Scene Assistance (Dark and Scary)

SakuraReyna · Feb 22, 2012

Avalon Port Park was littered with decaying human bodies and damp earth. The scent of blood was at its heaviest in the air.
" All this needless death--" Celestial said.
"...Is a lovely warning disguised as a message," a voice said...

Excuse the skimpiness on the details. Is the context before that last bit of dialogue revealing enough of the atmosphere to leave it as it without the extra periods? I want to see if I need to describe the voice of the character. He's one of the main villians, pure darkness and evil....Or should I add more to the scene first?

mirandashell · Feb 22, 2012

It's hard to say from such a small snippet. We have no idea who is who or what is happening.

Best thing to do is post this and the surrounding stuff in Share Your Work.

Gatsby · Feb 22, 2012

Hmmm...What I would do personally, is try a more descriptive tag line. ("a voice hissed"; or "a voice writhed out of the darkness" ?? Just a thought.

quicklime · Feb 22, 2012

Gatsby said:
Hmmm...What I would do personally, is try a more descriptive tag line. ("a voice hissed"; or "a voice writhed out of the darkness" ?? Just a thought.

I'm going to disagree...."said" is usually your friend. "Usually" is probably well in excess of 95% of the time.

edit: look it up, there are probably at least three "said" dialogue tag threads in the first five pages of Basic Writing Qs and the Novel section here.

quicklime · Feb 22, 2012

SakuraReyna said:
Avalon Port Park was littered with decaying human bodies and damp earth. The scent of blood was at its heaviest in the air at its heaviest as opposed to what or where? Are you saying the scent was heaviest in the middle of the park, or heaviest it has even been, or do you mean the air was rank with it (the scent was really heavy, but not "heaviest" because what are you comparing it to that was of a lesser magnitude?) also, littered with damp earth, as in someone dug fresh earth and scattered it about? because that is what you are saying, but I'm not sure it is what you wish to convey..
" All this needless death--" Celestial said.
"...Is a lovely warning disguised as a message," a voice said...

Excuse the skimpiness on the details. Is the context before that last bit of dialogue revealing enough of the atmosphere to leave it as it without the extra periods? the periods don't convey "atmosphere" anyway. they convey a trailing off of the words I want to see if I need to describe the voice of the character. He's one of the main villians, pure darkness and evil....Or should I add more to the scene first?

as suggested, you may want to add about 200 words to either side, color the text you're really interested in differently, and ask for input in SYW. There has been a rash of "can i do that and not have my work stolen" lately, so just saying right off the bat: SYW is password-protected, no spam-bots or google-searches finding it or anything else; the only folks who see it there are people signed in at AW AND logged into the protected forum.

buz · Feb 22, 2012

I don't know that you need to describe the voice much (and I also think "said" is fine). Maybe some more scene-setting would help, but I also agree that this is a really small snippet and it's hard to tell.

SYW?

Gatsby · Feb 22, 2012

quicklime said:
I'm going to disagree...."said" is usually your friend. "Usually" is probably well in excess of 95% of the time.

*hangs head in shame*

I actually agree, and use "said" that 95% of the time. But that other 5% can be so much fun...

quicklime · Feb 22, 2012

Gatsby said:
*hangs head in shame*

I actually agree, and use "said" that 95% of the time. But that other 5% can be so much fun...

no worries, and it should be fun.

the problem is when every single passage gets a turbocharge until it looks like it was written by a squirrel on meth.....if you've even read some bad fanfic, you know what I mean. Every last person whines, pleads, mumbles, begs, spits, hisses....until you want to burn the book with them all trapped helpless inside

the problem with said is it is plain and invisible....the bigger problem with anything but said is it is highly visible, and often shoves its way out in front of the actual words spoken. On rare occasions, that's great. on others, better to have the plain that nobody really pays attention to than the bludgeon

p.s. welcome to the site, ex-wisconsinite

Susan Coffin · Feb 22, 2012

Why not post a complete excerpt down in SYW?

BethS · Feb 22, 2012

Just a suggestion--

SakuraReyna said:
Avalon Port Park was littered with decaying human bodies and damp earth. The scent of blood ~~was at its heaviest~~ heavy in the air.

" All this needless death," Celestial said. "It's--"

"--a lovely warning disguised as a message," a voice replied.

The last line bothers me. The warning and the message are the same, in this context. Therefore there's no disguise. Now if you said, "It's a warning disguised as an accident," it would make more sense.

jaksen · Feb 22, 2012

Not too bad, but did you mean the park was littered with damp Earth? As in Earth that has been dug up and thrown about? (Also known as soil?)

