This week: The Art of the Pick Up Line Edited by: Leger~  
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This week's Short Story Editor
Leger~ |
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Making Conversation - The Art of the Pick-Up Line
Your character's eyes meet across the crowded room. You're pretty sure they're attracted to one another, but how to get them to start dialog? They could brush against one another in a crowded room. He could ask her to dance. She could toss a drink in his face. She could take the bottom apple in the cart and start an apple avalanche. And there they are, face to face, what do they say? A cheesy pick-up line?
"Were you arrested earlier? It's gotta be illegal to look that good."
"Am I dead, Angel? Cause this must be heaven!"
"Can I take a picture of you, so I can show Santa just what I want for Christmas."
"If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put U and I together."
"Do you have any raisins? No? How about a date?"
"I hope you know CPR, because you take my breath away."
Turn to the girl sitting next to you at the bar and say... "I'm not really this tall....I'm sitting on my wallet."
"Did you fart, 'cause you blow me away!"
I told you they were cheesy! First impressions make a difference in how a character reacts in your writing, the same way they do in person. When starting a dialog between two characters it is important to know ahead of time if they're destined to be together. The conflict and resolution, or attraction and bonding should start at the beginning. Take the time before you write your meeting and think about where you want the relationship to go and how they should relate to one another. This will have a direct influence on what dialog you choose to write. If the girl doesn't have a sense of humor, a fart joke is going to repel her, be sure this is the reaction you're looking for. Keep your personalities consistent, what he thinks is funny one day will be on his top ten list the next. While choosing all your dialog, remember to cut most inane dialog out and write the most important exchanges.
Another tool to use with your characters is body language. Is she leaning toward him while he speaks to her? Does she fiddle with her hair? Does he stand in a wide stance or sidle in too close to her? This helps clue your reader into what emotional reaction is going to happen and if they will form a bond. The best way to learn about body language is to observe people, how they react in different situations and how they use body language to give non-verbal cues to emotion.
Then you'll know when it's time to have your character walk away or take her hand. Write on!
This month's question: What tools do you use to start a dialog between characters?? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback! |
Excerpt: The chill wind rises, frigid fingers poking at the roof’s thatch. Let us in … let us in, they whisper: playful, seductive, deadly.
Spring ignores them as she bustles about her cottage. She scarcely even notices, so familiar the play of seasons. Her time will come, soon enough, as it always does. For now, she rests safe at home, sitting by the warmth of ivy-covered hearth or relaxing in the warm water of the moss-lined pool that’s sunk into her bathroom’s earthen floor. Rests in her cottage like seeds in the soil, waiting out the cruel snows, waiting to bloom.
Excerpt: Ted wondered dimly when he'd get a bite of the corpse.
"So hard to find good meat these days," Marv sighed and bit into the arm, pinkish chunks bouncing down his cracked grey chin as he chewed. He grabbed a fistful of neck-flesh, twisted, and held the ripped, flapping morsel in front of his companion's
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Excerpt: “Who is she?”
As my lips parted in astonished awe, the words just slipped out.
I felt a nudge to my shoulder, followed by a familiar giggle. I turned to see a look of amusement in Rowena’s twinkling eyes. “You would pick right up on the new girl the moment she walked into class, Medea.”
Excerpt: Sirs:
In January of 2022, a New Jersey grandmother with some local influence, was summoned and escorted to a Jersey shore bungalow to attend a secret meeting. This is a report of the conversation we recorded.
Jeitka 44337163432949
Excerpt: Coral remembered the day, Sephora, The Queen Of Diamonds on Saturn, told Coral she was being sent to earth to protect the ocean and it's creatures.
| | | RACCY (E)
Our pet raccoon and Jake's friend. NOT the best pet in the world.
#2269741 by SSpark  |
Excerpt: Daddy was not in town, of course, when Mama somehow found out about a bunch of baby raccoons for sale. The people selling them lived in the country. We did not. But Mama didn't think that was a problem. Why would it be?
Excerpt: I guess I must have been about nine years old that one particular summer when Grandma Sary Holloway came to visit. Grandma smelled like spearmint. I always liked that smell, and me and Grandma got along just fine. She had her a cane she used to walk with, all bright and shiny, and made of hickory wood. Grandma had herself a sense of humor a boy such as myself liked mighty fine.
