RARA-AVIS: dialogue

From: Charles and Betty Shafer ( CShafer@chipsnet.com)
Date: 19 Mar 2001


I'm reading All The Pretty Horses.

I know, it sounds like a mushy love story, but no, it's a hardboiled 1940's Lonesome Dove kind of western. Excellent, except towards the end the writer takes a major character into this long explanation--which, I suspect, he's using to pass along his own ideology.

Kind of ruined it for me. I mean, that stuff is okay for non-fiction, but I like fiction simply for its entertainment value.

Another thing. The writer doesn't use quotation marks, and in many cases leaves out apostrophes, too. For example, doesnt, and shouldnt. The crime novel, Run, doesn't have quotation marks, either. In that book I had a difficult time separating dialogue from narrative, but for some reason had no problem with All The Pretty Horses.

One thing. Seems to me, a writer who submits a manuscript with such lack of grammar, is either super confident or mighty silly, because anyone who writes knows how difficult it is to get a even the most perfectly manicured manuscript published.

Charlie Taylorville, IL

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