Image acquired from the Internet Hive Mind
Author: Erin Penn
Editing Rant: Ping Pong
Photo by Wan San Yip on Unsplash
Ping-Pong Dialog (cut and paste from an editing cover letter)
In many places of dialog, a “ping-pong” is happening where one person speaks then another, and each time the person’s name appears at the beginning with no variation of sentence structure. Often the concentration on the two speakers creates a “white box” effect, where nothing else is known about the room or body language or the speakers.
Pretend example
Ping snorted. “I really wish the ball would stay on your side of the table.”
Pong raised an eyebrow. “In your dreams.”
Ping slapped the ball back across the table. “I’m better than you, admit it,” he said.
Pong sighed and tapped a return. “Why would I do that?” she asked.
Ping dived but missed the return. “Because I’m right.” Shaking his head, he went to pick up the ball.
Better would be
Ping snorted, before saying. “I really wish the ball would stay on your side of the table.”
Pong raised an eyebrow, a smug smile crossing her visage. “In your dreams.”
“I’m better than you, admit it.” Ping slapped the ball back across the table.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because, I’m,” Pong’s gentle return had a backspin, making Ping dive too late. “…right.” He sighed, ending his failed trash-talk while watching the ball roll into the corner. Shaking his head, he went to pick up the ball.
More Editing Rant
If we can’t tell who is saying every line without the author telling us, something is wrong. We don’t need to know Ping then Pong spoke. Second, more variation of dialog is needed. Quoted speaking part can lead, or follow, or be split by the narrative. Having it all be Narrative then Speaking part is boring. Boring is death.
Don’t be boring. Or predictable. Or Ping-Pong.
Flash: GoTime 2
Photo 276330 © Kiankhoon | Dreamstime.com
Word count achieved! And at the perfect finish point for the chapter.
Morgan closed the file, resaved it locally, to her USB stick, and to the cloud under draft thirty-four. She made a note on her outline and typed in the opening sentence to the next chapter.
“Fighting for what is right is never wrong.”
Too cliquish? Yeah, and in the entirely wrong voice for the POV character of this chapter. Good thing she had time to sleep on it before tackling the next chapter. All, she blinked her tired eyes to focus on the date-time in the bottom right corner of her laptop, three hours and fifteen minutes before getting up in time to get the kids off to school. Tomorrow will be a long day at the office.
Sharpie was doing the cat thing, staring at nothing and hissing. If Morgan didn’t know better, she would think their home was haunted, but it had only been built five years ago. No ghosts here.
She leaned down to pick up the family calico to take him and the laptop in for the night. Sharpie darted forward toward the laundry room, making Morgan overbalance reaching for her, falling flat, her hands saving her from a full face plant. The air sizzling over her head kept her down.
Morgan lifted her chin up. Shapie hovered midair, clinging to … something. Not a ghost. Ghost didn’t shake around while claws dug in.
She rolled to the side, landing against an oversized planter and reached into the waterproof holder beneath the orange tree for the revolver she kept there since finding the copperhead in the backyard last summer. Two shots to the torso, either side of Sharpie and two where she guessed the head should be. Since no drywall puffed up behind, she judged her target right. Hard to miss at this range.
She had gotten lucky in whoever they were missing her.
Sharpie rode the body down, until he hovered midair about a foot from the ground on the invisible being. The cat rocked back and forth, scratching and biting, indicating whatever was there was injured, not dead, and Sharpie was displeased with that status.
Standing, Morgan kept the handgun pointed at the danger. Two bullets left. Thank god she had trained to hit snakes to keep her children safe. She glanced at her laptop.
It was … partially missing. Not melted, just parts gone. Not broken. Nothing falling or blown back into the yard just beginning to become visible in the false dawn. Just missing.
She gulped.
Her eyes did one snap to the intact USB, breathing a silent breath of relief. Then made her way over to her cat imitating a rider on a bucking bronco.
A huge gun, more ridiculously complicated then her children’s bubble rifles for their water balloon wars, was visible to one side, its strap torn. She kicked it further away, wincing as soon as her foot made contact thinking: That was dumb. What if it went off?
She pointed the gun at the empty air. “Freeze motherfucker.”
Sharpie continued to bounce around on nothing, hissing.
Then Morgan heard the noise she was hoping she wouldn’t hear came.
“Mom,” Henry appeared at the other side of the laundry room, his ten-year scrawny body in front of his six and eight year old sisters,“what’s happening?”
“Don’t know yet Monster Man,” she nodded at Sharpie’s antics, “take your sisters and go next door to Fred’s. I’ll come get you when I can.”
“But–”
She sent Henry the Mom Look.
(words 592, first published 3/4/2023, Make the Mood Monday 500-word Expansion – one out of five of the FB group stories get expanded)
GoTime Series
GoTime (1/1/2023)
GoTime 2 (1/8/2023)
T is for Time (GoTime 3) (4/23/2023)
Magical Words: The Tension of English
In a Magical Words, Dr. Emily Leverett discussed Adjectivals (“Adjectival Part 1: pre-noun modifiers”, magicalwords.net, 7/28/2015 – http://www.magicalwords.net/really-i-mean-it/adjectivals-part-1-pre-noun-modifiers/)- the adjectives, nouns, and participles which make a noun pop. Think of a normal, unmodified noun as a white box and the adjectivals expanding the setting with actual description. The white box becomes a vibrant, rainbow carpeted box.
During the article, she mentions how English creates tension. Many languages put the noun or verb right out there at the start, then add all the modifiers after, filling in the world. Like a white box dialog getting all the setting description later in the editing process. But in English, words may be going for a while before you even know what is being described, and then you might need to wait a little more before the noun gets verb-ed into action.
Is that constant “wait for it” adding to the tension found in English cultures?
(Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash)
Book Review: Death’s Door
Amazon Cover
BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON
In the fall of 1849, Edgar Allan Poe disappeared. He was missing for five days, and was then found wandering near Gunnar’s Hall in Baltimore, delirious and possibly drunk, wearing strange clothes and carrying a cane. Poe died four days later in a Baltimore hospital, never having regained proper consciousness except to call out for a mysterious person by the name of “Reynolds.”
Of course Poe was a Clocker, and I knew I would write that story someday. What I hadn’t expected was who would find Poe when he stumbled into the 21st Century.
Her name is Alexandra “Ren” Reynolds, and she has a secret too.
MY REVIEW
This delightful novella weaves several elements together for a complicate whole-cloth manuscript. We have Ren’s character development of people breaking through her isolation. We have Edgar Allan Poe’s character development as a man of his time out of his time. We have a interaction between the black female, Ren, and anti-abolitionist, Poe. We have a cop and a mystery and a romance and a series tie-in. All sewn through with love of Poe’s writing. Balanced together for a warm night of reading.