Hello, I know sometimes we write the best, most interesting or emotional sentences for our character dialogue and I was wondering what your favorite dialogue from your main character is!
Okay, I suppose my all-time favourite quote from one of my characters is in my fantasy novel, which is: "Throw him in the furnace then, Jerry. Chop chop." The line comes from my antagonist, so is technically one of my 'main' characters. He does make jokes, but he's actually rather frightening.
Mine comes from a new character of mine who is a teen girl and an assassin. The crime boss she's standing before says he sent some men out to where someone was going to kill the girl and dispose of her and her response is: “Good for you. Want a lollipop?”
My signature: "We live in a weird world, Win." This quote might appear a bit unremarkable when presented like this, out of context, but to me it's all but. It's got alliteration (and "W" is even my favourite letter), a cute nickname ("Win", short for "Windie") and is spoken during a time of upheaval for the MC. But, most of all, it's the setting: He was still mourning the loss of his brother and coming to terms with his abnormal abilities when he moved out into the big wide world by himself trying to make a living in a big city, only to have to move to a planet he had never even heard of before less than two years after having moved out of his parents' house. At the point in time this line was spoken, he had just arrived there the same day, fallen in love with the woman he is certain is the love of his life, and there he is, at night, on the top floor of a fancy apartment building, looking out over the massive city, having been allowed to stay in her apartment for a few days as no accommodation had been arranged for him yet, talking to her about this new world he has to get used to living in and of the mysterious circumstances why the two of them and seven other people were sent from different corners of planet Earth to this new world. All of this on a backdrop of uncertainty, love, grief, shyness and the emotional state of not feeling like you fit in.
It's still in first draft development, but probably one of these two: Just before he cuts the throat of the VPOTUS (who's actually the POTUS now that the president elect is dead): "A new age comes, Rawlings, and you'll not be a part of it, but I bring you a great honor. A wish fulfilled. Die well." Or early in the script, he's in a skype session with a bi-lingual Iranian girl whose English is excellent. They play a game of where he tries to stump her on the definition of an English word: "supercalafragalisticexpialadoshus. Try that one on."
Antagonist with a hostage; "Savior savior save-your bitchin for the bastard himself." he looked at his henchmen "Gag the bitch till he gets here."
"Horseshit." This is my MC of my novel responding to a bartender. It's nothing, but it's the only "bad" language in the entire book. I'm torn between taking it out because it sticks out like a sore thumb, and rewriting the rest of the book to be in sync with it. Dunno how it's gonna go.
"Ca what? Stop using words I gotta look up." Also, from another script: "Some people are too passionate for this world. They see beauty, they feel love, but they get overwhelmed by it. It becomes so unbearable that they can't take it anymore and they have to escape"
From my novel "Crusader" "As a knight, I am sworn to tell only the truth, so it is not flattery when I say these are as fine a pair of teats as I have ever seen."
"No, you're not my friend. You're an uptight, annoying, bitchy, bastard, and we hate each other. But you're Ren's brother, and he loves you, and you love him, and I love him, and he loves me, and we will both protect him, won't we? So, I guess we're family, and in some weird way, I love you" "Come on, Vi, we're going home" "But we don't have a home." "So, we will make one." "Do you know how to build?" "I said home, not house. I'll find an apartment or a small house, but what's important is the home. We, together, are the home." ~Cynthia
Talking to a gravestone at the end of the story: "I'm going to see everything you saw. I'm going to live the life you lived. Mom says I've got your spirit. Wish me luck, dad. Terrestia is a big place." It may not have much impact without the rest of the story but it chokes me up every time I read it. Or Talking to an android: "First we have to establish that we are not calling you by a serial number. We'll call you Tom for now." "Why Tom?" "I had a cat named Tom once. You remind me of him."
