I am going to do something unorthodox, most of you have not read much of my writing, so out of context I'm going to post a section that I'm struggling with, a parft that I'm not sure works. I want you all to read it, then tear it to shreds, verballly, intellectualy, violently, sexually if need be. School me.
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
"where were you last night?" Awakened from a dehydrated afternoon slumber by a slamming door and accusing words.
"Out, I bumped into Nate, you know, the guitar player from the cafe." Lies like reflex, protecting her and more importantly, myself from my spiritual indiscretions.
"I didn't sleep at all last night, why the fuck didn't you call me?"
"I forgot, (Your voice on the other end of that vibrating piece of plastic fills me with rage and disgust.) besides you owe me a few sleepless nights."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Funny that you're concerned now, it's not so fun, eh."
"You are such an asshole! (I love you)"
"Oh honey, relax. I love you (cunt)."
Statements like these always have an effect in direct opposition to the one they attempt to elicit and I have no idea why I say them, but I always do. Perhaps I want the argument, and ours are like running a marathon, they will only end when she is utterly exhausted. These dramatic displays of tears and rage from a self described ice princess make me feel all the more justified and self righteous. My goal never to ease her mind, merely to pacify her that I might have a peaceful day. A few hours shopping at a shitty strip mall and some sushi and all is forgiven and forgotten. After sushi I take her to the pub and get her drunk, so that she will pass out and I won't have to diddle her. Most days go like this as I, coward, plan my next escape, my next secret rebellion. She and I and Sean used to go drinking -- Sean, the vegan paramedic would spout hot air and I would attempt to refute him while Johanna would play the middle, to keep the argument from dying out. In hindsight I think she liked to watch her two lovers cross wits.
"I hated Anna Karenina, I got about a third of the way through and I decided that everyone and everything in the book was nothing but, so fuckin' ordinary"
"Ordinary? That's the point, they are easy to relate to, lovable in their fallibility, in their fragile humanness. The book is the parallel story of two characters, one chooses to embrace those things he cannot control and live, the other chooses to reject and combat unchangeable things and drives herself to madness and dies."
"Who cares, I was bored period dude, period."
"Who cares? What more is there?" I, annoyed.
"What ideology do these characters support, none. Life and death are meaningless if you don't stand for something."
"Why can't a man stand for himself?"
"I'll tell you why not dude, how can one person standing for himself change anything? People are just the vehicles, even if I do nothing, if no change happens because of me, at least It will be said that I stood for something, was part of something, period dude. period."
"That's ridiculous. You said you love Dostoyevsky, why him and not Tolstoy?"
"Because, Dostoyevsky wrote about morality, his characters did fucked up shit dude, do you remember the bit about babies on spikes?"
"Yea I do, but I think you're missing the point. I've been thinking about your vegan ideology since I met you and I've decided to take a global perspective. Imagine the human species as one gigantic, living, breathing organism composed of six-billion parts. It is an organism with a disease, and I think society is the disease, not western or eastern, all of it, this huge tumorous edifice, a cancer -- any problem you want to think of, war, famine, factory farming, offshore oil drilling terrorism; they are symptoms of said cancer. You should know, with all of your medical training that you can't cure a disease by treating the symptoms, and you, by being an animal rights activist are trying to treat cancer with baby aspirin. The problem is in people's minds, the most you can do is to surround yourself with good things and good people, because however fucked we are as a people as an organism and as a species, on the individual level, life is good.
"You do what you can bro."
"What do you think hun?"
She paused, as if weighing her response not wanting to give away her position, "I think it's all about who you want to give your money to. I don't want to give my money to anything that does something environmentally unsound or that I find disgusting. Effecting change economically"
"We weren't talking about money, we were talking about morality or lack therof." I hated when she gave such diluted pragmatic answers. "You have called yourself a misanthrope several times, you scoff at religion and other "moral" institutions and now you care about the animals you've been eating your whole life?"
"It doesn't matter, I liked Anna Karrenina."
"I know you did, but I don't know if you get it, you won't talk about books."
"I just don't want to have my opinion of a book influenced by someone else's."
"Baby, sometimes it astounds me that you ever learn anything."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You don't meet people unless intoduced, you don't listen to other peoples opinions, and you think you're liberal and open minded."
"You should stop. Now!" Her compact face scrunching and a growl in her voice, I had struck a nerve and was being warned to stop.
Hindsight is a funny thing, at the time these were good nights, the coversation engaging, the company pleasant. In reflection they were triumphs of miscommunication, monuments built to secret and subtext. The self's power of denial is an astounding thing, perhaps some primate adaptation to protect the lower ranking males in their quiet defeats by the mere prescence of the alpha. Sean always said that was the alpha and omega both, but he is much more omega then alpha, this quiet desperation unable to break free from the things in his life he abhors, it's probably why she loved him.
My initial impression of Sean was a strange mix of annoyance and respect, he talked vociferously and quickly, leaving almost no pause or silence, matching his over the top ideas with equally extravagant languidge, a strange mix of SAT words and slang. He is a native of Alaska, maybe all that hot air kept him warm on those cold, dark winters. I was impressed by the quantity of shit he talked, in my naivete I equated shit talking with self respect and confidence.
