Phyllis Anne Duncan (P. A. Duncan)'s Blog, page 62
July 18, 2012
If You’re Interested…
…there’s a new post on my political blog, Politics Wednesday.
BTW, I only put the link here as an FYI. If you don’t like my political commentary, don’t click and read. Just sayin’. 
July 17, 2012
Writer’s Block Interview
A nice interview with me–nice in that Jo made it very comfortable–about my writing process and works in progress appears at Writer’s Block. If you don’t see the link, click on “About Me” above and you’ll see the link there.
My thanks and gratitude to Jo Harrison for the interview.
July 16, 2012
“What do You Mean?” she asked.
I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately as I read material for my critique group, in my capacity as a submissions reader for eFiction Noir and eFiction Sci-Fi magazines, and in reading books to review. Well, it’s disturbing to me, the Punctuation Queen. Most likely, the rest of you don’t particularly care–but you should, if not for the reason that, perhaps, one day I’ll be reading your work. [Insert evil laugh here.]
No, seriously, I’m finding that a surprising number of people don’t know how to punctuate dialogue. Here are a few examples of the incorrect punctuation; the sentences themselves I made up:
“What do you mean,” she asked with a frown?
“What do you mean?,” she asked, with a frown.
“What do you mean?” she asked? With a frown.
“What do you mean?” asked, Jane, frowning?
“I know what you mean” said, Jane.
“I know what you mean.” said Jane.
I hope you see where each of the above needs to be corrected. If not, here’s how you punctuate a question and a statement in dialogue (in most instances):
“What do you mean?” she asked, with a frown.
“That’s what I meant,” she said, with a smile.
Or a variation:
With a frown, she asked, “What do you mean?”
With a smile, she said, “That’s what I meant.”
The latter correction also employs a little variety in your dialogue structure. You can get a little tired of a constant string of “she said” “he said” and so on. Flipping the tag to the beginning is a good way to break up a chunk of dialogue.
“What’s a tag?” you ask.
A dialogue tag is what you put after the line of dialogue: “said” or “asked” plus the noun or pronoun–like a mini-sentence. And, trust me, “said” or “asked” are your dialogue tag friends. Use them well and frequently, but don’t substitute things that aren’t dialogue tags.
“What do you mean?” he frowned.
Exactly that–”frowned” is not a dialogue tag. You say words, you ask words, but you don’t frown words. You may say or ask as you frown, but some verbs just aren’t dialogue tags. And if you limit yourself to the simple tags of “said” or “asked,” that frees you up to do some showing and not telling.
For example, you could write: “You don’t love me,” she pouted.
Any of us who have children or grandchildren know what a pout looks like, but why not “show” us the pout by describing it. Is it joking, how sincere is it, it is coy?
Her lower lip protruded as she frowned and blinked away non-existent tears. “You don’t love me,” she said.
See how much more we learned about the dynamic between the two speakers with a description of the pout?
Anyway, I digressed a bit from punctuating dialogue, but, well, these things needed to be said. Because most of my previous experience was as an editor, I often get bogged down in the bad or lack of punctuation. That means the story drops a few notches in quality for me.
Now, if I see one comma out-of-place, I won’t quibble, but when bad punctuation, especially for something as fundamental to writing as dialogue, is consistent, that tells me the writer doesn’t really care about his or her work, that the concept of “getting published fast” has won out over good writing.
What’s a good punctuation reference? The Chicago Manual of Style covers just about everything you need for writing. If you’re an AP Manual fan, switch. The AP Manual is for magazine or newspaper writing, where the punctuation, in particular, is different. The CMS is what most editors of literary magazines prefer. Otherwise, a decent college grammar handbook will do. Many writers I know like Garner’s Modern American Usage, which may be more up-to-date than an old college handbook. Usage and preferred punctuation do change, after all.
Pull out something you’ve been working on, and take a look at your dialogue. Is it punctuated correctly? Are your dialogue tags really tags? Are there opportunities to show more and tell less?
