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  1. Eucryphia

    Eucryphia Member

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    Fresh meat....

    Discussion in 'New Member Introductions' started by Eucryphia, Jul 31, 2017.

    Hi folks!

    And greetings from central southern England!

    Some background about me might be helpful, I guess. I've written quite a lot of non-fiction in recent decades — well over a hundred articles for magazines, and loads of other stuff too, right through to a 200,000 word textbook on the setup, tuning, and recovery of VLDBs [Very Large DataBases], and a 180,000 word tutorial for pilots of the Classic 747 transitioning to the soi-disant "glass cockpit" of the 747-400.

    No shortage of previous convictions for banging out words, you might say.

    (I also have to confess to doing a three-year stretch as the Editor of a glossy technical magazine, but I managed to tunnel my way out, so we won't mention that).

    Anyway, the important thing is, that I've never tried fiction. And having somehow managed to plant itself in my head the crazy idea won't go away, hence I find myself currently doing preliminary sketches for a murder mystery novel of around 90,000 words. (You can tell I used to write for money — habit dictates that I start with the word count and then work backwards. <grin> The novel, though, will be simply for the fun of it). But I'm already finding that in the process I'm tripping over all sorts of interesting things that I haven't really had to think about before — such as dialogue, for example. (That's 'dialog', for you guys over The Pond). ;-)

    I'm therefore having a great time learning new stuff, and I felt it might be fun to share experiences with a group of like-minded people such as yourselves, if you'll have me.

    So I'd like to be hanging out here from time to time. :)

    Cheers,

    Eucryphia

    P.S. In case you were wondering, eucryphia is a semi-tropical shrub that's gloriously in bloom in my garden at the moment, to the delight of what seems to be pretty much the entire population of local bees — who are also busily pillaging the neighbouring lavender, agapanthus, and other nectar-laden plants. I'll be sitting out there in the sunshine this afternoon with a cool glass of Chenin Blanc, plotting a murder. (Yes, this is England).

    Gotta love gardens....
     
  2. Dr.Meow

    Dr.Meow Contributor Contributor

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    No offense, but I read the entire post in Frasier Crane's voice, I couldn't help it. haha

    Welcome to the forum, and of course you're welcome, that's kinda' the whole point. ;) Dialogue is tricky for sure, but I wasn't aware that american's spelled it differently. I'm American and I've always spelled it dialogue.. Oh well, I'm just weird I suppose. The secret for me is to act out the scene in my head, maybe even say the lines, and doing it without the descriptors in between so that it sounds as natural as possible, then I tweak the dialogue as needed.
     
  3. Eucryphia

    Eucryphia Member

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    > "I read the entire post in Frasier Crane's voice...."

    You must forgive me, but unfortunately I have no idea what that voice sounds like — no offence taken, therefore, and thank you for reading.

    Ah. Thanks to Google I gather that Dr. Crane is a character in an American sitcom. Sounds like fun (the world definitely needs more laughs).

    > "Dialogue is tricky for sure, but I wasn't aware that american's spelled it differently."

    <grin> Well the only place in the U.S. that I've lived and worked was near Austin: I guess it's not impossible that they have different rules in Texas? ;)

    Thank you for the hints on dialogue.
     
  4. Dr.Meow

    Dr.Meow Contributor Contributor

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    Maybe, I don't know though, I think it's very possible that it's me. I've probably just seen it written "dialogue" more times than I have the other way, and simply started spelling it like that.

    No problem, see you around.
     
  5. Eucryphia

    Eucryphia Member

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    Thank you.

    If I could just make one further comment (for what it's worth) — I've often found that the whole UK/US spelling and phraseology thing is far more complex, and less cut and dried, than is commonly thought. I say this simply because the magazine that I edited had writers from both sides of the Pond, which has probably left me permanently mentally scarred after trying to walk the necessary twin tightropes. (Yes, two of the blue tablets, nurse, and please try not to slam the lid of the box).

    Oops, sorry about that.

    If I might suggest, you may perhaps like to take a look at http://www.effingpot.com/. The site has started to get a little dated nowadays, but it's still an excellent source of wry observations about "two nations divided by a common language" issues.

    Best wishes to you. :)
     
    Dr.Meow likes this.

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