Characteristic Dialogue

[caliburncy at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 28838

Hi all,

Some quick (okay, not so quick--did you expect less from me?) 
responses:

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Cindy C." <cynthiaanncoe at h...> wrote:
> So to keep things going, let me ask a quick follow-up question
> about a tendency in one of my favorite characters.  Into what
> category do we put Moody's "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"?  Content?

Assuming we're still using my made-up categories, then I would put it 
under Quirks of Speech.  It's not a cultural thing (unlike idioms, 
dialects, etc.) nor really a sign of a Characteristic Train of 
Thought; it's just a habit peculiar to Moody himself (and maybe a 
former mentor of his?).  It's not quite Content, because what I meant 
by Content was simply whether the views espoused or topics discussed 
in the line seemed characteristic of a particular person.  For a 
rather obvious example, a line like "I hate my mother!" is, on the 
basis of content, unlikely to have been spoken by Harry, not because 
of an dialect or grammatical tendency, but simply because the view is 
not one that we associate with Harry.  That's all I meant by the 
content category really, which is why it got (deservedly) so little 
time devoted to it.  The patterns of content in a character's lines 
tells us a great deal about that character (thereby developing that 
character), but it does not develop a strong character *voice* 
specifically.  But I included it because it can and often is used as 
an indicator of the speaker of a line.

> Also, if the real Moody resurfaces, must he have exactly the same
> Characteristic Dialogue, or can JKR play with this?  One the one
> hand, it isn't realistic that the fake Moody mimicks the real
> Moody's Characteristic Dialogue perfectly.  On the other hand, he
> shouldn't be too different, I suppose, or he wouldn't have fooled
> everyone.  So how would an author balance these two competing
> concerns for Moody in OoP, and which sub-categories of
> Characteristic Dialogue would be the easiest to manipulate to
> strike this balance?

Well, all I can honestly say is that I am every bit as interested to 
see how JKR handles this as you are.  You are totally correct that 
there is a kind of balance to be achieved here, neither too similar 
in speech mannerisms nor too dissimilar.

Sad to say, I have no guesses about which categories are best to 
change to discriminate between the two, at least not any guesses that 
are worth sharing.

I actually suspect, interestingly enough, that there may be a bit 
more of a personality difference between Real!Moody and Fake!Moody 
than we anticipate.  I can't put my finger on why I think that, but I 
do.  I don't anticipate a vast and therefore unbelievable difference, 
but I do think they will turn out to have some more noticeable 
differences.  After all, Dumbledore is the only one at Hogwarts who 
knew Real!Moody well and even he probably didn't see Fake!Moody that 
often, except at staff meetings and perhaps mealtimes, in order to 
catch on.  But anyway, for example, I expect Real!Moody to be more 
eccentric and strange than Fake!Moody.  Maybe I just think he needs 
something alluring to separate him from Fake!Moody; I don't know.  It 
just seems to me that Real!Moody will need something a little new 
about him in order to be freshly appealing rather than rehash.  
Either that or he will have a small enough amount of time that it 
won't matter that he's Fake!Moody all over again.

And what justifies JKR's comment that "the real Moody is even cooler 
[than the fake one]"?  Perhaps it is just an 'author's line', because 
one does not admit that one's characters are not that cool, but if 
there really is truth behind it, then there must be something 
noticeably different about him.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Tabouli" <tabouli at u...> wrote:
> In fact, I'm almost tempted to ask the mods whether they can
> collect Luke's intelligent and fascinating analyses together and
> put them in the essay collection somewhere on the website (how's
> that for an outcome?).  Or has this been done already?

No, it hasn't been done.  About a month ago, I think, I did consider 
putting some stuff on my own personal home page, as it is 
quite "lonely" at the moment (I took down some old stuff).  So I 
wrote a welcome page and a (long, as always) introduction and that's 
about it.  The idea was to perhaps take some essays from here and 
heavily modify and expand upon them, and also to tackle some new 
topics, of course.  The main advantage to my mind, was the advantage 
of having HTML formatting at my disposal, and perhaps even using the 
ability to hyperlink to allow for more in-depth, 'sectioned' essays 
as well.  But it's a fair bit of work (not the HTML, the essay 
writing) so who knows if it will ever materialize.  Knowing me and my 
follow-through, uh, we'll see.

> My only worry with this sort of analysis is that I've got to keep
> it firmly out of mind when doing my own writing, otherwise I'll get
> self-conscious (oops, I shouldn't use spelling to suggest a
> dialect, that's now politically incorrect and passe, and what
> idioms can I give this character?), and my characterisation will
> start to get contrived and clunky.

I couldn't agree more.  May I please recommend to all the writers on 
this list that they realize my comments usually deal with the 
*analysis* of things that are already written, which involves an 
entirely different process than the act of creation and often even of 
rewriting? This is why I know many fantastic English teachers who are 
not nearly as skilled at teaching creative writing.  Creative writing 
can be taught to some extent (though not by me!), but is ultimately 
the result of selective synthesis of the things we are exposed to.  
So you don't have to consider my analyses or guidelines when writing 
yourself.  I can tell you from first hand experience that there is 
nothing more stifling.  Let yourself *write*, don't edit . . . then 
perhaps you can take a look at what I (or others with better advice) 
seem to suggest when you go back to *rewrite*.

Of course, if you're like me and heavily editing while you write 
seems to work for you, then go ahead and do it.  Just be wary that 
you don't get in your own way.

It's more important to use these kinds of analyses to make yourself 
conciously aware of what constitutes good craft and technique than it 
is to use them as a kind of roadmap for emulating and creating your 
own good craft and technique.  Sadly, it just doesn't work that way, 
in my experience, or believe me I'd be rich and famous by now, 
standing on the shoulders of all kinds of literary greats.  So would 
many of you.

Oh, and by the way, you *can* still use misspellings to suggest 
dialect without an editor balking at it (or reader, but at the end of 
the day it seems to be the editors that matter when it comes to these 
writing pseudo-rules and standards).  But it's usually expected for 
you to do it in more moderation now, unlike the Huck Finn example I 
gave.  The ulimate point is: how hard is it to translate?  Because 
ultimately that's what the reader is doing.  Too much effort to 
translate and the reader is likely to get frustrated, that's all.  
This is, in fact, one of the reasons why dropped 'g's and the end 
of '-ing' are so acceptable.  Not just because we've seen them so 
much, but because it's so easy to assume that a 'g' is what goes 
there.  What other letter works on the end of "interestin'"?  But a 
change like "doan" requires more concious effort to translate and, in 
fact, can sometimes hardly be done without studying context 
(it's "don't", by the way, in case you didn't figure--at least in 
Huck Finn, but I could use it in a different context and make it a 
substitute for "doing" . . . so, you see my point about translation).

To this end, Hagrid's accent, for all it's implied thickness, is 
pretty straightforward to translate, really.  The other accents in 
GOF sometimes require a bit more conscious attention to put back into 
readable English.

-Luke