What Makes You Stop?

[MissBri]

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Overblown attempts to render accents phonetically.

Corny, ridiculously persistent, and/or erroneous application of stereotyped regional speech patterns - like having the southern character apply "y'all" to every person, animal, and inanimate object he encounters.

Mis-matches of voice and speech patterns to the character - as in the screenplay I read in which the surly, hulking axe murderer who has escaped from prison with the "brains" of the outfit leading him looks at a tunnel and says, "Surely you don't expect that I will go into that?"

Excessive (meaning more than about once per Lit page) use of italics, boldface, or all caps to indicate stress or excitement. I GET the POINT withOUT the CAPS, honestly.

Ending every sentence in an exclamation point! Dear God! No one is that excited! Honestly!


It's impressive, really, how many ways there are to do dialog badly.

Shanglan

I'm terrible at dialogue, so I don't have a dialogue backclick. Pretty much work on the theory of people living in glass houses not throwing stones I guess

But I have to agree ont he mismatch of voice to character. It will completely jar me from a story if a character says something, either contexturally or or in pattern that I can't see him/her saying. I think the worst offenders, to me at least, are the people who listen to their spelling/gammar checker on the dialogue. People may write like that, but they don't speak like that. People speak in fragments, in rushes and gushes, with pauses at odd places. The drug lord villain who can't seem to use slang expressions or the hardassed butch from the bronx who won't end a sentence with a contraction.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

After careul consideration and some work with the calculator I have come to the conclusion that my high number of views, compared to my low number of votes is actually You Bastards opening my stories and backcliking! Shame on you all

 

[English Lady]

Everytime I see the title of this thread, my mind plays.

"I wanna stop and thank you baby....how sweet it is to be loved by you."

I know this has nothing to do with the subject of this thread, but I just wanted to share.

 

[impressive]

However, it would be an intriguing challenge to see if we (all AH writers/ posters ) could write a good (or best, although not required or expected) narrative in 2nd person without leaning on the 'letter format', no?

*waves* I think I did fairly well.

http://english.literotica.com:81/stories/showstory.php?id=205916

 

[impressive]

Hah! bad dialogue. one of my favorite reasons to leave the room.

"OOOHHHHH FUCK MY PUSSY HARD I'M CUUUUUUMIIIIINGGGGG!" She screamd at the top of her lungs. "FUUUCK YEAH!" he hollered back "I'M CUMMING IN YOUR ASS BABY!!!"​

We decided over the weekend, though, that if you're being paid by the character (as opposed to the word), you could make a couple extra bucks with each orgasm.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Purple prose, attempts to be "artsy," flowery language that serves no purpose except to announce, "hey - look at me write!" Overblown metaphors. Like some suggested already, if I notice the writing, that's a bad sign.

Also, I'm a sappy happy ending type, and have no desire to drag myself through a literary veil of tears.

 

[BlackShanglan]

"thick as your arm"

Shanglan? Have you anything to say about that?

Ahhh ... yum?

The drug lord villain who can't seem to use slang expressions or the hardassed butch from the bronx who won't end a sentence with a contraction.

That is the sort of nonsense up with which no one should put.

That's one of my favorite jokes, actually. A young southern lady, new to the town, is invited to a dinner party. Trying to be friendly, she strikes up conversation with the woman next to her by asking, "So, where y'all from?"

Her dining companion replies frostily, "I'm from a background where one is taught not to end a sentence with a preposition."

The friendly newcomer puzzles over this a moment, then replies gamely, "Oh, right. Well, where y'all from, bitch?"

After careul consideration and some work with the calculator I have come to the conclusion that my high number of views, compared to my low number of votes is actually You Bastards opening my stories and backcliking! Shame on you all

Yes. It is. We've been very, very bad.

Shanglan

 

[zeb1094]

After careul consideration and some work with the calculator I have come to the conclusion that my high number of views, compared to my low number of votes is actually You Bastards opening my stories and backcliking! Shame on you all

LOL!

I think that's why mine are like that too!

 

[Typo Fu Master]

I suppose it really depends on my mood at the time, but generally, if a story doesn't grab me in the first two paragraphs, I'm outta there. It isn't any specific thing. I guess the writer's "style" doesn't agree with me, or it's simply not interesting enough.

I can tolerate a few typos, but excessive misspelling kills the mood. I can't believe there are so many people out there that don't proofread, or use a spell checker.

