Goldfish-In-Space's avatar

Goldfish-In-Space

Alexical Gap
231 Watchers291 Deviations
44.1K
Pageviews
I might! I'm thinking about it. I've never done anything like that before, though.

I'm only taking one class in the summer and no longer have a horrible room mate! Now the horrible room mate is me. What I'm saying is I have time and compassion to spare, haha.

I'm not sure if anyone would be interested in a contest called Walking to Utopia/The First Step to Utopia. Also I haven't got all the rules down pat. I'm not really interested in a "Utopia that is GASP actually a dystopia!" That's already a very specific trope in dystopian fiction. 

Basically, I need to figure out what it is I'm trying for before I get this off the ground.
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

New Years

1 min read
One of my resolutions for 2015 is to keep a food blog that does 12 recipes minimum for the year. That went live today! My basic aim is to leave people with a bunch of recipes that are easy to intermediate skill level, answer cooking questions to the best of my abilities and hand out cooking tips. I eat everything I make, and in most cases the recipes are not copied from anywhere except my own brain. It should be a fun ride!

I'm pretty excited about it, and I've been considering cross posting some things here. I'm not sure if anyone is interested though.

Thoughts?
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

No.

1 min read
School is incredibly overwhelming, even though this is 'going back' to university after just a year break. It's week three (or four? some kind of transition happens at the end of each week and it's very confusing) and I feel like I'm failing everything, especially the online course because there's no space for me to actually get a feel for the material through my prof. Also the course schedule is confusing.

Correspondence is probably not for me. I don't think I'll do it again unless I have to.

Expect blood and tears to break the silence at some point and basically fuck this.
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In


You probably know what dialogue is. Even if you've never thought about it in fancy, official terms like "dialogue in writing is the representation of speech between two or more speakers", and have always thought of it more like "people talking", you more or less have the gist of it. Sometimes authors can pull off a story that forgoes dialogue, but those are in the firm minority. The fact that dialogue is such a widely used device means there are a few rules to it, most of which are easy. However, this fact has never stopped people like you or I from royally messing them up.

So, how does it work?

There are four basic aspects to dialogue:

1. Each new speaker gets a new line.
 
"So," continued Ford Prefect, "if you would just like to come over here and lie down..."

"What?" said Mr Prosser.

"Ah, I'm sorry," said Ford, "perhaps I hadn't made myself fully clear. Somebody's got to lie in front of the bulldozers, haven't they? Or there won't be anything to stop them driving into Mr Dent's house, will there?"

"What?" said Mr Prosser again.

Even though this is a conversation between only two people, every time the speaker is new or switches, they get a new line all to themselves.

2. There are quotations around the actual speech.

"So," continued Ford Prefect, "if you would just like to come over here and lie down..."


You may notice that in the original publication of Hitch Hiker's Guide single quotes are used around the speech, but here I have shamelessly converted them to double quotes. This is because I am Canadian and have bad habits. In Canada and America double quotes are the standard around speech, and in England single quotes are standard. These are the only countries that exist. Neither are incorrect, but it's good to pick one and stick to it.

3. Punctuation.

Punctuation happens in and outside of quotations, more or less the same as it would if they weren't there. There are a few rules around punctuation where the two meet.

"So," continued Ford Prefect, "if you would just like to come over here and lie down..."

Commas punctuate tags.  The first comma is attached to the "so" and is inside the quotations. The second comma is attached to the tag and is outside them. Here the tag interrupts the speech at a pause where a comma would have been, but this is also how you punctuate a tag that interrupts speech where a full stop would be.

"Ah, I'm sorry," said Ford, "perhaps I hadn't made myself fully clear...

Here the "Ah, I'm sorry" could be it's own thought. It's tempting to put a period there, but that's wrong. Always use a comma!

Except in a situation like this: "What?" said Mr Prosser.

What's a rule without an exception? Here there's different punctuation going on. The question mark stands in for the comma, because we need to know that "What?" is a question. Doing something like "What?," seems ridiculous, so we forgo the comma.


