[Perry] Not Everything Needs to Make Sense

Do you know that people often don’t make a lick of sense?

No, really, I’m not kidding.

It can be hard sometimes to write natural conversation between two characters and it’s important to understand at those times that almost nobody makes sense all the time.

Think of your day to day conversations and how many things you say that don’t really make sense…

…no? It’s just me?

Okay…

Anyway, they say that a picture’s worth a thousand words but I don’t have a picture that can demonstrate nonsensical conversational leaps so I’m going to tell you a story instead.

I was with my cousins one day and we were playing a party game, you know those games where you get a prompt and your partner needs to guess what it is based on what you say and act out?

I was partnered with my younger cousin and I got the prompt of “David Beckham,” and I remember thinking that I was screwed. I wasn’t sure that my cousin knew who the hell David Beckham was; hell, I barely knew who David Beckham was…but in the spirit of the game, I decided to give it my best shot.

I stood up and did a soccer kicking motion, from which he managed “soccer player!”

Now, I remember thinking very clearly to myself, “okay, all I need to do now is break out that English accent and I’ll be home free. C’mon brain, time to shine!”

And for SOME reason that I still can’t figure out, what happened instead was this bizarre, extremely enthusiastic saluting motion accompanied by, “G’day mate! G’day mate!”

I’d JUST started to think, “wait a minute…that doesn’t sound right…” when my cousin shot up in the air shouting, “David Beckham!”

I was excited because we won and me and my cousin high-fived but then I had to stop and wonder for a moment.

How DID he get that? There was nothing linking the second half of my clue to the right answer and yet…somehow his mind made the right intuitive leap, even though it didn’t seem to make any goddamn sense at all, and struck upon the correct answer.

From what I’ve seen, people do this sort of thing all the time in conversation. They make crazy intuitive leaps, they go on huge tangents for no reason and never return to their original topic or they just plain don’t make sense but think that they do.

Including a little bit of this into your own character dialogue wouldn’t be a very bad thing. Not every single line has to make sense all the time, you know? Go for that touch of realism and let things get a little nonsensical once in a while.

Just so long as your intuitive leap is not what solves the overall plot or is as crazy and convoluted as a certain, renowned Sicilian (please? Anybody?), you should be just fine.

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