July 14, 2012
Story Cubes Challenge – Weeks 12 and 13
A trip to see some family in New England precluded writing a story for Week 12 of the Story Cubes Challenge, then along came the prompt for Week 13 in the midst of a lot of house- and car-related issues. The result is you get a backwards two-fer–one story from two prompts.
I’ve written stories about the beginning of both Mai Fisher’s and Alexei Bukharin’s careers, so here’s a story about the end. The story is based on the actual arrest of Serbian General Ratko Mladic, who’d been hiding in plain sight in Serbia for more than fifteen years after his indictment as a war criminal for the massacre of Bosnian Muslim men and boys near the U.N. Safe Area of Srebrenica in July 1995. Several stories in my collection, Blood Vengeance, deal with this event, the largest incident of genocide in Europe since World War II.
The character Vojislav Ranovesic is from an unpublished novel of mine entitled Self-Inflicted Wounds. It’s also based on actual events in the late 1990′s and 2000 surrounding the murder of dozens of associates of and government officials for Slobodan Milosevic. Mai and Alexei go in to try and find out who is behind the murders, and Ranovesic is the “one good cop left in Yugoslavia” whose help they enlist.
Here are the two rolls of the cubes:
Week 12
Week 13
And here’s what I saw:
Week 12 l. to r. - scales/justice; baseball/hit out of the park; up against a wall/pushing; eating; key; dancing; falling down the stairs; keyhole/lock; hand-in-hand/romance.
Week 13 l. to r. - crying; thinking/thought; question/inquiry; present/giving a present; tree; carrying/burden; kicking a ball/soccer; laughing/happy; lightning/lightning bolt.
The story is “26 May 2011,” and if you don’t see the link in the title, hover your cursor over the Spy Flash tab above and select it from the drop-down menu.
If you’d like to try the Story Cubes Challenge, pick a prompt from the left, write a story of any length, and post a link to it on Jennie Coughlin’s blog.
July 13, 2012
Friday Fictioneers – Being Creative at the Car Repair Shop
It’s been one of those weeks where few, if any, opportunities to write have been presented or made–more like a week of Friday the 13th’s. Monday was a travel day. Tuesday was one of those days where you rue home ownership: A plumbing issue and meeting with the insurance adjuster for the storm damage to the roof. Wednesday was phone-calling to arrange roof repairers and set appointments for plumbing estimates, then conducting part of an interview for a newspaper article. Thursday was roof repair, receiving plumbing estimates, baby-sitting, and the second part of the article interview.
And that brings us to today, Friday, as I sit at the car repair shop because both driver-side windows will go down but won’t come back up. At least they have free Wi-Fi because the inspiration for today’s Friday Fictioneers’ story came to me about ten minutes before I left the house.
The link to read other Friday Fictioneers is below my story, “After The Rapture.” If you don’t see the link on the title, hover your cursor over the Friday Fictioneers’ tab above and select “After The Rapture” from the drop down menu.
July 11, 2012
If You’re Still Interested…
…there’s a new post in my political blog, Politics Wednesday. The writing connection is that F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck inspired the topic of “Different From You and Me.”
July 9, 2012
On the Road Again…
Unless something in the Providence, RI, Airport inspires me to blog about “writing, the writing life, and the journey to publication,” today’s post could be delayed on account of exhaustion (3.5 hours sleep; Note to self: stop going to visit the ex-inlaws.) or being on the road.
Tomorrow. Maybe. Stay tuned.
July 6, 2012
Friday Fictioneers Time!
Today’s photo is called “Outside Pecos” and was taken by Amanda Gray. It was a spooky picture, and, yeah, I went there and maybe a little beyond.
To read today’s story, “Price of Passage,” click on the title. If you don’t see the link, hover your cursor over the Friday Fictioneers tab above and select “Price of Passage” from the drop-down menu.
To enjoy other Friday Fictioneers’ stories, click on “Links in Collection” below and have a good read. I suspect Ms. Gray’s photo inspired a lot of creepiness.
July 4, 2012
If you’re interested…
…you can read today’s political blog post about the Declaration of Independence here.
Have a happy and safe Fourth of July–technically it should be the Second of July, but who am I to buck tradition?
