I can’t wait for kel
I is a clone…
Damn,that’s something…
The sick freak must still die,albeit less painfully (now I can understand why he did it at least )
Dialogue PSA:
Note that I could be way off on all of this. This is an extremely subjective area. Besides this, I’m not entirely sure how all of the characters relate to each-other. So if I’m wrong, feel free to move on with your life.
The way I work with dialogue is that I really only notice it if it doesn’t ring right. Unfortunately, I am also very touchy. This helps me tell if people are lying to me-- at that point they have to plan out what they’re going to say and most people are pretty bad at writing their own dialogue. So for this, I work off the very unstable science of “feelings” or intuition. When something seems off, I can usually figure out what about it made it stand out. Sometimes I can’t. Either way, it comes off as unnatural.
In order to work this out in a semi-comprehensable way, I’m going to play through and comment on dialogue as I come to it. I hope that’s okay.
• I love most of the Doctor’s commentary. He seems realistically creepy with his pet names and such. Yay!
• This time around, the first thing “Leti” (my character) says is “I really have a problem picturing you as anything but an old man,” when told to respond with disbelief to the photo. Ok, so the character isn’t necessarily polite, I get it. It’s still stated in an extremely explicit way that most people I’ve encountered wouldn’t use. First off, the character is SEEING a picture, so it doesn’t really matter if they can picture the Doctor that way or not. This reaction would make more sense if the Doctor had been asking Leti to picture him as a younger man. It would be more natural (in my head, of course) for her to say something along the lines of “Really? But he’s so young!”
• “‘I loved her…and, of course, she loved me.’ There’s something odd in the way he says ‘she loved me’ that makes you suspect something deeper is going on.” This is only tangentially related, but you need to show, not tell here. How is it odd? Does his voice catch on “she loved me”? Does it drop in tone?
• Small thing. “Okay, what are you going to do now?” sounds like something one would say to prompt action. At this point, Kel is clearly already doing something or is about to do something. Either way, his mind is already made up. It doesn’t sound right.
• “Why did you come here?” This sounds like an unnatural way to ask the business of somebody who just came down the hall. I would get it if the twins had to travel further to get to the character’s room.
• “Would you just tell me what the Hell is going on?” The frustration is clear, but the character seems to be overreacting. At this point, Leti hasn’t asked what’s going on yet, so the force seems unnatural. You know, if you haven’t tried asking normally, why move to frustrated mode?
• “I apologize, but this brute is going to get us all in trouble!” Ashton blurts out. “There is no being calm.” You seem to be trying to make Ashton sound more intellectual. The result is something of a mild form of thesaurus-syndrome. Specifically with the use of “apologize” and “brute”. The boy is hectic, and his speech won’t be as well thought-out beforehand. Using either “brute” by itself, as in “I’m sorry, but this brute is going to get us all in trouble!” or “apologize”, as in “I apologize, but he is going to get us all in trouble!” seems more natural.
• “Don’t talk about my wings!” This, I assume, is to be used if the character is touchy about their wings. Cool. It feels like it’s being said by a five-year-old though, much like “Don’t talk about my diapies!”. Maybe tone it down a notch or give more context.
•Then there’s the talk of Kel having a “crush”. Where did they learn that word? They’ve not exactly been hanging around with people outside of the apartment, certainly no normal children.
Okay, that’s enough for examples. It would be really hard to go through and point out precisely what I thought was wrong with every bit of weird dialogue. If you agree that it seems fake, then the only way to fix it is to work on your dialogue-writing skills. It’s hard. Like, really incredibly hard. Still, if you work on it, it’d be great to go back later on (perhaps when the first draft is done) and just blast all the original dialogue to hell. Honest. I’ve done that quite a few times. Once that’s done, go through and rewrite the dialogue. But to do that, you need to get better at writing dialogue. Here is an awesome article to start with. http://www.wordriot.org/pdf/011508_pewitt.pdf Took all that to heart? Now read this bit about rhythm. http://www.writerlylife.com/2007/11/how-to-write-realistic-dialogue/#.UN37EaU2Jvc Talk in your head as if you’re talking to people. Write down or record conversations. Pretend to talk to friends and see if you can figure out how their responses would sound. When you read fiction, imagine the dialogue in your head with inflection & all that and see what sounds good or bad to you. Dialogue is a big deal. Treat it right.
Now back to your regularly scheduled forum posting.
Thanks. That’s helpful. I’ve never received criticism of my dialogue before (I have sat through writing critique sessions), but that doesn’t necessarily mean a thing, and I am appreciative of you bringing it to my attention.
I’d like to gather some sort of consensus. Does anyone else feel the same issues as @staubfinger? How about different issues? I would love to hear other people’s thoughts. You won’t hurt my feelings.
This isn’t an excuse, but there is a general lack of polish because it is a first draft.
@Farside so is the MC going to die in the end no matter what we do?
No. That’s no fun.
@Farside that gets me thinking…
Let’s become immortal
@Farside that’s good to hear I was worried there for a moment lol
All in favour of being immortal?
Nooooooooooooooooooooo
Immortals are evul
Let’s be mortal,but die really really slow,like in 1000000000 years
Immortals forever!
What do you hold against my kind?
immortals probably go crazy because of living that much so yeah,death to the immortals
Why would the character even become immortal
How could you explain it ?
Hey they exist like, that so why not?..
Just been lurking in the background for ages, but just wanted to say, I love your game so much!! Aah my favourite character has to be Kel so far! XD can’t wait to see what he will look like, drawn by Pale_Strider!
I’m sick today so I’m in bed drawing Kel right now lol
I have done two or three so far and I think I’m getting close
I have some smokes idiot abroad is on all day and I’m rocking my tea so I’m all set and not stopping until I have found the right Kel
Oh awesomee!! I’m really excited to see how it will turn out! Also, I hope this isn’t off topic, but do you draw straight onto the computer or do you draw it by hand and then scan it on?
I am really very curious.
im an immortal and i havent gone crazy yet.