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The author permits any kind of archiving, posting, reposting,
and reproduction in fixed form or otherwise, free or for profit,
of this story. Copyright (C) 2000 by Felix Lance Falkon,
falkon@netaxs.com. This work is unsuitable for minors. Standard
warnings: slippery when wet, this end up, for external use only.
Comments invited. You may rewrite this, but if you do, please
replace my name with yours and send me a copy of your version.
A DIALOG & WRITING LESSON Part 1/2
(revised & expanded version of 2000 Jan 30)
by Felix Lance Falkon
Morganstern, now on his back, looked up at Jon, the lithe
young stud who was just starting his first impaling thrust. But
with no more than an inch of himself inside Morganstern, who was
the bigger, more muscular of the two naked young writers, Jon
stopped and held himself perfectly still. Morganstern asked,
"What's the matter?" "Short fuze, real short." "You afraid
you'll go off too soon?" "Sure am," said Jon.
"May I make a few suggestions?" asked Morganstern as he felt
Jon cautiously ease himself deeper.
"Go ahead," said Jon with a jerk of his head that swung his
blond hair clear of his eyes. "Suggest away."
"Don't put your reply in the same paragraph as my
question, the way you did in the first paragraph of this story.
Instead, start a new paragraph with every change in who's
talking, as I'm doing now."
"Uh – why?"
Morganstern felt his abdominal muscles contract into a taut,
concave ripple as he curled his hips up to meet the next impaling
thrust. He took a deep breath, tightened the layer of muscle that
swept across his broad chest, then said, "It makes it lots
easier for the reader to tell who's saying what. It's like . . .
like in that first paragraph, the reader's not quite sure who
said, Afraid I'll shoot too soon.' Also, you'll have shorter paragraphs, which are easier to read than screens or pages full of uninterrupted columns of type. Newspapermen call writing such long paragraphs
tombstoning,' because the results look like grey
tombstones: boring and uninviting.
"Indenting every paragraph makes a story much easier to
read. And since that's the way almost all printed fiction is
done, it's what the reader expects. Don't distract the reader
from what you and I are doing and saying Right Now.
"And if you're preparing a story you're going to post on a
newsgroup or transmit by e-mail, put a blank line after each
paragraph, limit line length to about 65 or 70 characters and
spaces, and indent each paragraph five spaces instead of using
the tab' key. Do _not_ make the right margin straight – that is, do not
right justify' a text file; leave the right margin
ragged the way I'm doing here." Morganstern felt Jon thrust
himself in another inch, and met that thrust with another wiggle
and squirm as he felt Jon push even harder in response.
"Okay; what else?" asked Jon.
"When you ask a question in dialog, put the question mark or
exclamation point at the end, inside the quote marks, without
putting a comma there too."
"Oh." Jon took a deep breath, went in deeper. "And – did
you say you had more suggestions?" he asked.
"Yup. When you have a bit of dialog that doesn't end with
a question mark or exclamation point, and is followed by he said' – or
he asked' or he replied' or a phrase like that -- then use a comma -- _inside_ the quotation marks – like this," said Morganstern. "Use a period just before the closing quote marks when you don't have a
he said' -- or asked' or the like following the quote marks -- like this." Morganstern squirmed again. "If you begin a sentence with
he said' or a similar word,
put a comma right after the last word before the quote marks, and
then capitalize the first word after the quote marks."
Jon began a more vigorous thrust. "I think I understand."
"Three more things: Don't feel that you have to reach for
substitutes for said' in speech tags. Using
observed' or
expounded' or
intoned' is far more distracting than the simple
he said,' which is almost invisible to the reader. Those fancy substitutes distract the reader from what's being said inside the quotation marks. Of course, the verb in a speech tag has to be one that makes sense: you can't
squirm' a sentence; you can't
hiss, `Take that!'
"With questions, use he asked.' Use
whispered' or
`growled' or verbs like those very sparingly. Use them only
when you're giving the reader additional information that the
context doesn't already make clear.
"An example: "Good morning," snarled Kurt.' In this case, the _way_ Kurt spoke doesn't match the words Kurt used. Here, you have to use
snarled' to make the reader aware of that
mismatch.
"And the other two things?" asked Jon. He was breathing
harder now, and pulling back between strokes.
"One way to break up the monotony of he said'
he said' he said' is to leave off the speech tag entirely – but only when it's perfectly obvious who's speaking. With just the two of us, and you asking questions and me answering them, we can leave out
Jon said' and Morganstern said' and go for several paragraphs without confusing the reader. With ordinary conversation and only two speakers, you should identify who's talking about every third paragraph. And always make it clear which
he' you mean,
especially if you have three male speakers going at it.
