I'm going to start needing to count back to figure out who's calling who impossible

The unabridged "Count of Monte Cristo" I have does this a lot, a full page of snappy dialogue with no attribution. I got off-track and was getting very confused about who was the closet Bonapartist and who was the anal-retentive, self-serving Royalist until I counted back.

Lack of balance is the real problem with writers guides. It's why I adore "Telling Lies" so much. His philosophy pretty much is, "Are you telling a good story? Are people eager to find out what happens next? Then don't worry about it."

Lyra, you may find amusing the case of Manuel Puig, who wrote several novels entirely in dialogue. He never specified who was talking, and never described what they were doing; you could only tell something had happened when one of the speakers mentioned it. You got to know these people solely by their words to each other.

It's an incredibly wonky, difficult thing to read, I should say. Wicked avant-garde, sometimes exciting, but difficult to read. (And Spanish editing marks don't even use quotes for dialogue, so it even looked odd on the page.)

I'd love to see Deb or Connie take on the Illuminati

The trilogy - Wilson and Shea's Illuminati trilogy, that is - is a corking fun read in my world. They really do it right, and what's more, they hit the horror behind the concept with precisely the two things that makes it bearable: sex, and humour.

Nutty, I sometimes wonder if that particular school of verbal clumsiness is literally a matter of a writer making it to point B, but either not bothering or else being incapable of point C: checking their own imagery. I mean, descriptives are not only valid, they're needed, but must they be so damned pinpoint? That's something I'm careful about, mostly because, for me, as Mama Sensualist, I want the physical descriptive to have the hint of poetry or music about it. And I want it portmanteau: making the reader sort through several images that may come up behind their own eyes.

So, "His eyes were the colour of a dark grey sky" makes me snort. "His eyes were the colour of the sky on a stormy day", though, brings up multiple images: stormy day along the Mediterranean, where it's shot with indigo and a kind of angry scarlet? Stormy day on the Great Plains, Big Sky country, with all those steely moments and moving clouds? Stormy on the western shore of Kauai, where the horizon is basically forever and you can't pinpoint where the colours begin to bleed together?

As a reader, I want that mystery in my own head. I want to be forced to sort through the images.

Lyra, this is why I break things with action. That dialogue block you quoted? Would lose me by line five, with or without "he said" or "she said". For me, it's just two people talking. There's no context; there's no setting. What are they doing? Is he a finger-tapper? Is she fidgeting, or playing with her jewelry? Are they meeting each other's eyes?

There's nothing in big blocks of pure dialogue to illuminate these people for me. I can't visualise them, and as a result, I don't care about them and the dialogue turns into an irritating blur, and I end up not reading the rest.

you may find amusing the case of Manuel Puig, who wrote several novels entirely in dialogue. He never specified who was talking, and never described what they were doing; you could only tell something had happened when one of the speakers mentioned it. You got to know these people solely by their words to each other.

That sounds kind of neat, but I suspect I couldn't make it through five pages of that without throwing it across the room in irritation.

I'd love to see Deb or Connie take on the Illuminati

She lumped me in with Deb. I love Teppy.

Well, while you have different writing styles, those styles both just sing. If it makes any sense, your writing doesn't make me aware that you're *writing* -- like "LOOK! I WILL NOW USE A METAPHOR TO POINT OUT THE ANGUISH THAT OUR PROTAGONIST IS IN!" It's much more like I'm getting pure story downloaded directly into my brain.

I hope that makes sense, because it's a total compliment.

Plus, on the Illuminati topic -- you and Deb just handle intricate, shadowy, often creepy topics very well, each in your own way.

(pimp) Teppy, have you read the Illuminai Trilogy? Because if you haven't, it makes the perfect antidote for Dan Brown.

And Teppy does nothing to make love her any less. I think I'll bookmark that post.

The trilogy - Wilson and Shea's Illuminati trilogy, that is - is a corking fun read in my world.

Illuminatus! (the exclamation point being part of the title). God, I love those books. POV, characters, location, and time can change mid-paragraph, chronology is fluid, imagery is acid-washed, and my brain is always breathless after I read it. I should have bought the "leather"-bound reissue that came out a few years ago, because my paperbound is falling apart. Hail Eris.

That dialogue block you quoted? Would lose me by line five, with or without "he said" or "she said". For me, it's just two people talking. There's no context; there's no setting. What are they doing? Is he a finger-tapper? Is she fidgeting, or playing with her jewelry? Are they meeting each other's eyes?

Exactly -- that was my point. "He said" and "she said" would at least save me from needing to count back to figure out who said what, but that's only a modest improvement compared to what you could do with "he smirked" or "she paced the room, drawing her shawl closer around her." Or whatever.

Here's honorh's Buffy-Angel Fanfic University on the subject:

Sure enough, in less than a minute, ‘Buffy’ and ‘Angel’ had become identical, androgynous figures of medium height, with longish, light brown hair and genderless clothing. Alix froze the two, then looked toward the rows of seats. “So, who called that out? You? Okay, next time raise your hand and wait to be recognized. But, since you were the first to catch it, maybe you can tell me what caused it.”

“I’m thinking …” It was MegaSilver, speaking slowly, but as if still analyzing rather than from uncertainty. “I’m thinking that might be because there was no ‘he said, she said’ at all.”

Alix nodded, smiling. “Very, very good. He’s hit it dead-center, boys and girls. This is what happens if you have a conversation between two people without any internal tags to let the reader keep track of who’s speaking. After awhile, you can’t tell them apart. And keep in mind, the same thing can happen with two persons of the same gender — two women, let’s say — even if you do include vocal attributions; then it’s ‘she said, she said’ and you still don’t know which is which. So, use a name every now and then, or interrupt the speech with some action within the paragraph to show who’s doing the talking.”

Teppy, have you read the Illuminai Trilogy? Because if you haven't, it makes the perfect antidote for Dan Brown.

I have not, but I'm going to have to look into them -- they look very intriguing.