Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2014-01-30 06:43 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2014-01-30 06:43 pm
[ SECRET POST #2585 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2585 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
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02.
[Monster High]
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03.
[Bryan Fuller, John Green]
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04.
[Star Trek: The Next Generation]
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05.
[Pretty Little Liars]
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06.
[Breaking Bad]
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07.
[Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey]
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08.
[Reign]
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09.
[Leviathan: the last day of the decade]
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10.
[Sherlock Holmes]
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11.
[Steam]
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12.
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 017 secrets from Secret Submission Post #369.
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.
Re: OP
(Anonymous) 2014-01-31 02:41 am (UTC)(link)This is an excerpt from Stephen King's On Writing which I think sums up Lovecraft's strengths and weaknesses pretty well:
Writers have different skill levels when it comes to dialogue. Your skills in this area can be improved, but, as a great man once said (actually it was Clint Eastwood), "A man's got to know his limitations." H. P. Lovecraft was a genius when it came to tales of the macabre, but a terrible dialogue writer. He seems to have known it, too, because in the millions of words of fiction he wrote, fewer than five thousand are dialogue. The following passage from "The Colour Out of Space," in which a dying farmer describes the alien presence which has invaded his well, showcases Lovecraft's dialogue problems. Folks, people just don't talk like this, even on their deathbeds:
"Nothin'... nothin'... the colour... it burns... cold an' wet, but it burns... it lived in the well... I seen it... a kind of smoke... jest like the flowers last spring... the well shone at night... Thad an' Merwin an' Zenas... everything alive... suckin' the life out of everything... in that stone... it must a' come in that stone pizened the whole place... dun't know what it wants... that round thing them men from the college dug outen the stone... they smashed it... it was the same colour... jest the same, like the flowers an' plants... must a' ben more of 'em... seeds... seeds... they growed... I seen it the fust time this week... must a' got strong on Zenas... he was a big boy, full o' life... it beats down your mind an' then gets ye... burns ye up... in the well water... you was right about that... evil water... Zenas never come back from the well... can't git away... draws ye... ye know summ'at's comin' but tain't no use... I seen it time an' agin senct Zenas was took... whar's Nabby, Ammi?... my head's no good... dun't know how long sense I fed her... it'll git her ef we ain't keerful... jest a colour... her face is gittin' to hev that colour
sometimes towards night... an' it burns an' sucks... it come from some place whar things ain't as they is here... one o' them professors said so..."
And so on and so forth, in carefully constructed eliptical bursts of information. It's hard to say exactly what's wrong with Lovecraft's dialogue, other than the obvious: it's stilted and lifeless, brimming with country cornpone ("some pace whar things ain't as they is here"). When dialogue is right, we know. When it's wrong we also know--it jags on the ear like a badly tuned musical instrument.
Re: OP
(Anonymous) 2014-01-31 02:55 am (UTC)(link)--the same OP
Re: OP