Short Story Help

[presch]

Hey
hi
i'm writing a short story and the main bulk of events happen thru phone calls?
any tips you could give on how to get started
and things i should keep in mind hile writing out conversations

can any lit gurus offer help??

(ignore the Av)

 

[kendo1]

Punctuation and correct spelling might be good starting point, going by your original post.

(Just my sense of humour)

To answer your question - treat your speech as normal conversation, as if the characters are across a table from one another. It may bring an intimacy to the piece.
The (very) occasional reference to moving the phone to a more comfortable position/ putting it down etc reminds readers of the scenario.

Good luck.

Ken

 

[presch]

Punctuation and correct spelling might be good starting point, going by your original post.

(Just my sense of humour)

To answer your question - treat your speech as normal conversation, as if the characters are across a table from one another. It may bring an intimacy to the piece.
The (very) occasional reference to moving the phone to a more comfortable position/ putting it down etc reminds readers of the scenario.

Good luck.

Ken

lol thanks ken

 

[presch]

i stil need help if anyones free

 

[TE999]

i stil need help if anyones free

Here you go:

1) Bear in mind people will say things on the phone that they wouldn't face to face...the shy become bold...the bold obnoxious...you get the picture.

2) This could be, and should be, an all dialogue story...with maybe a few words of explanation here and there. Keep your sentences brief...almost choppy...it's how most people talk. No extensive use of vocabulary words either.

3)The first meeting of the communicants can be made awkward and stilted until they get over their initial fears and begin getting to know each other.

Good luck writing your story.

Tom.

 

[presch]

Here you go:

1) Bear in mind people will say things on the phone that they wouldn't face to face...the shy become bold...the bold obnoxious...you get the picture.

2) This could be, and should be, an all dialogue story...with maybe a few words of explanation here and there. Keep your sentences brief...almost choppy...it's how most people talk. No extensive use of vocabulary words either.

3)The first meeting of the communicants can be made awkward and stilted until they get over their initial fears and begin getting to know each other.

Good luck writing your story.

Tom.

Thanks tom!
dialogue mean conversation styled?
i'm just logging off for the night so don't be offended if i dont reply before tomorrow

 

[jomar]

Ha! I used to have a problem with my thumb getting in the way of the lens too!

Listen to some old Bob Newhart routines on youtube for some comedic one sided conversations.

But you've an interesting idea for a story presentation. You could have the people talking and showing their disinterest, worry, disdain, ect by what they do while talking - flipping through their mail, listening intently, gesturing to someone else to not stop God don't stop...nothing Dear it's the TV!!! (Lit, you know?)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Most phone conversations are about as dull and inane as can be.

 

[driphoney]

(ignore the Av)

How 'bout we not?

(Have you considered joining my permanent penis 'contest'?)

'Dialogue' are the words said to each other, in a story it's that stuff between characters that is put into quotes.

When doing dialogue it's important to get the punctuation straight, but a volunteer editor will help you out with that when your story's finished.

But before you secure your editor, be sure read your dialogue (phone conversation) aloud. Then put it away a day and come back to it and do it again. Does it sound natural? Do people really talk that way?

Good luck on your story.

 

[TE999]

Thanks tom!
dialogue mean conversation styled?
i'm just logging off for the night so don't be offended if i dont reply before tomorrow

Yeppers...as driphoney said, phrase it as the average person would converse...no soliliquies from 'Hamlet'.

No problemo.

 

[glynndah]

Mention the characters' names in the conversation once in a while so the reader can be sure who's who.

 

[Boxlicker101]

As others have said, have the characters talk the way real people talk. That means contractions whenever they can be used and usually a few grammatical errors. That's if such things are in character. An English teacher would have few, if any, errors in grammar, and a semi-literate person would have many.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

The first couple of pages of Vox, Nicholson Baker's erotic novel comprised entirely of a single telephone call. Notice the absence of narration or description of anything outside of the conversation itself.

"What are you wearing?" he asked.

She said, "I'm wearing a white shirt with little stars, green and black stars, on it, and black pants, and socks the color of the green stars, and a pair of black sneakers I got for nine dollars."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm lying on my bed, which is made. That's an unusual thing. I made my bed this morning. A few months ago my mother gave me a chenille bedspread, exactly the kind we used to have, and I felt bad that it was still folded up unused and this morning I finally made the bed with it."

"I don't know what chenille is," he said. "It's some kind of silky material?"

"No, it's cotton. Cotton chenille. It's got those little tufts, in conventional patterns. Like in bed-and-breakfasts."

"Oh oh oh, the patterns of tufts. I'm relieved."

"Why?" she asked.

"Silk is somehow . . . you think of ads for escort services where the type is set in fake-o eighteenth-century script--For the Discriminating Gentleman--that kind of thing. Or Deliques Intimates, you know that catalog?"

"I get one about every week."

"Right, a deluge. Lace filigree, Aubrey Beardsley, no thank you. All I can think of is, ma'am, those silk tap pants you've got on are going to stain."

