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Lessons to take from the last Thunderdome battle: Writing dialogue with crowdsM. Propagandalf posted:Holiday Break One of the prominent flaws in my last submission was assigning names to figures that are essentially props. There are only two characters (Tobias and Mallory) that matter in this piece, everyone else is there to enhance their conflict. I thought about, but rejected the idea of keeping the prop figures nameless (ex. "someone from the fellowship cried..." "another person said...") which seemed even more awkward. I thought I could highlight who mattered and who didn't via syllables - everyone with a monosyllablic name is essentially a prop. The consensus is this doesn't work either. The solution seems to be narrowed to minimizing the number of named figures so the speaking roles are less spread out. For this piece, I wanted to convey a sense of a crowd with group participation, even if it means a character to line ratio of 1:1. What would be an effective way to do this without minimizing numbers?
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Aug 20, 2013 03:37
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Martello posted:crits Very much obliged. I believe the same issues were pointed to in my second Thunderdome entry. Bad habits die slow. I'll kill harder.
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Aug 23, 2013 06:05
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This is what I would have wanted to contribute to Thunderdome LVIII: Exile Vilify 846 words The last night my sister came to my room, she said to me, “Remember that God is many things. God forgives. I think we forget that.” She hugged me, and the next day, she was gone. I felt something was wrong with Les in the weeks before she left. At the pickets, she held her signs lower. She joined in the chants, but it didn’t sound like she believed in them. I had never seen her lose her zeal before, not even that time when she got double-whammied by strep throat and shingles. She argued with mom to be allowed to join us outside the funeral. In the end, Les was there proclaiming God’s words at them louder than the rest of us. Mom said it was one of the surest signs of the Holy Spirit she had seen. At first, I thought Les was burning out from school. She was taking seven courses for the semester while still managing the church website and blog. Les started to miss dinners with us. Whenever I texted her afterwards, she would say she was studying at school. Said the books she needed were library use only. She would come home past midnight five days a week, sometimes six. Mom told me she thought a boy was involved and asked me to keep an eye over Les. I don’t think mom actually believed that. I think she was just hoping that was the worst case scenario, because that was at least something she knew how to handle. *** Two days after she left, Les updated the blog for the last time. She announced she wasn’t coming back to the church. Rejected everything we knew as right to be wrong. I called mom over to my computer and watched as she scrolled through Les’ words again and again. She went out of my room to grab the cordless. As she headed to her room, I heard her say “Dad, it’s me. We need to talk about Leslie…” before slamming her door. Mom talked with Gramps for an hour. She was quiet for the hour after that. We had a picket scheduled that day, so I knocked on mom’s door and reminded her, but she didn’t answer. I started packing food and the signs we needed for that afternoon. Mom eventually came down the stairs. She was wearing sunglasses. Outside, the sky was overcast. “It’ll just be me with Aunt Francis and your cousins for the picket today. I need you to stay behind to do something for me.” “Mom?” “Take down every picture of Leslie in this house.” I looked above the fireplace. “What about our family portrait?” “That one too. We’ll get our pictures taken again.” After mom drove off in the truck, I went back to the computer and refreshed the church blog. All of Les’ posts were deleted. That Sunday, Gramps preached a sermon on Eve, and how she damned herself and all of mankind by falling for the serpent’s deception. When it was over, my cousins, aunts, and uncles offered us their condolences. Gramps came over to try and encourage us as well. No one talked about Les. When we went back home, mom said to leave her room alone for the time being, in case she repented. *** For the next month, the door to Les’ room stayed shut. It wasn’t until last night that it opened again. Mom was out of the house for Friday night fellowship, so it was just me at home. The doorbell rang. I looked outside the window before opening the porch door. I left the screen door latched. “Jessie. Is mom home?” “She’s at fellowship.” “Right... How are things?” “Why are you here?” Les winced. “I need to get some stuff from my room. Can I come in?” I unlatched the door and stepped back. Les started as though she wanted to say something, but stopped herself and headed to her room. I waited outside as she grabbed her belongings. When Les was done she headed for the door, but as she passed by the living room, she looked over the fire place and stopped. “Where’s the other family portrait?” “It’s in the garage.” “Can I have it?” We went downstairs to the garage and opened the box with the photographs. The portrait was at the back, so we had to pull out the other pictures to get to it. It seemed that each picture took longer to pull out than the one before it. When we reached the portrait, Les took it out and cradled it. I didn’t keep track for how long she held it, but when I looked at my watch, I interrupted her. “You’ll need to hurry before mom gets here.” Les wiped her eyes. “I understand if you can’t talk about what happened tonight, but I want you to know that I love and miss all of you.” We walked back to the porch. I felt my hand twitch as Les waved goodbye and left for what I knew would be the last time. ______________________ When I wrote this, I was also trying to accomplish what I failed to do with Thunderdome LVI's challenge. Namely this: Sitting Here posted:*Meaning. This is flash fiction so we can only be so poignant, but try to infuse at least some modicum of understanding of the human condition into your story. If anyone's up for critiquing this, can I get a sense of how well or poorly this piece hits this criteria?
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Sep 16, 2013 19:28
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