Yeah; well your writer cap is a big old help to me. Because you are right. People "talk" more through body language than words. Someone told me long ago not to worry about overuse of the word "said", that it was punctuation, not an actual word in the context of dialog. I always sensed that they were wrong, and back with my frothy horror drabble you showed rather than told me why. You made me go back and do it right until I got rid of the talky meat; and that was what I needed.

Not a Drabble, or even on topic, but here. For your amusement. Or mocking - which ever.

Bored - A Poem

Bored am I.
I am Bored.
Time needs to pass
more quickly, Lord.
There isn't enough
to keep me busy.
Customers are few;
I'm going crizizzy.
I'm usually swamped,
with cars to loan.
Today I have neither
and no ringing phone.
No book to read,
no emails need response,
so I compose this bad poem,
and keep my boredom ensconced.

Thankyewverymuch.

Sail, I have to confess....I don't understand what's going on in your drabble.

BWAH! Good morning, empress, and may I suggest one small change, for rhythmic flow?

Tep, the picture I got from Sail's was her and a guy, playing an ongoing video game, her being better at it than the guy was, her feeling the need to somehow excuse that she was better at it than he was.

The scores started diverging, she began apologising.

That was the picture in my head, anyway.

BWAH! Good morning, empress, and may I suggest one small change, for rhythmic flow?

Please.

That's what I got from Sail's drabble also, along with the idea that her trivia scores were going to make her unwelcome in the In Crowd.

Dialogue's tough. It's double-tough. Characters can't talk like people really talk (proven to me by recording every conversation around me for a couple days), and yet to be realistic they can't say exactly what they are thinking/feeling either.

"There isn't enough
to keep me busy.
Customers are few;
I'm going crizizzy.

For the scan (scansion?):

There's not enough
to keep me busy
few customers
I'm going crizzizzy.

Keeps the two-two rhythm. Why yes, I have been writing a book section dealing extensively with bembe drumming and the clave rhythms Bo Diddley made famous...

Characters can't talk like people really talk (proven to me by recording every conversation around me for a couple days)

Huh. Mine do. I read every chapter section aloud. Specifically in the Kinkaids, JP's voice is very much the voice of the man I remember, and I want it stone dead perfect, his voice. So far, so good; my friends and family who knew him are all agreed on that. My sister read a few paragraphs on London Calling, misted up, and said "That just really brings him back - I miss him."

So they can, but it's tricky.

I like that much better, Deb. Thank you.