random writing query

[schmerica]

lyra_sena: well, the truth is that as much as it makes us uncomfortable? the distinction is very real.

Okay, so I'm taking the above sentence completely out of context from the conversation lyra_sena and I were having earlier, because it's a perfect example of a kind of style I've been wondering about a lot lately.

Basically, that questioning intonation/statements that are not statements thing -- that's how I talk, really a lot of the time. I know quite a few people who do the same thing, even; it's not something I notice in everyday conversation.

On the other hand, though, it's something that can suddenly become *really* noticeable in writing. There's been a couple of stories I've read lately (though, dammit, I apparently cannot *locate* any of them again) that had this kind of construction in them. And for, say, Gretchen in Mean Girls it comes across as perfectly natural, whether in dialogue or narration, but for Ray Kowalski, it seems odd. It makes me think of the author, rather than the character a lot of the time.

Is this true for others?

I'm trying to think of what it is that makes it read that way to me. The first thing that comes to my mind is that is sounds "feminine" -- except that word is no end of troublesome, and even just that description kind of gets my rankles up. Especially when I try and figure out what I mean by that, and the next word I come up with is "uncertain".

Is it something along those lines? There are male characters whom I can picture such dialogue working with -- Dan Rydell, perhaps, comes to mind. Is it simpler than that -- just another matter of character voice? Am I just on crack? Am I on crack but have a point in this instance? I don't know.

Comments

[lyra-sena.livejournal.com]

I hope someone comes up with another term for it than 'feminine' because -- *points up to statement I made* -- the distinction is there. So is it authorial intrusion? Do we find it odd or off from the character merely from our viewpoint as women? And what does that say about us? And could I use more question marks? Yes? Yes, I could?

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Could you? Could you really? Because, dude, you know? That's a lot of question marks, there, and I? Am not sure you could pull it off.

[sophia-helix.livejournal.com]

It's 100% Joss-speak, as far as I'm concerned. "And the thing with the pink and the fluffy? Not so much." Etc. It makes sense in stories with teenagers (which I still think of myself as, despite the whole "turning 23 next week" thing), but it's hard to play off with anyone older.

But I will buy it from any Jossverse male, and most teenage males with any sense of humor, so I don't think it's just a chick thing. :)

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hmm, see, I haven't read any Jossverse in ages, so that didn't occur to me, but that's an interesting point.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I think Maren is right, it's more a stylized form of everyday dialogue that Joss Whedon and Aaron Sorkin use, adapted from teen/college speak. I think it's very youthful and American, and while it works with Whedon's characters, and obviously there's a certain way of speaking intrinsic to any Sorkinverse characters, a writer has to be careful of it, because it *can* sound false and intrusive. You can get away with Lana or Chloe or Rory Gilmore talking that way. I don't think you can pull if off with Bayliss and Pembleton or the Stargate folks (and I say that without ever having seen an episode of SG-1) or your due South people, etc.

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can pull if off with Bayliss and Pembleton or the Stargate folks (and I say that without ever having seen an episode of SG-1) or your due South people, etc.

Well, no, I would disagree. I've heard Jack O'Neill talk that way on Stargate, to make a point with sarcasm. Funny, but the way I hear some older, male characters fits right in with this construction, as long as the character is irreverent, sarcastic (like Jack), or verbally convoluted (Ray Kowalski comes to mind). It's one of those things that can be overdone with the slightest addition, but when used sparingly can be highly effective, IMHO.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I didn't get sarcasm from what Erica was saying so much as the uncertainty or hesitance of framing statements as questions and then answering. There's a difference between the "not so much" example people are using - which strikes me as a (probably Jewish) New York thing that Sorkin and Seinfeld popularized, which pops up everywhere now, and the other thing, the "this thing I'm talking about here? I'm not sure if it's making sense or if you want me to stop talking." construction, the latter of which is what I thought was under discussion.

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

the uncertainty or hesitance of framing statements as questions and then answering Well, that's one, fairly narrow definition of what's being described. It seems to me we're talking about the construction in general, which can be used in a number of ways, including sarcasm. That's where the difference in the characters is important; hesitancy, possibly of youth, is well-served by it; sarcasm or irony becomes apparent by exactly the same format. Different purposes, different characters, different intentions, yes. It's still the same construction, which is what I perceive to be what we're talking about.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hmm, but even with Ray Kowalski -- I think I could see something like "But me? I don't like you" more easily than the equivalent "But I? Don't like you.", if that makes sense. That may just be a random reader preference, though.

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

Heh. "The placement of the question mark: its meaning and its value as a determinant of intention."

Sounds like a thesis topic to me.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*nod* Which leads to one of the things I was talking about up there -- maybe it's less just making the generalizations about it, and just trying to listen to the specific charactrers can figuring out what you can and can't make them say.