4. Tags.

What is a tag, anyway? A tag is a marker of who is speaking. "said Mr Prosser" is a tag. "Continued Ford Prefect" is also a tag. Tags can be an indicator of how something is being said, or just there to keep track of who is speaking. The fancier the tag, the more likely it is your reader will notice it, which is something you should have in the back of your mind when you write them. Do you want to outright say how someone is speaking, or do you want the speech to indicate that on its own? Usually, strong dialogue doesn't need wordy or flashy tags, just the occasional marker so the reader can keep track of who is speaking. Sometimes you can even forget them.

How do you create strong dialogue?

The difference is in the words. Try this:

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" said Trillian, peering nervously into the darkness, "We've been attacked once already, you know."

"Look kid, I promise you the live population of this planet is nil plus the four of us, so come one, lets get on in there. Er, hey, Earthman..."

"Arthur," said Arthur.

"Yeah, could you just sort of keep this robot with you and guard this end of the passageway? Okay?"

"Guard?" said Arthur, "What from? You just said there was no one here."

"Yeah, well, just for safety, okay?" said Zaphod.

"Whose? Yours or mine?"

"Good lad. Okay, here we go."


There are four three characters in that conversation: Zaphod, Arthur, Trillian and Marvin. Knowing that, you can probably figure out who is speaking, even if the speech is untagged. Why is that? All of them are speaking, but their speech is all different. It's in what they say as well as how they say it. Zaphod calls Arthur "Earthman", and Arthur corrects him. When Arthur is annoyed, he speaks differently than when Zaphod or Trillian is. Marvin is always annoyed, but again his speech is easy to pick out without tags, which is how you can tell he's not actually speaking here.

The words each character uses to express themselves are different. That's one of the keys of unique dialogue. You need to get behind your character and understand how they would express themselves. Everyone thinks to use different words, and everyone puts them together differently. Everything can mediate how a person speaks in real life, and this applies to your characters as well. Where they grew up, how much formal education they have had, what kind of people they associate with, all can determine how they speak, but there are no sure markers.

Writing in a thick accent is usually a bad idea. It makes the dialogue inaccessible and when it's not done perfectly cheapens the piece it's in. Accents are more complicated than just the superficial sound of them; what makes them is in the syntax, the colloquialisms and the little details of speech. You can usually get an accent across without resorting to phonetics, and your piece will be better off for it.

One of the reasons dialogue can start sounding the same between characters is that in the context of a story, it is more than just the characters speaking. Dialogue gets stuff done. It effects the pace of a scene and can be a fast and easy way to communicate important information to your readers. Dialogue can help set tone and is a huge deal for characterization. It's integral, really. When it needs to do all that stuff though, sometimes the voices of the characters get lost. That's one of the distinctions between workable and good dialogue. Good dialogue checks all the boxes.

A Note about Dialogue in Poetry

Poetry often uses dialogue as well as prose, however, there are no rules in poetry there isn't a clear standard for how this is done. People have pulled off straight up, grammatically correct dialogue, while others have used systems just off of that. Others have forgone anything but contextual indication. It's really up to the author how they want to communicate speech inside their poetry. Content-wise, dialogue in poetry works the same as prose; it develops speakers, changes pace and communicates action, it just doesn't have to be in any specific format.  A good guideline for this is within any piece  is sticking to one format of dialogue. This helps readers understand what is an is not speech in your piece, because however you choose to do it, it's the same all the way through.

Some things to think about when you write Dialogue

Try asking yourself some of these questions (and more, if you think you need them!) when you're going over your dialogue:

  • What emotions are being conveyed by each speaker?
  • How can you make their words reflect that?
  • Is information being revealed in a way that is characteristic of the speaker?
  • What information is being revealed to both other characters and the reader?



Hopefully these will get you thinking and on your way to writing awesome dialogue!





Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
What is "Tragedy"?