"Then, if one of us talks for more than one paragraph at a
time – as I'm doing right now -- leave off the end-of-paragraph
quote marks until the last paragraph of that multi-paragraph
speech," Morganstern said as he tightened his arms around Jon's
chest, locking their naked bodies together. "But you still need
opening quotes at the start of every paragraph of that speech,
like this.
"Another way to break up the monotony of he said' is what I'm doing right here." Morganstern felt Jon's muscles tighten, felt him drive in hard. "In the same paragraph with a within- quotes speech, end the quoted part with a period – or a full stop if you are a Briton -- and then put in something like my feeling you tighten up as you sink yourself hilt-deep into me. This can advance the plot at the same time that the writer establishes who is saying the words inside the quote marks. But again: readers just don't notice the
he said' as long as what
he's saying is interesting."
"Yeah? Lemme get this straight. When you interrupt the
quoted part, and you want to use a verb that is not a synonym
or substitute for said,' you end what's inside the quotes with a period, and start what follows the quote with a capital letter." Jon stopped his next stroke in mid-thrust. "And with questions and question marks, do them like this?" He grinned down at Morganstern. "But if you _are_ using
he said' or he asked' right after some stuff in quotes, then you _don't_ to put a capital letter on the
he' – right?" he asked.
"Exactly." Now Morganstern felt Jon thrust even harder with
his next stroke, felt a bit of rotary motion as well. "And just
like this," he said as he grinned back up at Jon.
"And I even noticed how you're using single quotes inside
the double-quote marks without your telling me."
"Actually, I'd rather use `` and '' for opening and closing
quotes, but I haven't found anyone else who likes them, even
though they are standard keyboard characters doubled. Using
anything not on a standard keyboard in e-mailed or news-group
stories – like using `smart quotes' or any of the typesetting
double-quote codes – is a real pain for readers whose equipment
doesn't fit yours just right."
"Well," said Jon, "I still say this a really weird time t'
make with a grammar lesson -- but yeah, my equipment fits into
yours real nice and tight."
Morganstern felt a grin spread across his own face. "Well,
the grammar lesson's keeping you cooled down, isn't it? A lusty
young colt like you will usually go off too soon when he climbs
onto a big, hunky muscle-stud like me; and you've been riding me
for -- Hey! Slow down! You're getting there too soon!"
"Yeah – I -- noticed. Talk -- t' me -- about -- something
-- else -- quick," Jon panted as he slowed almost to a stop.
"Lemme see -- you got me going too – there's, yeah,
emphasis: since plain-text e-mail doesn't have underlining or
italics, I use to begin emphasized words and to end that
emphasis. I do the same for a character's unspoken thoughts."
Morganstern silently told himself, Now we're both cooling
down. Aloud, he said, "The reader can convert those asterisks to
his own word-processor's codes for underlining or italics, or
just leave them in the file that way.
"There are other ways to emphasize in text. One is simply
to capitalize the Initial Letters of the words you want to
emphasize. For even greater emphasis, since ordinary e-mail
doesn't support bold-face or bold-face-italic type, capitalize
the WHOLE word. Beyond that, you can (on very special
occasions) do THIS. Although some people like to emphasize
with a single underline before and after an emphasized word, I
think the and work better, especially if you use lots of
dashes for punctuation. Watch out for the difference between the
dash – which pushes phrases apart -- and the well-placed
hyphen, which pulls words together into compounds like
plain-text' and
e-mail' and even `well-placed.'
Jon asked, "What about those -- what do you call 'em --
three dots?"
"They're called an ellipsis. You can use one instead of a
dash. Most readers will see the dash as showing an abrupt change
in what you're saying, or -- at the end of a word -- that you've
suddenly stopped. The ellipsis . . ." His voice trailed off, then
re-started. "The ellipsis originally meant there was something
missing, and still does in scholarly writing. Now, in fiction, it
also implies that you gradually stopped, either in the middle
of a sentence . . . or at the end of a complete one. . . ."
Morganstern wet his lips. "Note: complete sentences, period
plus three dots. Incomplete ones, just . . .
"All too many writers have the bad habit of reaching for
substitutes for words they've already used. A very perceptive
science-fiction writer once wrote, English has no synonyms; it has a great many words that mean _almost_ the same thing.' But Mark Twain wrote,
The difference between the right word and the
almost right word is the difference between the lightning and the
lightning bug.' He also wrote, Use the _right_ word, not its second cousin.' Or to paraphrase Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Good
writing is the right words in the right order.' "
"Some writers – present company excepted, of course -- will
invent several different ways to identify someone in a story, and
then -- for no other reason than avoid using the same words
for the same thing – such a writer might call you Jon,' and in your next appearance,
the lithe-bodied youth,' then the lusty writer.' Next, he might use your last name alone, then
the
naked young man mounted on Morganstern's magnificently muscled
physique,' and then the blond studling,' and finally back to
Jon,' leaving the reader unsure if the writer has one character
on stage, or six."