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Excerpt: Timbaweea is a dense jungle island off the coast Mozambique. Phenomenally, the island is the only place on Earth where an exceptional and elusive butterfly flutters: the most rare Heliotrope Major.
Excerpt: Hi, I'm David and I'll just use Welton for my last name in this story. Mornings had always been bad for me and this one was lousy.I awoke abruptly and rolled over in the bed, I was just a bit disoriented it wasn't my bed. My GOD... I thought but couldn't remember, did I go to a party or clubbing. As I sat up “Oh man,” a headache began throbbing through my head like the proverbial 5th battalion in an old war movie.
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This month's question: What tools do you use to start dialog between characters?
Send in your reply below!
Last month's "Short Stories Newsletter (February 2, 2022)" question: What questions do you ask your character to get to know them?
Osirantinous  : Hm, I don't ask my characters much at all. In fact, if I do, it's usually 'What the heck is your name?' after I've written several thousand words using X! Some will give me everything straight off and those that don't, I don't pester. Pestering means I won't get the answer or I'll get one that I know isn't true.
Paul  : I read stories I’ve written or stories by other authors and usually the block is broken rather quickly.
bryanmchunter: What I ask them:
"What are you most afraid of?"
What they tell me:
Ryan: "Thunderstorms."  
Alice: "Spiders." 
Brad: "Marrying Janet."  
elephantsealer  : That is rather new to me: ask my character to get to know them? Tell me, how do you go about asking your character so that you can get to him/her?
tj-turkey-jobble-jobble-hard-J  : This kind of boggles my mind. I created the character, so shouldn't I already know him/her? Maybe I'm just missing something?
flash : Favorites.
Favorite food.
Favorite video game.
Favorite color
Favorite day of the week
Ect...
~SilverMoonCranberry~  : It means to write the answers down to those questions because if you write often, especially in a novel, you may forget something important about the character.
Sparkette : They tell me, I don't ask them.
Nobody’s Home  : tj-turkey-jobble-jobble-hard-J , Sparkette , elephantsealer this is an exercise some writers use to help them create their characters - to help flesh them out. When I really want to know how a character would respond to different situations that are thrown at them, I sit down and basically interview them on paper.
Example, I'll write to my MC: What are you most afraid of? And then I write an answer from that character's point of view in his voice: "You mean other than public speaking or being left alone at a party without booze? Well, if I have to be honest, I'm really afraid of heights."
It can help if you get inside the character's head, so that when that character is running for his life and ends up at a cliff's edge with a very narrow, steep path down to the shoreline and enemies at his back, I know he's afraid of heights and that this scene is going to be harder for him than it might otherwise have been.
Savvy?
Paul : I’m an actor and I’ve done a hundred live theater stage plays, movies and industrial videos and the thing I learned was to “Become” the character. As an actor you NEVER want to “DO” anything, you have to become the character so your reactions to anything that happens on stage are what that character would do. Anyone who has ever worked theater will tell you that life on ‘Stage’ is very unpredictable.
When I write I try to Become each character and walk through the part, staging the scene as I go, then I let my mind try to slip on the character like a skin, modifying my thought patterns to be what the character would think. The dialog seems to come out, but I write it like it was a conversation that I have to edit into written dialog rather than spoken.
It’s a complex situation made easier for me maybe because I am an actor and I have 80 years of life trying to live with thousands of character over those years. I have many both good and bad experiences to call on.
THANKFUL SONALI Library Class!  : They don't stop still long enough to answer questions. They just run all over my plot, going 'wheeeeee'.
keyisfake : What's your goals?
How do you see yourself in 5 years?
Are you a violent man?
Do you have sex on the first date?
Do you come from a normal family?
Do you prefer a partnership in your relationship or Do you like to be in control?
Are you a top or bottom?
And so on...
TheBusmanPoet : Bugs bunny is my character. 
jdennis01jaj: Where have you been, what have you done, and why the heck don’t you fit?
Dhammika Weerasingha : Are you thirsty? Are you hungry? Are you tired?
Thank you, your comments are much appreciated! |
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Short Stories: March 30, 2022 Issue [#11289]
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