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I KNOW WHAT YOU WILL SAY
Tuesday Mar. 24, 2015
Dialogue, writers know, requires conversation.
Characters must speak or be spoken for, tell their truths, or it isn’t a dialogue at all.
In fiction, writers make it up. In real life, we are all faux-writers, believing we know what people will or ought to say.
Thinking we know our characters, we speak from mental scripts, a social politics most prevalent with people we are closest to …
When those scripts are unhealthy, there is little aside from serious therapy to help. When unscripted, unexpected – we respond, whoever that speaker is, with real reactions to real comments rather than planned practiced expected reactions to expected commentary.
When we least expect, clarity arrives. We should listen.
There might be homework involved, some assigned reading and reporting back.
Good for us when we were students, good for us now.
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: -2C/28F, misty, robust walk uphill until I couldn’t walk uphill any longer, then back in the mist of 5AM, traffic warming up, as will this week (one more sleep and I’m Maui-bound!)
Reader feedback:
NO WITNESSES
An elderly friend kept a journal and wrote each day about a memory. As her memory faded she was able to read and recall and later her family read her journaled memories to her, PL, Calgary, AB
Have a great holiday and PS great writing as of late. Really enjoy reading your column, SP, Calgary, AB
THIN AIR
Reflections galore...your column Saturday, Mar 21st. Nothing to add to your musing; but something sparked an image in my mind. “Gusta found every puddle and came back soggy.” We have a new Lab/Jack Russell Terrier mix puppy. She has discovered the pond this week and is getting up her courage to jump right in and swim, swim, swim (that would be the Lab). We are on the third day and are up to the base of the tail in water. So she comes back half soggy from her new adventures in water land. Too much fun! GW, Bon Wier, Tx
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