Holly Lisle's THE WRITING CRAFT: Dialogue -- Episode 1: Dialogue and Subtext
I’m delighted to announce that I finally got my act together and put up Episode One of
THE WRITING CRAFT: Dialogue, which is
Dialogue and Subtext.
Have tested everything, it all works, and you can check it out now.
This is the first time I’ve done a pure video course (though naturally it includes worksheet and transcript as well), and I’m delighted with the way it’s coming together.
Each episode stands alone, and you’ll be able to buy only the ones that interest you, or eventually, whole sets.
Future episodes in this 8-part series will be out as close to monthly as I can make them—but I am deep in novel now, and reserve the right to focus on Dreaming The Dead as necessary to do it right.
I hope you’ll find Dialogue and Subtextenlightening, helpful, and fun.
And I hope you have a great weekend. Back Monday.
This is a contest for everyone, basically. If you can legally enter the contest where you live, and if you have a PayPal account (or your parents will accept prizes at theirs), you can play. You can even play if you don’t qualify—you just can’t win.
All the details are on my new site:
I wrote this and liked it. It’s a bit after the last snippet, but not so much that you can’t ellipse the missing action and figure out things have not gone well.
| NOTICE: This material is copyrighted, unedited raw first draft, probably buggy, possibly not even going to be in the final book. Do not quote or repost anywhere or in any format. Thanks. |
The dragon said, “It was quite clever on their part. And sure as sunrise in the morning. Because no one who walks into my lair walks back out. The bones of my victims line the passages, and the screams of the sacrifices who have been thrown to me echo still through all these chambers. Your deaths will end a lot of people’s plans, and bring joy to some nasty fellows.”
“But,” I said. “But. You know the truth. And you do not sound like you love the rich old men and all their power. Surely you’ll let us go.”
“Surely I won’t,” the dragon said. “If any lived who had walked into my domain, do you think humans or nightlings would still fear me? Do you not think they would then send in hunters to kill me for my skin, and meat, and bones. Do you not think a pack of them would sneak in here intent upon claiming my head to hang above their fireplaces, forever after to have the bragging rights for having killed me?”
His head lowered until it lay almost on the floor, and he said, “None who walk into my lair walk back out. None. Not even little human girls who have my sympathy. “
His great jaws gaped wide, and he roared to deafen us both. We screamed. Oh, Spirit and little gods preserve me, but I screamed until I was sure my throat would tear itself apart. I was in his mouth, his teeth a cage around me, and Catri was with me. His tongue pushed at me, at her, and I toppled into a great bag of skin I thought must be his stomach, and Catri was gone. I kept screaming. Screaming, and flailing. I had my dagger yet, and I tried to stab anything, anything.
I did not even scratch him. Catri was gone, though I could hear her screaming, too. And beyond the gaps between the dragon’s teeth, which the light around my neck still showed me, I heard cheering from a distance.
The cheering of men and monsters.
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