"Out, I bumped into Nate, you know, the guitar player from the cafe." Lies like reflex, protecting her and more importantly, myself from my spiritual indiscretions.
"I didn't sleep at all last night, why the fuck didn't you call me?"
"I forgot, (Your voice on the other end of that vibrating piece of plastic fills me with rage and disgust.) besides you owe me a few sleepless nights."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Funny that you're concerned now, it's not so fun, eh."
"You are such an asshole! (I love you)"
"Oh honey, relax. I love you (cunt)."
Statements like these always have an effect in direct opposition to the one they attempt to elicit and I have no idea why I say them, but I always do. Perhaps I want the argument, and ours are like running a marathon, they will only end when she is utterly exhausted. These dramatic displays of tears and rage from a self described ice princess make me feel all the more justified and self righteous. My goal never to ease her mind, merely to pacify her that I might have a peaceful day. A few hours shopping at a shitty strip mall and some sushi and all is forgiven and forgotten. After sushi I take her to the pub and get her drunk, so that she will pass out and I won't have to diddle her. Most days go like this as I, coward, plan my next escape, my next secret rebellion. She and I and Sean used to go drinking -- Sean, the vegan paramedic would spout hot air and I would attempt to refute him while Johanna would play the middle, to keep the argument from dying out. In hindsight I think she liked to watch her two lovers cross wits.
"I hated Anna Karenina, I got about a third of the way through and I decided that everyone and everything in the book was nothing but, so fuckin' ordinary"
"Ordinary? That's the point, they are easy to relate to, lovable in their fallibility, in their fragile humanness. The book is the parallel story of two characters, one chooses to embrace those things he cannot control and live, the other chooses to reject and combat unchangeable things and drives herself to madness and dies."
"Who cares, I was bored period dude, period."
"Who cares? What more is there?" I, annoyed.
"What ideology do these characters support, none. Life and death are meaningless if you don't stand for something."
"Why can't a man stand for himself?"
"I'll tell you why not dude, how can one person standing for himself change anything? People are just the vehicles, even if I do nothing, if no change happens because of me, at least It will be said that I stood for something, was part of something, period dude. period."
"That's ridiculous. You said you love Dostoyevsky, why him and not Tolstoy?"
"Because, Dostoyevsky wrote about morality, his characters did fucked up shit dude, do you remember the bit about babies on spikes?"
"Yea I do, but I think you're missing the point. I've been thinking about your vegan ideology since I met you and I've decided to take a global perspective. Imagine the human species as one gigantic, living, breathing organism composed of six-billion parts. It is an organism with a disease, and I think society is the disease, not western or eastern, all of it, this huge tumorous edifice, a cancer -- any problem you want to think of, war, famine, factory farming, offshore oil drilling terrorism; they are symptoms of said cancer. You should know, with all of your medical training that you can't cure a disease by treating the symptoms, and you, by being an animal rights activist are trying to treat cancer with baby aspirin. The problem is in people's minds, the most you can do is to surround yourself with good things and good people, because however fucked we are as a people as an organism and as a species, on the individual level, life is good.
"You do what you can bro."
"What do you think hun?"
She paused, as if weighing her response not wanting to give away her position, "I think it's all about who you want to give your money to. I don't want to give my money to anything that does something environmentally unsound or that I find disgusting. Effecting change economically"
"We weren't talking about money, we were talking about morality or lack therof." I hated when she gave such diluted pragmatic answers. "You have called yourself a misanthrope several times, you scoff at religion and other "moral" institutions and now you care about the animals you've been eating your whole life?"
"It doesn't matter, I liked Anna Karrenina."
"I know you did, but I don't know if you get it, you won't talk about books."
"I just don't want to have my opinion of a book influenced by someone else's."
"Baby, sometimes it astounds me that you ever learn anything."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You don't meet people unless intoduced, you don't listen to other peoples opinions, and you think you're liberal and open minded."
"You should stop. Now!" Her compact face scrunching and a growl in her voice, I had struck a nerve and was being warned to stop.
Hindsight is a funny thing, at the time these were good nights, the coversation engaging, the company pleasant. In reflection they were triumphs of miscommunication, monuments built to secret and subtext. The self's power of denial is an astounding thing, perhaps some primate adaptation to protect the lower ranking males in their quiet defeats by the mere prescence of the alpha. Sean always said that was the alpha and omega both, but he is much more omega then alpha, this quiet desperation unable to break free from the things in his life he abhors, it's probably why she loved him.
My initial impression of Sean was a strange mix of annoyance and respect, he talked vociferously and quickly, leaving almost no pause or silence, matching his over the top ideas with equally extravagant languidge, a strange mix of SAT words and slang. He is a native of Alaska, maybe all that hot air kept him warm on those cold, dark winters. I was impressed by the quantity of shit he talked, in my naivete I equated shit talking with self respect and confidence.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
Dialogue is super akward to write, and I'm thrilled to see you don't use any of the disgusting "he said" "she said" bullshit. urgh. anyone who uses that in their stories has no place in writing in the first place.
suggestion wise: try to kind of separate the conversations with narration--make it a clear difference between when it's him talking to the vegan and him talkign to his girlfriend. it gets all muddled towards the end there and you lose track of who is saying what. try finding different ways to say "____ said"; i.e. "(s)he interjected/declared/added/etc."
hope that helps