PDA

View Full Version : Dick & Jane



Magoo2
July 13th, 2009, 11:15 PM
Stephen King
Re: Dick and Jane Exercise
In 1982 my career choices were: law school or a playwriting (Ph. D. program) Law school was a full ride, no debt gig. The theatre program, not so. I was warned by my Advisor that if I went to law school, they would smash the “real writer” in me (whatever that was) to smithereens. Nawww, I said. That’s just silly. Law school it was. I just can’t do starving. So, I’ve eaten quite well these past couple of decades, turned myself into an excellent legal writer, but could not write dialogue for **** – Ok, well it was ****.
Anyway. Last week, I read this how-to divorce book, thought I could do it better and started A Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to Divorce. In addition to the law stuff, it contains a bunch of client’s stories, a few with almost happy endings. I’ve no experience writing stories. However, it was writing itself at a furious pace. Suddenly stories are popping out of my head like seven year locusts, consuming everything in their path.
Since whatever this is, is nutz, I thought of you. I found On Writing waiting for me at the library. You’re suggestions fit me, my style – philosophy. The Pong my Ping really needed. Freed from whatever was holding him hostage, my muse is working me hard, making up for lost time.
Dick & Jane are great, great fun. My Jane was in reform school for lighting fires. She hates her name and it has something to do with why she lights fires. The story starts when she’s 19 and released. My (your?) Dick is a bank examiner with a magnetic personality he neither understands nor wants. Muffy, roll with me here—tells Jane her name is dull, so Muffy changes Jane into Z-girl. Z-girl and Dick meet first on a bus, then again at the bank he’s audidting – after Muffy , stalker of the first order, finds him for Z-girl who wants to find him, but lacks the guts to do it. Life’s a lark for Muffy.
Jane is now whispering in Z-girl’s ear. Not sure what she’s saying, at the moment, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good for Dick. Somebody, (right now, I’m feeling like it’s Muffy,) is going to burn that house down – probably because she’s really the stalker. But, I haven’t quite gotten that far.
I’m having a simply marvelous time. Your book (On Writing) has been a great inspiration. I wonder if my muse is your book. Hmm.
Zestfully, (seems an appropriate word at the moment)
Kay Tracy

Mr Nobody
July 15th, 2009, 10:18 AM
Welcome back to the land of fiction writing! Though 'tis a poisoned chalice and foul. :wink2:

Convincing dialogue is very hard to do, perhaps because it's such a key part of character. Alternatively, if you understand your characters very well, you may find their voices just popping into your head, having their say. Isn't it great when it happens, though?

If you're interested, there's a Writer's Group waiting in the Social Groups once you have enough posts up. Hang out here and then join up, the more the merrier. We don't bite (well, I don't, anyway).

Best of luck with the book and new-found stories. :smile2:

Magoo2
July 16th, 2009, 07:18 AM
I'm posting away -- hoping to be able to do just that! I'll get there eventually.

curtis.han
July 28th, 2009, 11:14 PM
While I was trying to write this story, I wonder why didn't Dick found out Jane's mental disorder while they are dating. I mean you said that the plot is Dick found out Jane's mental disorder after they are married but in real life if a person know that the person you are dating has mental disorder he or she wouldn't date that person anymore so how can they be married? and if their parents sign them up for match maker and they met together they will still date won't they?

Lottus
April 19th, 2010, 06:31 PM
While I was trying to write this story, I wonder why didn't Dick found out Jane's mental disorder while they are dating. I mean you said that the plot is Dick found out Jane's mental disorder after they are married but in real life if a person know that the person you are dating has mental disorder he or she wouldn't date that person anymore so how can they be married? and if their parents sign them up for match maker and they met together they will still date won't they?

I really liked your comment. I know this is fiction, but still I am a fun of realism. And I guess that is, what makes this exercise so succesfull. A man beating his wife is normal. But why would a man be beaten by his wife and just put up with it? In a real world that would almost never happen. So here is the intersting part. How to make it seem true. How you will set up a world, where the poor husbend is the one who is abused. Can you do it?