I'm one that doesn't mind if he/she has a perfect body. It's a fantasy for me, and unless the writer goes into minute detail about what the character looks like, I can fill in the blanks.

Long, drawn out introductions that set the mood tend to make me look elsewhere. There needs to be someone or something happening unless the writer has picked subject matter that I happen to find interesting.

 

[3113]

Re: Orange Juice Addendum

Thinking about it, and to be fair, I'd like to qualify my prior objection to mundane dialogue. What makes dialogue "orange juice" to me is if the characters and action surrounding the mundane dialogue are equally mundane. If they are dull and earnest in what they say (sincere?), then it's "orange juice." However, if we modify the internal thoughts and intents of the characters, then the same dialogue is no longer orange juice:

"Good morning, dear," he said kissing his wife.
"Hi, honey," she managed through gritted teeth. "Did you sleep well?"
"Had some weird dreams, ha ha. I'll share them with you tonight." He winked.
And I'll be sharing my nasty-assed dreams with you this morning, you son-of-a-bitch, she thought.
"Would you like some orange juice?" she asked, turning her back and dropping two small tablets into a tall glass.
"Thanks. I'd love some!"

And now...assuming I did it right, the reader wants to keep reading. No change in dialogue, but a change in character and meaning to the dialogue.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Thinking about it, and to be fair, I'd like to qualify my prior objection to mundane dialogue. What makes dialogue "orange juice" to me is if the characters and action surrounding the mundane dialogue are equally mundane. If they are dull and earnest in what they say (sincere?), then it's "orange juice." However, if we modify the internal thoughts and intents of the characters, then the same dialogue is no longer orange juice:

"Good morning, dear," he said kissing his wife.
"Hi, honey," she managed through gritted teeth. "Did you sleep well?"
"Had some weird dreams, ha ha. I'll share them with you tonight." He winked.
And I'll be sharing my nasty-assed dreams with you this morning, you son-of-a-bitch, she thought.
"Would you like some orange juice?" she asked, turning her back and dropping two small tablets into a tall glass.
"Thanks. I'd love some!"

And now...assuming I did it right, the reader wants to keep reading. No change in dialogue, but a change in character and meaning to the dialogue.

Well, sure! Because you're playing up the contrast of the mundane dialogue with the evil undercurrents of the plot...
H. Munro (Saki) was pretty good at that.

 

[minsue]

and here's my real rant for the evening;
I'm trying hard to not take offense at a story that rely on stereotypes for characters- and marks that stereotype by a single stereotypical, wrongly pronounced word- as if "ju" for "you" is all that makes an asshole into a Mexican
... and of course the poor little terrified girl is a sweet blue eyed American...

And don't get me wrong, I've written a few mean fuckin' Latins, and several of them have menaced Gringas! But I wouldn't try it in a story of 500 words or less. There's no room for nuance. It reads a little ignorant. Or else I've lost my sense of humor, always a possibility...

I'm just saying, that's all

Agreed.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Agreed.

Agreed I lost my sense of humor, mi querida?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Agreed I lost my sense of humor, mi querida?

Agreed that we rather fancy you in that pirate look.

I agree on the accent issue. I think it's nearly always best to handle accents and speech patterns lightly - and generally best not to attempt them unless one has a fair bit of experience with the speech style. Too great a simplification or too heavy an emphasis on one or two commonly perceived differences can read badly even if the intent is innocent. It risks becoming a sort of literary blackface.

Some of the best advice I've heard on accent and speech patterns came from a screenwriting site, which suggested working more with grammar and subtle word choice and less with phonetics. The former will generally convey the style of speaking, they argued, and the reader/actor will fill in the nuances of pronunciation, with the author supplying only a few changes to word spelling when quite necessary (as with someone who drops the ends of words, for example). I've seen it in practice and I think it a very good method of handling it; looking at a Cockney accent portrayed once that way and once phonetically, one could see immediately how much more effective the former method was at conveying the sound and pattern without letting it come out as a caricature.

Shanglan

 

[minsue]

Agreed I lost my sense of humor, mi querida?

Nunca.

 

[3113]

I've seen it in practice and I think it a very good method of handling it; looking at a Cockney accent portrayed once that way and once phonetically, one could see immediately how much more effective the former method was at conveying the sound and pattern without letting it come out as a caricature.