Asking me to choose a favorite is just cruel, but I think I can dig up a few gems that don't look too odd when taken out of context. "I am only following orders, friend. I do everything I can to do what I must. I do what I must because I must. The only men who mustn’t do what they must do are dead men… and they don’t do much at all." -- Saimon, (the antagonist,) as he is about to kill one of the MCs Desmond: (nods to an ominous-looking duffel bag) “Whatcha got there?” Gino: "Nothin.’" Desmond: "Well, ain’t you fancy? Us normal folks can’t afford to carry our nothins around in big black bags." Clyde: "What were you doing on Platform 222?" Desmond: "Women and drugs, mostly." Ell (wearing a spacesuit): "What’s with this thing? How long we gotta wear this shit?" Desmond: "Ah, we’ve finally found something she can’t strip off in ten seconds flat.” Ell: "Wanna bet?" "I’m not crazy if I admit it! Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy!" -- Claire, who is definitely crazy "Whether it works or not is irrelevant. Right now, it’s a hoop you gotta jump through to earn my trust. So jump, boy. Woof, woof!" -- Claire, still crazy “Patience. Insistence. Persistence. That is all it takes to turn a mind into a machine, turn a person into a slave. They make us think what they want us to think because we are too foolish to resist. And when we do, they hurt us and the ones we love in the worst ways imaginable.” -- Chala’Ran "You don’t deserve to be the one who starts it all. You never had the courage to stand up, until we cornered you. That’s not courage! You wanna start a revolution? Okay. I’ll make a martyr of you, right here.” -- Brock Clyde: "Let’s slow things down, big guy. No need for anyone to get hurt." Brock: "She threw a desk at me!"
my characters don't really have one liners (And I'm pretty embarrassed at the one I tried posting earlier) mostly it's inside jokes and things relating to things that happened earlier in the story. ~Hopes I can sneak a mildly humorous conversation in here~ “Though, you did accidentally set me alight there at first.” Withholding a snigger Oroln replied “My pleasure, Einus.” Garrak rolled his eyes and continued to walk. The short man stood there stunned a moment. “I’ve been granted a nickname?” he said with a wide smile. Oroln turned and continued to follow Garrak. “Yeah sure, Einus.” He waddled after them beaming. “Very well. Many thanks brother Orol!”
She stopped, regarding him with real disappointment. “Chris, sometimes you jerk yourself back into mediocrity and it makes me wonder why I bother with you. You're better than that. Resist going there.”
This had me going back to my unfinished novel that I've basically given up on. I was reluctant to open the file at all. I know I've got some stuff there but for the life of me can't remember where, but I'll dig something out later and post. For now, thanks for basically making me go back to have a gander at my novel - some of the stuff I saw really made me smile and reminded me that I have some good stuff there, and that maybe it's not a lost cause
‘Not at all. It’s oppressive, the truth. Shatters the illusion of happiness, is what it does. I’d rather stare at a pretty picture and not ever discover it covers a hole in the wall behind it.’
From my WIR, an exchange between a counsellor and my MC: “‘I love you’ doesn’t always mean forever, you know.” The counsellor’s tone continued soft, but insistent. “Why is it so important to you?" Her voice was barely a whisper. “Because ‘I love you’ is about all I have left.” From my WIP, between my MC and her brother, an antagonist (who has the good line, actually): Hardly noticing that she did it, she began to think aloud. “Or no, would it be too steep down there, Rudy? . . . " A voice behind her spoke: “Good god, Milly! Yapping to Matson again? Good grief, he’s dead. He’s been dead for twenty years!”
(Jack, on being told that his wounds could be mortal) 'There's always a chance I might die. In this case, what can you do to stop it?' (Cael, as part of a speech) 'The clothes make the man. They stripped us of our uniforms: are we unmade? Or can we make ourselves anew?'
There’s a time for finesse and a time for haste, and this is definitely the latter so the old marching powder is out of my wallet and up my nose in less time than Superman takes to have a shit.
The Palatinian Princess talking to the guy that took the entire ship hostage over her watch-phone-thing: “We’ll talk about this when I’ve got this gun shoved up your arsehole, when you are begging me you never tried taking the Palitinian Princess hostage. You are one dead man.”