The Sandbox is a good place to post things like this - a brainstorming and help-me-figure-this-out sort of place.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 22, 2012

SakuraReyna said:
Avalon Port Park was littered with decaying human bodies and damp earth. The scent of blood was at its heaviest in the air.
" All this needless death--" Celestial said.
"...Is a lovely warning disguised as a message," a voice said...

?

No way of knowing without reading more. But isn't a warning also a message?

Sentosa · Feb 22, 2012

Gatsby said:
Hmmm...What I would do personally, is try a more descriptive tag line. ("a voice hissed"; or "a voice writhed out of the darkness" ?? Just a thought.

Have you ever actually hissed words? I've never been able to manage it. :flag:

buz · Feb 22, 2012

Have you ever actually hissed words? I've never been able to manage it.

Never seen Chamber of Secrets?

Susan Coffin · Feb 23, 2012

Sentosa said:
Have you ever actually hissed words? I've never been able to manage it.

I've not heard people hiss words either, but I've seen this "tag" used in published stories. It's like someone "breaathing" their words.

The best tags are he said, she said, and then adding appropriate action to show and not tell.

Architectus · Feb 23, 2012

There seems to be enough detail, but I would remove "was."

Decaying bodies and damp earth littered Avalon Port Park, and a heavy scent of blood moved in the sickly air.

SakuraReyna · Feb 23, 2012

Thanks everyone!

Sentosa · Feb 23, 2012

Susan Littlefield said:
I've not heard people hiss words either, but I've seen this "tag" used in published stories. It's like someone "breaathing" their words.

The best tags are he said, she said, and then adding appropriate action to show and not tell.

Definitely the way to go. (PS My boldface added)

Garriga · Mar 9, 2012

I like the description, but I would drop the ellipse.

“All this needless death,” Celestial said.

“Is a lovely warning disguised as a message,” a voice said.

Bufty · Mar 10, 2012

Then you totally lose the meaning of the dialogue.

Garriga said:
I like the description, but I would drop the ellipse.

“All this needless death,” Celestial said.

“Is a lovely warning disguised as a message,” a voice said.

Stacia Kane · Mar 10, 2012

Susan Littlefield said:
I've not heard people hiss words either, but I've seen this "tag" used in published stories. It's like someone "breathing" their words.

The best tags are he said, she said, and then adding appropriate action to show and not tell.

It is entirely possible to breathe words. It's a very breathy whisper, like forming a sigh/exhale into an actual word. Try it. Take a deep breath, and make the exhale into the word "Yes."

If you do it right it should sound like a sigh with the word "Yes" barely riding the top of it.

It also can be much quieter than a whisper, so works when even whispering would be too loud.

"Breathed" is a legitimate tag. I think I've only used it once or twice in published books, but it's not like "laughed" or "giggled," which are impossible. You absolutely can breathe words.

Garriga · Mar 10, 2012

Bufty said:
Then you totally lose the meaning of the dialogue.

I do not understand why there is a double hyphen (--), or a dash at the end of one line, and then an ellipses at the beginning of the other. This makes me think someone is interrupting Celestial’s speech, and the ellipsis tells me there are omitted words.

Britwriter · Mar 10, 2012

SakuraReyna said:
Avalon Port Park was littered with decaying human bodies and damp earth. The scent of blood was at its heaviest in the air. Heaviest in relation to what? How about heavy in the air?
" All this needless death--" Celestial said.
"...Is a lovely warning disguised as a message," a voice said... I don't like 'a voice said', it sounds odd. A voice by definition is saying something. I think 'said' needs to go. 'Came a voice' is clumsy, but I think you need to get the idea that a voice is heard, not that it 'said.'

Excuse the skimpiness on the details. Is the context before that last bit of dialogue revealing enough of the atmosphere to leave it as it without the extra periods? I want to see if I need to describe the voice of the character. He's one of the main villians, pure darkness and evil....Or should I add more to the scene first?

HTH.

Scene Assistance (Dark and Scary)

SakuraReyna

Writing once, twice, and forever.

mirandashell

Gatsby

Later that day I got to thinking...

quicklime

all out of fucks to give

quicklime

all out of fucks to give

buz

can't stop hemorrhaging emojis

Gatsby

Later that day I got to thinking...

quicklime

all out of fucks to give

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is

BethS

jaksen

Caped Codder

Jamesaritchie

Sentosa

buz

can't stop hemorrhaging emojis

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is

Architectus

SakuraReyna

Writing once, twice, and forever.

Sentosa

Garriga

Bufty

Where have the last ten years gone?

Stacia Kane

Girl Detective

Garriga

Britwriter