear' and 'Cubby'. ' Is that correct? No one is actually saying their name. It is just to distinguish one bears name from another.

How do you mark figures of speech when it is in narration form? If you mention scum of the earth but no one actually says it, then what?

I am trying to become a better writer but it is a long slog.

One other thing , when you describe something is it best just to use one adjective to do that so you do not have six or seven commas in one sentence?

I am sure He said, "It was a bright, glorious, cloudless, sunny, summer day." can get to get ridiculous.

TL 1963
Click to expand...

The bears have names so they should be capitalized. Other than that, nothing else should be needed.

As for adjectives, I use as many as I think I need. How you arrange them is the trick. "It was a bright, glorious, cloudless, sunny, summer day." Becomes, "It was a bright and glorious, cloudless and sunny summer day."

This is my take but then again my grammar and comma usage isn't probably up to par.

Welcome to the madhouse, by the way.
 
timelord1963 said:
One other thing , when you describe something is it best just to use one adjective to do that so you do not have six or seven commas in one sentence?

I am sure He said, "It was a bright, glorious, cloudless, sunny, summer day." can get to get ridiculous.

TL 1963
Click to expand...

How many adjectives can you expect your readers to care about?

Maybe if your next two sentence are "We fucked all day. The End." then maybe that description makes sense. Otherwise you should be able to work the relevant parts of the description into more than one sentence. Or paragraph.
 
As Not Wise says: 'How many adjectives can you expect your readers to care about?' Not many.

If the day was cloudless then it was probably bright and sunny. (Have you ever known a cloudless day that wasn't bright and sunny?)

Is it important that your reader knows that it's summer? Maybe. But maybe not as important as you think. And glorious? Whose idea of glorious?

I generally try to avoid telling the reader what to think. Give them the 'facts' - the real facts and the fictional facts - and then let them reach the conclusion that you would like them to reach.

Good luck. :)
 
timelord1963 said:
I am sure He said, "It was a bright, glorious, cloudless, sunny, summer day." can get to get ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Since we're talking dialog, I don't see any problem with that quote. Some people (and teddy bears) talk like that. It doesn't help your dialog if every character sounds the same as the narrator.

Now it could easily become tedious if every character and your narrative voice was that over the top with adjectives. One or two characters who are verbose and redundant in their speech patterns adds character to your story.

In general terms, give every character a distinct voice and/or speech pattern. Stick to "BBC English" or "Mid-Western Newscaster" for your narrator unless you have a specific purpose in giving the narrator a distinctive voice.
 
timelord1963 said:
I am trying to make my dialogic better Whispers erect helped a lot but I still have some questions.

TL 1963
Click to expand...

Welcome to Chaos, Inc..
Beware the occasional troll, join in the fun.

It took me a long time to work out what you meant:
"dialocic" ?
Do you mean dialog (or, in UK English, "Dialogue")
But I fear "Whispers erect helped a lot" has floored me. What is it ?
In framing your question, a basic grasp of quote marks, commas and so on will help a reader understand your question (there are those who, understandably, will take the first thought prompted and ruin with it in reply).

There seems to be no single manual on the subject of 'style'. but
'Elements of Style', the 'Chicago Style Manual,' 'Oxford style guide' or "Gwynne's Grammar" are all good.
A decent school textbook might also help.
 
Wisphersecret

Whispersecret did a FAQ in the writers resources about How to make your characters talk. For the most part it talks about all the rules for quotation marks and gives examples and mini quizzes to help you. There is some other recommendations as well.

TL 1963 .
 
The names of the teddy bears are of no consequence, as long as they are not ridiculous.

Some people have expressed the opinion there should be few, if any adjectives. I disagree, especially in porn, but stringing too many together is almost as bad. I usually have no more than three, such as: "She had beautiful, long, blonde hair." or "She has large, all-natural breasts with big, sensitive nipples." or "He is a tall, athletic, young man..." The idea is to paint a picture in the readers' minds, and you can't really do that without adjectives.

Figures of speech don't really need to be set off. The readers will know what they are, assuming they are clear enough. They should also not be overused.

And welcome to Literotica.
 
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