#fridayfictioneers via rochelle – 1/11

/ January 10, 2013

Every Wednesday Rachmaninoff Wisoff-Fields posts a picture prompt to challenge writers to create a 100-word story or poem or anything that works for you.  After you post your work on your blog,  go back to her site and add a link to your post on her Friday Fictioneers post.  Place.  Page.

I’m going to try to keep up with this, as should you.  Give it a shot.  I prefer to stick to 100 words, but she doesn’t mind either way.  Not everyone has the time to sit and write, revise, edit, revise, edit, etc. until getting it down to 100 and telling everything you want to tell.

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copyright-roger-cohen

Showtime

Moments before the 8pm show, tremors shook Karnagee Hall.

Tiny, “IT’S GONE!”

Dust rained in the basement as he stomped his feet.

The stagehand, “We’re looking, Tiny!”

The agent, “Get him a chair!”

The seamstress, “Get him a couch.”

Tiny, “Whaaaa!”

First clarinet, “Please change my seat.”

Tiny, “Whaaaaaaaaaa!”

The conductor, “Keep him quiet!”

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

The stagehand, “I’ll get tissues.”

The custodian, “I’ll get a mop.”

The seamstress, “Maybe a towel.”

The agent, “Call the producer!”

Tiny stomped harder.

The producer, “Call the carpenter!”

The mover trudged carefully, lugging an oaken cello.

The mover, “Found it!”

Tiny smiled, “My violin!”

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100 words

This would have been a good one for me to have kept track of the revising because I had originally written ...said the agent  and …said the stagehand after each line of dialogue.  Then I realized I could get away with removing “said” from each line because we can tell that it’s being said.  It’s dialogue.  Then I shifted the attribution to be beginning, like a script.  Like this:

Producer:  Call the carpenter!

The problem there was that it did not give me the same visual impact without quotation marks, but I didn’t like having the quotes with the name and colon because it just isn’t the right format.  By moving the quote after the title, it gave the dialogue more impact, which is what really drives this.  For me, it felt like a nursery rhyme, which is kind of what I wanted.

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108 thoughts on “#fridayfictioneers via rochelle – 1/11”

  17. Ha Ha Ha! I am still chuckling. 🙂 That was hilarious. Loved it. So lighthearted and fun. Keep them coming Rich. I am taking a break from FF for a few weeks while, healing from cataract and lens implant surgeries. But, still can’t take a total break from my writing so am trying to work on other posts and stories that I have not had enough time for.

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      • Uneventful in a good way. I started listening to an old Robert Ludlum book on CD and the scenery was great and gave me some pictures for this morning’s post. Looking forward to the history tour. 🙂

  22. whaaaaaaaa! Really fast paced and fun. I enjoyed it. Something upbeat and positive. (see what a positive outlook will do?)

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  24. Interesting. I think you’ve just invented a whole new style of dialogue attribution. Might get some getting used to, and probably only good for very short fiction. Bravely done, and a nice story too.

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  30. Nice one Rich, loved the fact that you were bold enough to take the ‘said’ out, it made the whole piece punchier and more lively. BTW, I’m ooking forward to your interview finally going up on the blog this coming Thursday too. 🙂

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  33. I really enjoyed the breakdown of your editing process. We all go through something similar, but few can describe the their process in such a manner as to be helpful to others.

    Great story, I could feel the crescendo building from the first note.

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    • the theory is that IF we right the dialogue correctly, we won’t need “shouted” or “exclaimed” or anything else because the dialogue will reveal that. thanks for reading.

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      • no, not just you. we have been trained to expect more for the assistance when reading. and i think writers feel the need to do it. what bugs me is when the thesaurus comes out in order to find more ways to say “said.” some of the best of the worst is in the “twilight” series. such as lines like “No,” Edward disagreed.

      • was not a fan of the books. i thought they were poorly written, but i more specifically mean poorly edited, not the story. too many sentences were “blah blah blah,” he said (adverb). things like “I’m not really sure,” he said abstractedly. some really stretched out adverbs. i had a long list and was going to make a blog post but lost the list.

      • I think most of us understand and, probably, have seen what you are talking about. She wrote it from a dream and for teens. When I watched the movies, I had to keep reminding myself of who the audience was to be. I enjoyed some parts of the story, but did not like either main character (actor/actress). She did a creditable job in “Snow White and the Huntsman” though.
        Scott

      • Do you mind if I add something here? I don’t care to use the word “said” that much when I’m writing either. Instead I try to tag dialogue with an action made by the speaker, if that makes sense. For example, “He shifted uncomfortable.” Or “He kicked the can at his foot.” It will up your word count but is often worth it when revealing your character’s emotion more clearly. Just my humble opinion.

      • I know we use “humble opinion” to be polite, but yours is a very worthy opinion and describe something that I try to do as well. I guess I am not so humble.

  40. Loved the story and the styling. All those saids would have weighed it down.
    How many more speaking characters can you squeeze into 100-words? 🙂

    Reply

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