It isn't bad news as such; I haven't quite run of steam yet. As I am 'ahead of the game' though nowhere near finishing, I have taken the opportunity to do a little revising and polishing and looking for that gaping plot hole I fear may be lying around.
Such a luxury of re-reading allows me to re-evaluate what my characters are doing, and as a lot of my stuff is dialogue based (dialog for US readers) also check what they are saying. There is a tendency, if you are trying to press on with the story, for the characters to have all too brief conversations in which everyone effortlessly appears to understand what is being said.
There is a balance to be struck between action and reflection, or either side of some event both talking about what to do beforehand and discussing it afterwards.
Okay, re-reading takes time so I can do it for now.
And there's my next problem, right there: the use of the word OK or, as I write it, okay.
I have long held that okay is probably the world's most useful word. It is probably understood these days in just about every country and while the jury is out on where exactly the word "OK" came from (I subscribe to one theory, but won't bore you with it) there is no doubt it is an essential part of what could be seen as a common language. (Taxi, for what it's worth may be another)
But I do not know when okay came into everyday use in Britain. My Gemstone novel is Victorian steampunk set mostly in London, and I have to be careful when in hurry-conversation-and-get-on-with-it mode not to drop the word into formal language. I don't want my characters saying "My dear chap" and "Jolly good, old fellow" or any other vintage Hollywood Sherlock Holmes dialogue, so it's important their interactions are slightly precise but reasonably natural. Hence I am scanning the text for a stray 'okay.'
If you like, it's not okay for my characters to be saying "okay."
Jolly good, old chap. Carry on, what?
No comments:
Post a Comment