{"id":937,"date":"2013-09-29T10:35:20","date_gmt":"2013-09-29T14:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=937"},"modified":"2013-09-29T10:35:20","modified_gmt":"2013-09-29T14:35:20","slug":"a-writers-ear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=937","title":{"rendered":"A Writer’s Ear"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Just finished Reading Elizabeth George\u2019s A Traitor to Memory<\/a><\/i>, one of her Inspector Lynley mysteries. (722 pages, by the way, which makes it practically a saga by today\u2019s standards.) What struck me most in the writing was the dialog, which moved front-and-center upon introduction of a secondary character, a young California woman. Until she spoke, I had fallen unawares into George\u2019s U.K. speech rhythms and word choices\u2014except for the odd \u201cboot,\u201d \u201cnappy,\u201d and the like. The contrast started me noticing how \u201cBritish\u201d everyone else\u2019s speech was.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just how Libby Neale speaks, it\u2019s what she chooses to speak about<\/i> that makes her so distinctively American. If something is on her mind, she says it. By contrast, the British characters are painfully reserved, which serves them well, because many of them are lying, anyway. Here are Libby and the main character, violin virtuoso Gideon Davies:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s up then? You don\u2019t look so great. Aren\u2019t you cold? What\u2019re you doing out here without a sweater?<\/p>\n

Looking for answers, I thought.<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cHey! Anyone home? I\u2019m, like, talking<\/i> to you here.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cI needed a walk.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cYou saw the shrink today, didn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s how the Gideon\u2019s violin teacher asks about the psychiatric visit, starting with a comment from Gideon:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were told to get me out of the house today.\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t deny it. \u201c[Your father] thinks you\u2019re dwelling too much on the past and avoiding the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI trust Dr. Rose. At least I trust Dr. Rose the father. As to Dr. Rose the daughter, I assume she\u2019s discussing the case with him . . . He\u2019s had decades of experience with the sort of thing you\u2019re going through, and that\u2019s going to count for something with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat sort of thing do you think I\u2019m going through?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what she\u2019s called it. The amnesia bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDad told you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would do, wouldn\u2019t he? I\u2019m as much involved with your career as anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the pace these two waltz around the subject, no wonder it took 722 pages to complete the story!<\/p>\n

After the breath of fresh Pacific Coast air that Libby brought to the conversation, I began noticing what a great job George does with dialog for all her characters, and not just the familiar contrast between Inspector Lynley (8th Earl of Asherton) and his working-class partner, Constable Barbara Havers. This story contains an East German refugee who has perfected her English accent, but not quite mastered word order, lower-class accents of two young toughs from the council flats, and a younger woman who speaks differently and more directly than her older lover of the same social class. None of them devolves into caricature.<\/p>\n

Going further, the characters\u2019 actions often reflect the same turn of mind that their words do. Libby goes off half-cocked, intuition leads her astray, and her last impulsive act detonates the book\u2019s conclusion. Careful language is appropriate to the characters taking time to get their stories straight. The precise German is putting her romantic ducks in a row.<\/p>\n

The slang in this book, published in 2001, will become dated as the years pass, but remains fresh twelve years on. Meanwhile, it feels like we\u2019re reading about real-live, unique individuals, with their own unique energy behind them, energy that leads to the actions only they would take. For a writer, inspirational, really.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just finished Reading Elizabeth George\u2019s A Traitor to Memory, one of her Inspector Lynley mysteries. (722 pages, by the way, which makes it practically a saga by today\u2019s standards.) What struck me most in the writing was the dialog, which … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,61,54,74,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-character","category-detective","category-emotions","category-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-f7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}