The Journeyman

ALTHOUGH -- Mark Twain did an oustanding job of conveying dialects. He is an exception. His ear was dead-on. It does make his dialog a little hard to read, but once you get in the rhythm of it, his wriiting is so elegant that it carries you along. Of course, it got him in huge trouble, and actually continues to even now. His portrayal of Jim's accent is heavily criticized as being racist. Actually, Twain (Samuel Clement) gave everyone an accent. Truth be told, his portrayal of Huck's accent isn't very flattering, either. But it does create a sense of time and place. I think the rest of us need to be minimalist in our approach to dialect. I was just rereading something I did, and I cringed when I read a few passages where I gave in to the temptation. It's jarring and awkward. Word selection and word order are the most important. If we know the character is a California teenage surfer dude, we know it's pronounced "dewd" -- It doesn't have to be spelled that way. If we know he's a Minnesota (or Canada or Wisconsinn or Michigan or North Dakota) snowboarder dude, we know it's "dood". Our own minds will make that adjustment. It isn't easy, but we can create natural-sounding dialog appropriate to the age and region using normal spellings. Journeyman

Yup, I agree with y'all. It's far easier to say, "I'd love to take you to my bedroom," he drawled in that cute Texas accent of his," than to write, "Ah'd luv to tike yew to mah bay-ed-rume." But dialog is tough to write in the first place. I think that's one of the attractions of your stories, Dom. Your dialog is realistic. It sounds like teenagers -- well, educated teenagers, at least. And there's a lot of it. A story need some paragraphs of description now and then, but what really moves the story, and what is really attractive to the reader, is good, interactive and expository dialog. Journeyman

This was an excellent story. I really got annoyed with Quinn, though. He seemed to follow a model that a lot of teen-age coming out stories follow -- everyone is afraid to talk to anyone else for fear of offending them. Thus secrets are kept and misunderstandings are deepened. Quinn wasn't quite that bad; his reason for secrets was, rightfully as it turned out, his mother. I can't blame him for that. And I did like the fact that Quinn was very, very teen-age. His sexual confusion, his overall confusion, his hormone-caused confusion was very true to form. So while I was annoyed with him, it was because I am a parent myself, and I recognized the pattern. I was even more annoyed with his mom. She was close-minded and negative, totally distrustful and downright mean at times. Sure signs of her own insecurity. Anyway, Dom, you have written an excellent story. I'm eager to get on with DD. And although I didn't tell you before, I really enjoyed TLW, too. The Journeyman