Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Deadwood

Deadwood

My wife bought the Deadwood Series that played on HBO for several seasons and I thought it was extremely well done.

First of all were the voices of the characters. Unless I make a concerted effort on the second draft my characters initially lack the distinctive voices that I work at adding in on the second draft.

On the first draft the story line is everything and getting to tale into some semblance of order….I write quickly and it shows in the dialog. Once the first draft is complete, character development, exposition and dialog receive special attention.

One of the Authors who I think does a great job on dialog is Janet Evanovich. Anybody who attempts to write a novel ought to read her Stephanie Plumb novels for dialog and humor. Shakespeare knew the importance of comic relief and I have never read anything that was not improved by liberal doses….Writers tend to be so anal and take themselves so seriously…light up! That’s one of the things that jumps out in Deadwood….The humor as well as character development and dialog.

Anyway Linda and I watch a few episodes every night on one of these el cheapo video players. We wear earphones and I can actually make out most of the dialog.

Another fascinating aspect of the series is the treatment of sex. What is portrayed is as graphic as anything you will ever see outside a porn movie. This is serious drama and I expect to see more of the same in the future. They have broken ground in using sex to take a good thing to a whole new level. This is something that gives a good example of the lengths to which the envelop is being pushed back in a legitimate literary form.

I encourage writers to view Deadwood and see what I’m talking about.