Tragedy is a genre most people are familiar with. Hamlet is a tragedy. Movies labelled as ‘tear jerkers’ are often tragedies. If you pare it down enough, it can be as simple as 'a story where a lot of bad things happen to the protagonist'. This would fit almost every tragedy ever written, but it's not very helpful for understanding the complexities of the genre, or what it contributes to storytelling. There are almost countless sub-genres of tragedy, and every one has specific rules and tendencies that further define it from 'tragedy' as a whole. This is a construct of ages of evolution in the genre, which started, alongside comedy, with the Greeks.

What is 'Greek' tragedy?

Greek Tragedy is something that grew along with the very idea of theatre as we know it. Theatre emerged out of the worship of the god Dionysus (Roman name Bacchus), which involved singing and performance-like rituals. The narrative verses sung by the participants, called Dithyrambs, are arguably the very origin of Tragedy as a genre. Other Characteristics of Dionysian rituals that survived the switch from worship to theatre are the chorus and the masks, though the latter became more characteristic of comedy than tragedy.

Thespis is the man credited with starting this transition because he was the first recorded person to take these ritual narratives and make them scripted. This introduced the concept of a solo ‘actor’, and paved the way for the rituals to evolve into the Festival Dionysia. Along the way, other people modified it, adding more actors, changing the way the stage was constructed, reducing the chorus and adding in (for their times) contemporary subject matter to their plays until they more resembled a stage play one might see today.

Forms and Famous Plays:

The plays performed at the Dionysia were subject to certain rules in their formatting. Each Playwright would write three related tragedies, followed by a humorous, and often unrelated, play. Inside were further fomatic rules.

Some famous surviving Greek Trilogies include Oresteia, by Aeschylus, and the pieced together trilogy of Oedipus by Sophocles. Though Sophocles’ version of the Oedipus Myth does not quite follow the general rules because it is assembled out of different festival years, the plays still follow the inner structures of the genre.

Inner Forms in Sophocles Oedipus Rex: The Play in As-Short-As-I-Can-Make-It

Brace yourself, Freudians:

Oedipus Rex by ZachSmithson

Most Greek Tragedies start with a prologue, called the prologos. This is a device that gives us the setting, background and gives the current story a little bit of context.

In Oedipus Rex the prologue sets up that Oedipus is the king of Thebes, and has to deal with a plague upon his city. We learn he has sent Creon, his brother in law, to the Oracle at Delphi, and has returned with news-- which he thinks Oedipus should hear in private. Oedipus declines, and tells him to speak publicly. Creon tells the citizenry that the murderer of the previous king is in Thebes, and must be driven out for the plague to end.

The Chorus then enters the scene for the first time. This is called the parados. They call upon many gods, and in general function as the voice of the people. The Greek Chorus (usually) had twelve members, who spoke to the main characters or amongst themselves, moving the plot along and sharing aspects of the drama the other actors could not. Oedipus swears to the chorus, that he will find the killer, and then curses the man and all of his family. the chorus suggests that Oedipus call on the Prophet Tiresias.

An episode in this context means almost exactly what it means in the context of modern television. It is a part or sequence in a larger body of work, in this case the sequences between choruses. This episode continues with Tiresias entering, and confronting Oedipus with riddles. Oedipus becomes angry and insults the Prophet, who then accuses Oedipus of being the former king’s murderer. Further enraged, Oedipus accuses Creon and Tiresias of conspiring to overthrow him. The chorus-leader tries to reason with him, but is unsuccessful. Tiresias then hints at the mysteries behind Oedipus’s parentage and past, which makes him even angrier. The prophet says that the person who murdered the former king will be the husband of his mother, and the father and brother of his children. The episode ends when the chorus takes the stage, uncertain who to believe.