"You're right about that," she said. "Someone gave me this exotic chemisey thing, not from Deliques but the same idea, silk with lace. I get quite . . . I get very moist when I'm aroused, it's almost embarrassing actually. So this chemise thing got soaked. He said, the person who bought it for me said, 'So what, throw it away, use it once.' But I don't know, I thought I might want to wear it again. It's really nice to wear silk, you know. So I took it to the dry cleaners. I didn't mention it specifically, I bunched it in with a lot of work clothes. It came back with a little tag on it, with a little dancing man with a tragic expression, wearing a hat, who says, you know, 'Sorry! We did everything we could, we took extraordinary measures, but the stains on this garment could not come out!' I took a look at it, and it was very odd, there were these five dot stains on it, little ovals, not down where I'd been wet, but higher up, on the front."

"Weird."

"And the guy who gave it to me had not come on me. He came elsewhere--that much I was sure of. So my theory is that someone at the dry cleaners . . ."

"No! Do you still give them your business?"

"Well, they're convenient."

"Where do you live?"

"In an eastern city."

"Oh. I live in a western city."

"How nice."

"It is nice," he said. "From my window I can see a streetlight with lots of spike holes in it, from utility workers--I mean a wooden telephone pole with a streetlight on it--"

"Of course."

"And a few houses. The streetlight is photo-activated, and watching it come on is really one of the most beautiful things."

"What time is it there?"

"Um--six-twelve," he said.

"Is it dark there yet?"

"No. Is it there?"

"Not completely," she said. "It doesn't feel really dark to me until the little lights on my stereo receiver are the brightest things in the room. That's not strictly true, but it sounds good, don't you think? What hand are you holding the phone with?"

"My left," he said.

"What are you doing with your right hand?"

"My right hand is, at the moment, my fingers are resting in the soil of a potted plant somebody gave me, that isn't doing too well. I'm sort of moving my fingers in the soil."

 

[Boxlicker101]

The first couple of pages of Vox, Nicholson Baker's erotic novel comprised entirely of a single telephone call. Notice the absence of narration or description of anything outside of the conversation itself.

I didn't copy the verbiage because it seemed kind of pointless. You can certainly tell he's being paid by the word.

I certainly hope nobody is going to write like that on Literotica, especially short stories. Nobody would read beyond the first page.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I didn't copy the verbiage because it seemed kind of pointless. You can certainly tell he's being paid by the word.

I certainly hope nobody is going to write like that on Literotica, especially short stories. Nobody would read beyond the first page.

Actually, he was being paid by the book sale, and seeing as it was a New York Times bestseller, he probably did OK. One would wish than one in a hundred authors on Lit would be able to write porn well as he does.

 

[Stella_Omega]

You call that porn? I don't. I thought "Vox" was incredibly tedious, and I was very disappointed with what people were telling me was the renaissance of erotica.

That book had only one passage in it that moved me at all in any way. It was a description of something the narrator remembers someone else saying, about shelves of used paperback romances, and how the spines are creased so that each book opens at the point where the couple finally clinch. That was a lovely thought. It was interesting to me that he did not get the message those creased spines were telling him.

 

[CharleyH]

You call that porn? I don't. I thought "Vox" was incredibly tedious, and I was very disappointed with what people were telling me was the renaissance of erotica.

Each to their own.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Each to their own.

Yes, I know! Can you give me another angle on Vox? I trust you and Lauren, and I've never heard another viewpoint on that book. I was the only person in my circle who read it.

What made it erotic?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

You call that porn? I don't. I thought "Vox" was incredibly tedious, and I was very disappointed with what people were telling me was the renaissance of erotica.

That book had only one passage in it that moved me at all in any way. It was a description of something the narrator remembers someone else saying, about shelves of used paperback romances, and how the spines are creased so that each book opens at the point where the couple finally clinch. That was a lovely thought. It was interesting to me that he did not get the message those creased spines were telling him.

I couldn't put it down. Is Vox porn? No, not in the least, and it isn't a short story either. It's a novel. It does have erotic moments, though, and Nicholson Baker does write porn. It is without a doubt the best phone-conversation-come-story that I have ever come across, which is what presch wants to know about.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I couldn't put it down. Is Vox porn? No, not in the least, and it isn't a short story either. It's a novel. It does have erotic moments, though, and Nicholson Baker does write porn. It is without a doubt the best phone-conversation-come-story that I have ever come across, which is what presch wants to know about.

gotcha. I was confused-- "One would wish than one in a hundred authors on Lit would be able to write porn well as he does," taken in the wrong context.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

What made it erotic?

It relies entirely on dialogue. Narration would have no meaning, because the person on the other side of the line wouldn't have been able to see it anyway. This gives a lot of weight to each word uttered by the characters, certainly a lot more than on any other dialogue I can think of. And conveying the true nature of these two characters relying on nothing but their own words is something that is very intrinsically erotic, the same way others try to convey the true nature of their characters by the way they relate sexually.

 

[Stella_Omega]

It relies entirely on dialogue. Narration would have no meaning, because the person on the other side of the line wouldn't have been able to see it anyway. This gives a lot of weight to each word uttered by the characters, certainly a lot more than on any other dialogue I can think of. And conveying the true nature of these two characters relying on nothing but their own words is something that is very intrinsically erotic, the same way others try to convey the true nature of their characters by the way they relate sexually.

That's a good way to put it, I think. I'm in the second camp-- I use erotic situations to convey my character's natures, and finding a person's nature exposed by sex is intensely erotic to me. I might be colorblind, so to speak, to Baker's version of eroticism-- whatever there was, it passed me right by...