Could you give an example?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Could you give an example?

Sorry, I'm coming up grasping at the moment. I can't seem to track the site down again; it's been some months since I used it. I hate to put my own feeble efforts up as an example, as I don't think they show the method to any great advantage. However, it's all I have at the moment:

JAMES
What, you’re just gonna swallow that? You want to think of your reputation.

JONAS
What do you mean by that?

JAMES
I wouldn’t want to be beaten by Edmund Barrett’s peg boy. That sort of thing could get a man laughed at.
(quieter still)
Besides, I told you. They’re on the outs. Get Robert in a scrap, and he’s out of the hall, win or lose. That’d leave the way clear for our little earner.

I'm not sure how well it comes through in an isolated cut, but the point is that I'm working on conveying James' style of speaking through his word choice and grammatical structures rather than trying to phonetically render his accent. In theory, the structures and word choices cue the reader to the pronunciation without spelling it out.

It's hard for me to step aside from this passage far enough to know if it works to the outsider, as I can hear both voices. However, the piece seems to have achieved at least some modest success; my script-exchange partner recognized that the central character is originally from Ireland despite it never being mentioned in the script. That felt good.

Shanglan

ETA: Sorry, just realized that that might be confusing. James is not the central character. He's a bit part. His voice is aiming for lower-class urban London circa 1800's.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I've been rummaging through my stack of Margery Allingham mysteries- She has a Cockney character and she renders him through word and grammatical choice- and the occasional dropped 'H'

I give my Peurto Rican character Sheba plenty of Spanish cusswords- My Peurto Rican friends speak a version of Spanglish that I love, changing languages two or three times inside one sentences. She'll parody her own accent for effect, and that I'll reproduce phonetically.. phoneticley.. well, you know, by the sound up to a point. But I keep it short.

 

[3113]

Sorry, just realized that that might be confusing. James is not the central character. He's a bit part. His voice is aiming for lower-class urban London circa 1800's.

Actually, those examples did the job quite nicely. Thank you! (And I figured out raight away that James was lower-class urban London, which, after all, was the point.

Come to think of it--and going right back to Tolkien, I was always able to pin the right rural, British accent on Sam even though we never see his wording phonetically. When he says something like, "Have it your own way, Mr. Frodo," we can pretty much hear, "'Ave it yur own way, Mr. Frodo" (or however you'd phonetically render that dialogue).

But here's a question...what about something like The Color Purple where the person writing the story writes out words phonetically--as they say them, that's how they spell them?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Oh, and one really personal "pet" peeve...BDSM stories where the girl is called "pet."

For me, it's "Little one."

I don't know that bothers me so much, it just does. It's just so condescending.

I also have no patience for that H/him-H/her BDSM capitalization nonsense. "He took His cock in His hand and fed it into her mouth..." Save that stuff for your private letters.

My beef with 2nd person is in the way it's used. Too often it's the voice of the daydream, and the stories are no more than some writer droning on about his erotic fantasy while he seems to be slow-stroking himself with a fist full of vaseline: "You melt as I look into your deep, blue eyes, your creamy breasts heaving. 'Fuck me, Raymond,' you moan. 'Oh God, fuck me!'..."

It makes you want to go wash your hands and scrape off the bottoms of your shoes.

 

[Stella_Omega]

There are some masterpieces of phonetic writing, actually- Russell Hoban's "Riddley Walker" is incredible, for instance.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

There are some masterpieces of phonetic writing, actually- Russell Hoban's "Riddley Walker" is incredible, for instance.

I've tried it in a couple of my stories. I found it rather diffacult to really get across the accent I was pulling for. It is a bit of an art but I believe it can be very effective if done well. (Mine weren't )

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

After careul consideration and some work with the calculator I have come to the conclusion that my high number of views, compared to my low number of votes is actually You Bastards opening my stories and backcliking! Shame on you all

Yes. We've been very, very bad.

Yes, very bad, and need to be punished. Punished very severely.

Oh, wait a second - I thought this was the "shameful fantasies" thread.

Never mind.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Yes, very bad, and need to be punished. Punished very severely.

Oh, wait a second - I thought this was the "shameful fantasies" thread.

Never mind.

"You must spank her well, and after you are done with her, you may deal with her as you like... and then... spank me!
And me! And me too! And me!
Yes! Yes, you must give us all a good spanking!
And after the spanking, the oral sex!"