crappy day

[blamebrampton]

I'm in a world of pain today. I managed to wake up through the night with stabbing sensations in my lower back and have spent the day with sundry drugs, a hot water bottle, many pillows and other fruitless bids to fix it up. Am about to head over to the chemist in a bid for mega-strength drugs, which I will follow up with a hot bath if they don't do the trick (water restrictions are still tight here, so a bath is the last port of call).

It has all put me in mind of the experience of writing for HD Worldcup earlier this year, which is why I decided to spend what upright time I could manage editing my WC fic for posting here, at last.

In happier news, I had a box of Hello Panda biscuits from the Asian grocery aisle last night. I offered one to J, who said "No thanks, I don't eat panda."

In actual fact they were gooey chocolate inside a sweet biscuit, and quite tasty. And the panda theme reminded me of a moment at a tram stop in Melbourne. There were two little boys, about eight years old, yammering. "And we can go and see KungFu Panda!" the first one said, excitedly.

"Yeah!" replied the second. "But we'll need to get up for the early screening. Everyone will want to see it, lunchtime will be panda-monium!"
 
There was a long pause. The first boy shook his head. "That was awful. That was so awful, it was really good."

I like to think he has taken the first step towards a lifetime of bad pun appreciation.

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

My theory is that they should be used wherever they are useful. If it's obvious from what is being said, or from the tone, then it's safe to leave them out, unless they can add something to the text.

So when your speech tags help to clarify who is speaking, or what is being meant by the speech, or even when they help with the rhythm of speech (everything from breaking up a long section of speech to keeping the rhythm of a passage), then use them.

And when you don't need them for any of that, leave them off!

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! Another thing about writing that I didn't know.

My early writing was spiked with loads of "he exclaimed," "she uttered," etc. Now it's mainly "said," and I try to substitute a gesture when it makes sense. I usually don't have dialogue floating without a tag or a gesture, though: I know it can work, but for some reason it scares me.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Be not afraid, AM! In a lot of your stories the voices are so strong that they can survive quite happily with no tags! But feel free to keep them if you like them, too. And I have to say that I use said more than anything else, we were smacked as baby journos and editors if we used anything else ...