[ SECRET POST #3674 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3673 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #525.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

08. http://oi63.tinypic.com/2n4u2c.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Ha, that's true, OP. In all fairness, a lot of "bad dialogue" is relatively realistic dialogue. Teenagers (well, adults, too, but let's pick on teenagers) say the most cliche, melodramatic crap. I know I did!

+1

[(Anonymous)]

And, wow, if you've ever read a transcript of a real-life conversation, doesn't matter between which people, it's just a mess - the verbal stumbles, the backtracking, the mispronunciations, the filler words ("like", "you know", and um), the repetition, and on and on.

[(Anonymous)]

Man, this makes me glad my parents never trashed my reading choices. They were happy as long as I was reading something.

But yeah, I think a lot of what gets criticized as melodramatic writing is actually kinda realistic. I dunno about anyone else, but if something shocking or horrible happened, my thoughts would not be elegant and probably not even coherent.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't blame you, I'd want to confront her about it too.

Dialogue is tricky but even more so when writing teen characters. They aren't eloquent and they don't even think the same way adults do. They have a different sense of time and make connections adults don't but completely miss connections that are immediately obvious to adults. They have different values but can be surprisingly deep and empathetic and still be so shockingly shallow and self absorbed that their parents want to scream. Capturing that from a teen viewpoint as an adult is extremely difficult and rare.

And yes, much of what gets trashed is realistic.

I'm left wondering: what did she expect you to read instead?

[(Anonymous)]

i bet she had a stash of trashy romance novels hidden away that she would've vehemently denied reading or enjoying.

[(Anonymous)]

I get thinking that as an adult, but I'd bet good money that your mother's reading material wasn't any more sophisticated when she was a teenager. At any rate, mocking you was shitty. If she was truly concerned about the quality of your books, she should have encouraged you to read widely and bought you more reading material.

[(Anonymous)]

Wish you could have recorded one of, say, her phone conversations sometime. Dialogue as spoken and dialogue in media can be very different, but I feel there's nothing wrong with injecting some "what-somebody-really-would-have-said" in with the flowery, correct language of the written word. :p

I remember originally reading "The Vampire Dairies" when I was the target audience, too. I also remember that Elena's reactions felt very genuine to me as a teenager. I mean, that's exactly what would even probably come out of my mouth today!

[tabaqui]

The only reading my parents (my mom) ever said anything about was when i was reading my brother's 'Gor' books. And - quite frankly - i'm a little surprised she didn't insist i quit.

It's crappy that your mom did that. I told Elf i thought Twilight was poorly written, but i was glad she was enjoying it. She thinks its dumb now but yeah - then, she was all over it.

[(Anonymous)]

That's really mean of your mother. I bet most of her books weren't any better, especially if she likes highbrow literary fiction.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with everyone else.

That said - I was super into The Vampire Diaries books back in the day (the original books, pre-TV Show and the newer books). And loved them ...they may not be genius writing and the author has sort of gone off the rails. But there is actually a great world and character there.
Never really got into the show based on all the changes to the series.

[sadiesockmonkey]

I feel you, OP. I'm sorry your mom did that.

I just read Smith's first Night World novel this last year, and that was largely the same. It's not perfect, but it's really enjoyable, and she does capture the essence of what a teenager would be thinking or feeling in those situations.

[diet_poison]

Yikes, your mom sounds like a jerk :/ Hopefully it was an isolated incident.

Elitism is pretty annoying, but even more so when it's applied to kids