To: 
From: "Steve Oostrom" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com

>JM - Hmm. The accepted convention is that dialogue is ended with a close
quotation. There really should have been no confusion as to who was
speaking; so long as one was not employed, it's obvious that the same
person is still talking. I'm simply using the rules of punctuation and
expecting people to keep up. ;-)

The only problem being when the previous paragraph does not end with words
from the speaker.
Here's the passage in question:

     "I'm not sure who I should hate more," Erika grumbled.
"You or Matt."
     "I'd go with the latter-at least in this case. He said, and I quote, 'A
little "archaic asininity" might do Captain Donaldson some
good.'" Mantovanni arched a brow.
     "Have any idea what that means?"

Donaldson said the first sentence, and Mantovanni said the second.  Who
said the third?  The following paragraph implies Mantovanni said that, but
since the second line doesn't end with a quote, but with Mantovanni arching
his brow, there's no missing quotation mark to guide the reader, and so the
assumption is that Donaldosn would be speaking those lines.

>In addition, I've never had anyone say that, since my dialogue tends to be
distinctive character-to-character.

True, for those familiar with it, but if I just happen to jump in and read
this one story (now I'm hearing I should give "Athens and Sparta"
a read), I might not be so in with the flow of the characters and how they
speak, and I might miss the flow.

>I actually find the one paragraph per dialogue annoying. It lacks style and
flow.

On the other hand, I noticed in "The Cotillion" that splitting up
dialogue into a number of paragraphs, sometimes with thoughts and such in
paragraphs between.  This results in a large number of one-sentence
paragraphs, which disrupted the flow for me.  I'm taking this as Joe's
style of writing, and I'll accept it when reading "Liberty," but
I'm not anticipating trying that style anytime soon.  I've noticed this
tendency in the second "Dark Horizon" story too, where I am also
stopping and re-reading passages to figure out who says what.  In general,
the idea of putting one paragraph per dialogue by character is there
because it allows sustained dialogue between people without identifiers. 
This is so ingrained that Joe's style is not one I see in pro writing. 
It's just assumed--for me anyway--that a new paragraph means a new speaker.

>Let's be frank, here: You guys, by your own admission, just don't like the
whole Star Trek and erotica/romance thing. I must say, though, that you all
give very even-handed analysis for all that... and that even though I don't
always (or, in some cases, often) agree, it's appreciated

By reading more of Joe's blue-light specials and ignoring the rape scene in
"Nature of the Beast," I'm getting the impression that Joe in
writing his sex scenes is more restrained.  I realize I couldn't do that. 
If I threw in a sex scene, it would likely come across as being more
pornographic than erotic.  On the other hand, I'm not adverse to writing a
more romantic angle.  I see Mantovanni almost as a Kirk-like figure, the
kind with a girl in every port or on every ship.  There may be a sense of
attraction between him and Donaldson, but I don't see much of a
relationship, at least not in the beginning (or in the story itself, but I
guess other stories or upcoming stories might delve into this more).  In my
stories, I tend to play up the relationship angles a bit more, with
Thorpe-Matsubara and Hakamura-Tsonga to note the most common pairings on
the ship, or even the unrequitted attention Vorwoorts has for Dewuchun (and
if you've read "The Naked Reality," you know a sex scene was
strongly implied between those two, but not actually described).  I tend to
de-emphasize the sexual aspects.  I simply cannot picture Thorpe, for
example, being the kind of person that Kirk was in his heyday, and without
that aspect to his character, showing his sexual trysts (which ultimately
would be with just one person) simply wouldn't fit in with the stories.

Steve
The Universe Unbounded.

Visit "Star Trek: Athena" at http://ussathena.iwarp.com



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