Jon snickered, then said, " `Magnificently muscled' indeed!"
"Well, I am. I worked hard to get these muscles, and I'm
not letting the reader forget them."
"I know, I know. And since muscle-hunks like you happen t'
turn me on –"
"I noticed that already."
"– but conceited ones don't, and --"
"You wouldn't want me to lie about my magnificent
musculature, would you?"
"– and I can't tell if you're kidding when you say things
like that; and that makes it even funnier, even if you are being
serious; but if we start laughing while we're doing this –"
Jon thrust hard, squirmed, eased back, slowed almost to a stop.
"-- it'll be over much too soon. So -- let's get back t' the
writing lesson, before I -- you know."
"Just as bad as reaching too often for substitute words is
to begin a story with tiresomely detailed physical descriptions,
measurements, and past histories of all the principal characters
-- which is precisely what we did not do here. Instead, we
followed the ancient advice: start in media res, which is
Latin for in the middle of things.' Homer did, some three _thousand_ years ago, beginning the _Iliad_ with:
Sing,
Goddess, of the anger of Achilles, . . .' right smack in the
middle of the Trojan War. His words sing to us yet.
"Thus, we started this story, quite literally, during
your first thrust. Blocks of explanation, like these paragraphs,
are useful to cool someone down. But fiction works better if the
writer slips in background details and descriptions of the
principal characters a few words at a time, early in the action,
like the time you tossed your head to get your blond hair out
of your eyes. Break up lectures, if any, with action and dialog.
Here and there, the point-of-view character may be reminded of
something in his past by what's happening in the main plot."
"Like – like maybe your very first -- you know . . ."
"Right." Morganstern took a deep breath, feeling his broad
chest expand, remembering, for a few seconds, the smell of the
gym down by the beach. He remembered the ache in his muscles
after a hard workout, remembered the first time he'd stayed
behind after the other bodybuilders left for the evening. He and
the gym's night manager had stripped down all the way, stiffened
themselves up, and then, on a bench in front of the biggest
mirror in the gym, . . .
Morganstern shook the memory away. "Yes, because a first
_any_thing is something that people, real and imaginary, do
remember. Even more so, the very first time you go all the
way, whether with a well-buffed hunk or a twenty-buck hustler,
leaves you changed, deeply changed. What's happened, what's
made you change is important to you – which makes what
happened in that story important and interesting to the reader
as well.
"Now, this deep into a story really isn't the time to
stop for a static description of my electric-blue eyes; my curly
brown hair; even my winsome, snub-nosed face. The reader might
have decided, pages and pages ago, that I have aquiline features
and dark eyes and shoulder-length black hair, because I didn't
show the reader otherwise in the first few paragraphs, either
by having me remember how I look or by letting the reader
see those details through my eyes. And since you didn't have a
convenient mirror mounted on the ceiling for me – and the
reader -- to look up at my reflection while you were busily . . .
"But you're right, of course: mentioning my `magnificently
muscled physique' was overdoing it, especially this far into
the story, and even more so if I hadn't already established in
the first few paragraphs that we're a couple of well-built studs.
After that, it can help the reader to be the point of view
character, to be in the middle of the erotically exciting
events –"
" `Erotically exciting'? Now I know you're kidding." Jon
carefully pulled back, slid in hilt-deep again.
"-- if I slip in an occasional reminder of our hunkiness. I
can mention the pressure of your warm, wide chest against
against my powerful thighs, because that's what's happening to
me right now, and –"
"Now you've done it!" Jon thrust faster, harder, faster
still.
"Can't -- you -- slow -- down?"
"Not now. Too hot. Real hot."
"I – noticed," panted Morganstern, trying to meet every
impaling thrust.
Jon suddenly gasped aloud, rammed himself all the way in,
went rigid, and then slowly, slowly relaxed and started breathing
again. "I was going along okay, stretching it out just like you
told me to, until you reminded me just what we're doing, and what
your thighs feel like against my chest -- and then how deep I was
going, and -- and all of a sudden, I couldn't stop." He panted
for a moment, then said, "I bet you can't keep on with this
lesson if you get on top."
"I can so! Where's my shirt? I always carry a few extra in
my pocket. I'll put one on before we . . ."
"Don't worry – I got a supply in my bureau. Let me see."
Jon straightened his arms, looked down between their still-linked
bodies, and said, "Yeah -- as long and thick as yours is, an
`extra large' oughta fit just right."
"That was deftly done," said Morganstern, as they uncoupled.
Jon rolled off and -- a moment later -- sat up. "Huh?"
"Without stopping to explain or to cite measurements, you
established that we're using protection and that I'm well-
equipped for our next round. You're letting the reader decide
just how long and thick and wide my `extra large' might be."
Continued in next part