*(Or lack thereof...)
I am no great writer, and have no delusions of becoming one. I am simply a teller of a story, and hope that someone will find as much enjoyment of it as I have had imagining it. That said.......
Years ago, in my college days, I found myself in classes titled "English Composition," and "Creative Writing."
The "creative" in the above should be taken with a rather large grain of the ionic compound we know as sodium chloride. We the students were issued (or rather, forced to purchase) this book called the "Brief Holt Handbook." You'll find much to teach yourself about proper grammar and composition in this tome.
You will find damned little which has anything to do with how real human beings actually communicate.
People do not speak in paragraphs. They do not speak in proper sentences, they may ramble or halt a statement/line of thought before it is completed. Everyone will speak in a different and unique way. This is caused by their individual nature, and is perhaps one of the greatest things that exists. We are a diverse race of sentients, and it shouldn't be any other way.
We are told, do not end a sentence with a preposition. Why is this? Normal people commonly do so in everyday life. If you haven't encountered 'improper grammar', please, go outside, enjoy the sunlight and the fresh air, and say "How's it going?" to your fellow human. Chances are, they're as lonely as the rest of us, and will like to chat with you, regardless of your grammar.
Consider the following: a hardened mercenary, who has seen his fair share of death and destruction, of backstabbing and bloodletting, comes up to you one fine day. He looks dishevelled. His pistol has recently been fired, the smell of gunpowder hanging about him. You ask, "Are you alright?" He responds, "Yes, I am alright, despite a difficult life."
Yeah, right. A more realistic answer for this man might be, "Shit no, I ain't alright. The f*** rock you crawl outta under? Everyone's out to kill my ass."
Granted, there are more 'normal life' examples of realistic speech, but you get my point. Also, try actually reading some of the lines written in novels aloud. Some stuff that looks good on paper sounds really weird aloud. This author, at least sometimes, speaks lines aloud if he considers them important. If it sounds right for what I intend, I write them.
A brief note now for the faint of heart and/or excessively pure: people swear. The character of Reeve, at least, cusses like a sailor. The "F-bomb" is perhaps his most dearly beloved word. I've known people like this, and quite a few of them I've called my friend. That method of speaking isn't my personal favorite, but I represent it in my writing when I feel it is appropriate.
There are some things which may not make sense, either right away, or at all. This is intentional, and is simply an artifact of my characters, Tris in particular, being alive in my mind. They speak to me; I write their words.
A note about unconventional punctuation:: one thing I have noticed in my reading of novels is (and you may or may not share this feeling) that text is a poor purveyor of exactly how the character is feeling or speaking. It is both a wonderfully rich medium, but also terribly limited. In the 21st century, much communication is made via electronic mail or instant messaging. I for one know the misunderstandings that can come from simple text, without implication or feeling explained. There is NO SUBSTITUTE FOR FACE TO FACE COMMUNICATION! The eyes are truly windows into the soul. They speak more than the limited vocal emissions that homo sapiens has developed over its tumultuous history. And so, at least to my own satisfaction, I try to expand slightly upon conventional text to convey exactly what is going on with my characters, and what their inflection is. An exclamation point says "something is said with force or strongly." But what if someone asks a question?
"Are you serious?" <--- Is the character asking it calmly or incredulously?
"Are you serious?!" <--- The character is probably yelling the question.
"Are you serious???" <--- Asking the question with disbelief.
"Hi guys!" <--- A friendly greeting with a little excitement behind it.
"HI GUYS!!!" <--- She really is excited.
The ellipsis (. . .) I commonly use to represent a trailing off of thought or sentence, similar to aposiopesis. For instance, let's say Tris says "I wonder what they really want..." She is perhaps looking off into space, losing herself in thought. An addition of dots indicates a greater degree of mental drift into the unknown.
Twin dashes (--), (EXAMPLE: "What are you--") are indicative of a suddenly truncated or cut-off thought/sentence.
In closing, don't think I'm trying to butcher the English language. I am not. I am trying to convey accurately what my characters are thinking, feeling, and saying. And that, to me, is the most important thing I can do.
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