Dialogue Discussion/Debate: People don't talk like this.

Kid geniuses who speak like highly educated adults are annoying, but that's really how they talk.
Grandmothers who curse (like Jay Leno's The Fruitcake Lady) are funny because they shock.

There's probably a big psychological explanation of why people feel the need to have others conform, but with fiction, I think there's creating unique, memorable characters--and then there's making them believable.

There are two reasons someone would give that feedback:

1) They have a limited imagination as a reader;
2) The writer didn't make it believable in the story.

Not having read the story in question, it's hard for me to know which is the case.

I spoke like that at 13. And my friends make fun of me for using big words in instant messages. My characters tend to be older than they actually are, mostly because their situation calls for it.

But you're never going to be able to correct people who insist they know how someone speaks/acts. Most people don't even believe my age when they meet me because I seem so much more mature. I even had to pull out my license once when an older woman kept calling me a liar.

I think the main issue here is the more your character deviates from "the norm" (as expected by that particular reader), the harder you (the author) must work to convince the reader that the character is plausible.

Sometimes, a character will succeed for one person while failing miserably for another. Different readers, different expectations.

The hard part then, as an author, is telling when your character has crossed over the intangible line of being implausible to the audience you are aiming at.

Agree? Disagree? Like apples?




-Michelle

Why are we spending time talking about another writer's crit? For all we know, the writer is already incorporating the suggestions (or not, as he/she sees fit) from the crit and has moved on.

To make precocious children work, in my experience, they need that combination of intellectual maturity and emotional immaturity.

I think the writing may not have come across well in context

when my son was two he was using words like apparantly in context

when he was four I had to explain about gravity.

When he was eight he came up with an idea for travelling to a parallel universe that, while not actually possible (at the moment), I may well incorporate into a story

Today, at age nine, he said he wouldn't do something unless it was mutually beneficial. And we had to explain the concept of communism and how power corrupts etc...


He's not that unusual for a kid his age, ( we do talk about stuff a lot though). Most of his friends have a similar vocabulary. A kid at twelve could, quite easily, use those words.


Either the writer didn't make his character clear enough. Or the critters know no one under the age of ohhh twenty five. I believe it's probably the former.

BlueLucario said:

When people say, "people his age don't do this" "An 94 year old lady does not know how to use an I-Pod." "A twelve year old does not talk in such a formal mature way."


Thoughts?

Click to expand...

My husband's 84 year old Grandma had never used a cell phone in her life, but she picked up my iphone, and as soon as I unlocked it, she made a phone call with no help. She also figured out the camera and picture viewing functions on her own. She was a secretary, not a rocket scientist.

My point is that life never happens the way people think it should, or expect it should. That's what so cool about it. Ignore closed minds and generalized assumptions

BlueLucario said:

Unless they were that kid's age at least five years ago, then they shouldn't stereotype.

Click to expand...

Unlees you've been anything you shouldn't stereotype. Even if you have you shouldn't stereotype. But it happens.

My point was, the writing either wasn't clear enough OR you have a bunch of people who stereotype for a living. Probably the former.

Close minded critiques are the worst...

Topic: Stereotypes in Writing (Particularly Characterization).

Question: Can you break them without jarring the reader, or will reader preconceptions always come into play with your writing?

Answer: Yes

Thread done

Person A can write anything he wants. If Person A puts it up for critique, likewise Person B can say anything he wants about A's writing. If A has done his job well, B might have little to criticize and be full of compliments. If A hasn't done his job well, B knows something's wrong with it. If he's inexperienced as a writer or critter, he might not know what's wrong with it but he'll pick something obvious, like the precocious language of the protagonist. There might not be anything intrinsically wrong with the young character using big words but the writing isn't good enough to make him believe it.

And so it goes. There's nothing wrong with a 12-year-old using big words. When I was 12 I had a huge vocabulary. Not a lot of friends, but a HUGE vocabulary.

The dialogue might seem unrealistic to any given reader because of that reader's limitations. Or it might seem unrealistic because of the limitations of the dialogue itself.

There is no piece of writing that has 100% approval, after all. Many people find Cormac McCarthy's dialogue terse and gritty. I find it silly. Obviously, Cormac McCarthy could not give one metric tinker's fart about my opinion.


Part of being a writer, in my opinion, is learning how to separate signal from static in other people's reactions. On the other hand, it's not always static. I'm reminded of Carl Sagan's great comment:

...the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Oh, and let's not forget that critiques are opinions. Not facts.

If the kid's parents work for NASA then I think its more then believable that he would use long "intelligent" words for his age if his parents work for one of the top scientific organizations in the world. Childern reflect the people around them. If he was raised among scientists, then he would use the same language they do, because that's how he was raised. In Star Trek Voyager a child is born on the ship in season two. She is raised on the vessel, the only child in a crew of 200 adult humans and aliens who are scientists. By the time she is four she speaks like a mature young adult and is deeply involved in science and maths. Its all how they're raised.

My friend's little sister goes on short honeymoons with new words she likes. One week, it was "facetious." Next, she loved "abominable." It was strange to hear her say "I was being facetious" instead of "I was joking," but she's a smart girl so it ended up just being annoying.

She was nine at the time, which actually means nothing. Kids speak as they are taught to speak. The sons of my Episcopalian rector talk like they're performing surgery with dull knives. One of them used "ineffable" the other day in place of "unspeakable." He said, "I know the right context for it, so it doesn't matter that I don't know the definition of it." Except he replaced every word he could with a longer one.

Point is, long words aren't a sign of True Genius. Real geniuses (and I see that character conveniently just passes for one, I.Q.-wise) know how to explain things in simple terms—like Prof. Stephen Hawking, who wrote A Brief History of Time. I would suggest that book for anyone wanting to write smart characters.

I was a precocious child, but my mother never let me be ridiculous. Thank God for her; I was firmly tethered to the ground. I'm not a Genius, as far as the oh-so-important I.Q. test, but I do qualify for MENSA (like that's something to brag about anymore!). That said, I didn't use long words, but I knew what they meant. But I could talk to people and ask them intelligent questions. Somehow I've lost the knack of talking to others, but I still got the right questions.

However, I'm linguistically and creatively gifted. Logical people have different opinions about words (Lojban, anyone?), so I suppose my wall o' text wouldn't be very useful. They tend to value numbers more, including Number of Words in Vocabulary (and how many times you can say them all).

I knew a 174-I.Q. Physics major, back when I had no choice but to interact with idiots like him. All other sciences were ridiculous compared to Physics; all subjects other than science and mathematics were laughable and not worth discussion. If your I.Q. wasn't over 150, you were an idiot, of course. He was an empty person. It sounds like the writer is trying too hard to prove that his character is SMRT, or the character is trying too hard. Otherwise, it would feel natural, and people wouldn't bring it up.

I remain,
The only person who used lolcats in this discussion,
Entirely devoted to the cause of LOLnglsh,
And generally less fun than I let on,
Q.

The Disney movie Genius has a 14 yr old discussing graviton gibberish to a professor and showing him up a little...

I don't see why Disney can get away with it and you can't =)