The worst dialogue on the printed page - EVER (authorial)

[Saucy_Sage]

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq230/Saucy_sage/Trail.jpg

Go ahead. Prove me wrong.

 

[oggbashan]

This book - English_As_She_Is_Spoke is difficult to surpass...

Example: That pond it seems me many multiplied of fishes. Let us amuse rather to the fishing.

Og

 

[BlackShanglan]

I could supply you with worse dialogue, but then I'd have to confess to having written it.

Great image, though. Shoo, you big ole nasty monster! Shoo!

 

[oggbashan]

I have a soft spot for Bulwer-Lytton:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

and the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest.

This 1983 winner is hard to equal:

The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails--not for the first time since the journey began--pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil.

--Gail Cain, San Francisco, California (1983 Winner)

Og

 

[Saucy_Sage]

This book - English_As_She_Is_Spoke is difficult to surpass...

Example: That pond it seems me many multiplied of fishes. Let us amuse rather to the fishing.

Og

I got the best advice on dialogue from somebody at Lit when I was still lurking: Imagine yourself in the character's position, and say the words aloud. I think I could see myself, as the in-bred Count of Whatnothood, saying "Let us amuse rather to the fishing." As long as I could pronounce "rather" with like "father."

 

[NoJo]

I have a soft spot for Bulwer-Lytton:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

and the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest.

This 1983 winner is hard to equal:

The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails--not for the first time since the journey began--pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil.

--Gail Cain, San Francisco, California (1983 Winner)

Og

Love it!

 

[Selena_Kitt]

This 1983 winner is hard to equal:

The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails--not for the first time since the journey began--pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil.

Nice namesake.

 

[NoJo]

Bulwer-Lytton contest.

Og

I notice that conspicuous by its absence is the erotica/porn category....

 

[poppy_cock]

http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq230/Saucy_sage/Trail.jpg

Go ahead. Prove me wrong.

Well, I'm not sure that is the worst dialogue I've ever seen on the printed page, actually.


The second 'get' is colloquial. It means to leave promptly or to scram as in

He told us to get.

But I guess if you've never seen the word used in that context before, it would appear wrong.

Shrugs.

(but I do love your avatar! )

 

[shereads]

"His hips broke over her like the tide."

~ I can't remember the source.

 

[oggbashan]

Another Bulwer-Lytton winner

From the Dungeons and Dragons school of Literature:

The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarous tribe now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong, clear voice of the poetic and heroic Handsomas roared, "Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my steel through your last meal."

--Steven Garman, Pensacola, Florida (1984 Winner)

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I think a close analysis of Saucy's example will reveal it's not just the dialog that's bad, but the heroine's pink, Pat Nixon-style suit, the effete attitude of her feet in her Minnie Mouse shoes (hobbled by her smart skirt), and the placement of those wiggly action lines, suggesting an impotent shimmy rather than firm, decisive flight.

If she's not rescued by a jungle hero in a leopard-skin unitard in the next panel or two, then I don't know my comics.

 

[Equinoxe]

This book - English_As_She_Is_Spoke is difficult to surpass...

To craunch a marmoset.

 

[Saucy_Sage]

The second 'get' is colloquial. It means to leave promptly or to scram as in



But I guess if you've never seen the word used in that context before, it would appear wrong.

Shrugs.

(but I do love your avatar! )

Actually, I did know that. It was the unrealism of the dialogue (with an alligator that close on my heels, a word like "shoo" would not occur to me) rather than the correctness of the words that led me to label it the worst.

(thanks)

I think a close analysis of Saucy's example will reveal it's not just the dialog that's bad, but the heroine's pink, Pat Nixon-style suit, the effete attitude of her feet in her Minnie Mouse shoes (hobbled by her smart skirt), and the placement of those wiggly action lines, suggesting an impotent shimmy rather than firm, decisive flight.

If she's not rescued by a jungle hero in a leopard-skin unitard in the next panel or two, then I don't know my comics.

It's a scene from this week's "Mark Trail." Mark eschews his usual one-punch knockout in favor of a long stick.

 

[jomar]

I think a close analysis of Saucy's example will reveal it's not just the dialog that's bad, but the heroine's pink, Pat Nixon-style suit, the effete attitude of her feet in her Minnie Mouse shoes (hobbled by her smart skirt), and the placement of those wiggly action lines, suggesting an impotent shimmy rather than firm, decisive flight.

If she's not rescued by a jungle hero in a leopard-skin unitard in the next panel or two, then I don't know my comics.

That, and because she is proper and won't hike up her skirt and get, she should be running in a zig-zag pattern!

 

[BlackShanglan]

Great call, Dr. M. I was just looking back over it and thinking that that was the best part - the fact that not even a rampaging alligator is going to make her muss her hair up by actually running. You have to admire that sort of commitment to a 'do.

 

[rgraham666]

To craunch a marmoset.

One of the world's great non-sequiters.