There are three more episodes in Oedipus Rex, all which break away and return to the chorus. In them we meet Oedipus’s wife, Jocasta, who calms him by telling him all prophets are fake. She says her first husband was prophesied to be murdered by his son, who was thrown out as a baby. Instead he was killed at a crossroads just before Oedipus came to Thebes. Hearing this, Oedipus asks for more information, and is no longer certain he is innocent of the murder. Having heard he was not the real son of his parents, he had gone to Delphie to speak to the oracle, who told him he was doomed to marry his mother and kill his father. Instead of returning home. He and Jocasta rush to find the other people involved at the crossroads killing-- a shepherd. The chorus takes the stage again, and muses on the workings of the world. Is everything ruled by fate, or can a man cheat the gods? The shepherd is sent for and a messenger takes the stage, announcing the death of Oedipus’s father. Jocasta rejoices in this further proof that all prophecy is fake, until the messenger reveals that Oedipus was not the natural child of his parents. He was given to them by a shepherd, who was given the baby by one of the former King’s servants. Oedipus wants to find out who his real parents are, but Jocasta begs him to drop the subject and exits. The shepherd who saw the murder enters, and turns out to also be the servant who gave the baby to the messenger. He says that the infant was the son of the King and Jocasta, cast out to ward off prophecy. Rattled by the realization that his prophecies were true-- Oedipus unknowingly killed his father, and married his mother-- he leaves to find her.

One unnamed element of Greek Tragedy comes into play at this point. There is never any overt violence on stage. All of this kind of action takes place ‘elsewhere’, and must be related to the audience by the actors not taking part in it. In this instance, a messenger appears onstage with tragic news. Jocasta has hanged herself, and Oedipus taken the pins from her robes and gouged out his eyes. Just as the messenger is finished speaking, a blinded Oedipus enters. He curses fate and his life and asks to be exiled. The chorus and Creon enter. The last chorus is called the Stasima, and in it the chorus speaks of restoring order. Creon as the new, tenuous leader, grants his friend exile and his last wish, to see his daughters.

The last scene is called the exodos. In it Oedipus embraces his two weeping daughters, until Creon sends him away. The chorus laments the fate of Oedipus, and the curtain closes.

That was a lot of stuff. In extra short:

The basic structure of any ancient tragedy will follow this trajectory: Prologos, Paraodos, Episodes, Stasima and Exodos.

Key Aspects:

Hubris, hamartia  and catharsis are all key aspects in Greek Tragedy that escape the formatic rules of the genre.

Hubris is an excessive amount of pride, with an unhealthy dose of self-confidence. It’s an element that is required in protagonists, because it drives the plot forward. It keeps the protagonists driven, against all odds and sense, to go for unreachable goals. Oedipus has this in droves.

Hamartia is a fatal flaw in a character. There is no specific issue that will be the hamartia in any play, but it is the tragic error in judgement. It can, as in Oedipus’s case, be the lack of knowledge of his past, or something else entirely. The nature of the error depends on the nature of the play, and it doesn't exactly have to be the protagonist's fault. 

Catharsis is the emotional release the audience feels when the tragic play (or book, or movie) is over. Similar to the idea of ‘having a good cry’, the catharsis brought by tragedy is supposed to purge and rebalance the audience.

These conventions are arguably the more defining features of the genre. Without them, even with the prologos, episodes and exodos, we do not have a Greek Tragedy. These are some of what makes up the substance of the genre, rather than just the form of it, and what wold define a play as acceptable or excellent. They are ideas that have taken root in the wider genre of "Tragedy", as well. It's easy to see the ghosts of hubris and hamartia in the protagonists of modern tragedy, changed by the years, but still very alive.

Recources:

These videos explain everything here and more, in ways that are funnier and more concise than me! Give them a try.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQOPFx…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSr6mP…

Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Featured

I might organize a short story/poetry contest? by Goldfish-In-Space, journal

New Years by Goldfish-In-Space, journal

No. by Goldfish-In-Space, journal

Hitching a Ride with Dialogue by Goldfish-In-Space, journal

Art History: Greek Tragedy by Goldfish-In-Space, journal