I don't have any non-North American fandoms, but I'm sure this is another one of the things that would come off especially horribly in HP, yeah?

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

just trying to listen to the specific charactrers can figuring out what you can and can't make them say.

Obviously, that's the smart way to go when writing. *g*

I don't have any non-North American fandoms, but I'm sure this is another one of the things that would come off especially horribly in HP, yeah?

*nod*

I've been tempted, but unless you were going over the top and parody, I doubt it could be pulled off. Of course, I'm *terrible* at Britspeak. Which is funny, considering. *snerk*

[umbo.livejournal.com]

Agreeing with the above folks--it's a generational thing rather than a gender thing. I think it's something that sometimes sticks out more to those of us who *are* of a little bit older generation, to whom it's still a little unusual to hear or read, so we really notice it when (like you said) someone uses that construction who really wouldn't.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Oh, see, that's really interesting! Because that's a side to it that didn't even occur to me.

[gloss]

I've been wondering about this. I haven't seen it in fic so much as in LJ meta and essays, something I think I first noticed in jennyo's and fox1013's work. While I think a persuasive case can be made for it being read as stereotypically "feminine" (with all the standard disclaimers, *please*) along the lines of Deborah Tannen's sociolinguistics stuff, I tend to read it otherwise, as a casual rhetorical move, one that [a] engages the reader through interrogative address and then [b] emphasizes the final clause by setting it off as a sentence on its own.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*grins* See, when I'm talking with Fox? We talk like this. All the time. I don't even notice it in lj entries and such, I find -- it's so pervasive to the way I think and express myself, and the way my friends do. But I think you definitely do make a good point there -- it's not *just* the uncertainty or "feminine" socialization; there's other, interesting things going on there.

[sinquepida.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree that it's a Whedon/Sorkin thing. But I don't think it's off the mark to say it's feminine, either. It's not a good feminine, but I think it's something women use, not to confirm understanding or make value judgments (i.e., "the pink and the fluffy? not so much."), but to be viewed as "nice." As in, "I'm Ana? I'm talking about interrogatives?" Like, "I'm here, I think this is the conversation we're having, but if it isn't, I can leave, don't wanna offend anyone," etc. It's something you use when you don't want to rock the boat. That's what reads as feminine, I think, that hesitance. And maybe feminine isn't the right word- it is problematic- but I can't think of a better one without talking about, I don't know, gender constructs.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's definitely a correlation between a sort of questioning and female speech vs male speech. It is a complex thing, though.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

I disagree that it's (only) a female thing--it's also an urban thing, and a Jewish thing. What? Nu? Also a peasant thing. It's the antithesis of the pronouncing tone of the aristocracy, literal or cultural.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Well, the patterns that show up in female vs. male speech are somewhat similar to those that show up when you're contrasting any lower-status vs. higher-status group, aren't they? (Argh, it's only been two years now since my sociolinguistics courses -- I should be able to remember more than this.)

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've read studies that indicate that ending declarative statements with rising intonations *is* a feminine/female thing. I mean, it might be troublesome, but I think it's actually true; women tend to do that more than men. Because women aren't supposed to be aggressive and it's less "aggressive" if you're like "Hey, I could be wrong, but I think, maybe, that's not the right way to do that...?" So, yeah. *shrug*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

No, yeah, there definitely is a difference in the way female and male children are socialized, and it shows up more than you expect, even, in the differences between male and female speech. *has taken classes on this! even has the books and everything!* I just don't like taking the step from "a socialized trait found in females more than males" to "feminine", because the latter implies to me a sort of forced connection, which makes me uncomfortable. And plus, as I said in the entry, I wasn't sure if it was more complicated than just the sex thing.

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

would the word "effeminate" be more useful to you? To me, effeminate implies a more performed femininity than just feminine, which is characteristics of the female or characteristics of the lady.

I would also say that the reason the sort of digression of which you originally spoke bothers me when I see it written is that the first part of the statement is not a question, although the speaker takes a question stance. As a reader, I don't want a question mark: give me an em dash or ellipsis, damnit! On the other hand, the sarcastic digression works for me because that is a question—a rhetorical question—and I can accept that the question mark punctuation is appropriate.

But that's just my grammatical freakshow.

[ineke.livejournal.com]

It's so very American. I've found myself using it -- sparingly -- in LJ-talk because, hey, I see it around. But I couldn't say it to save my life. On the other hand, I don't particularly perceive it as either male or female. "Because this? This is not a good thing, Fraser. This is the opposite of a good thing. This is a--" yeah, however that sentence ended. You know.

Rising intonation in Australia is very much a low social class marker. Not as a question, but just signifying the possibility of continuation. So, pretty much every sentence but the last one in a speech paragraph. And believe you me, that gets mighty annoying. But, eh, I'm middle-class through and through.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

"Because this? This is not a good thing, Fraser. This is the opposite of a good thing. This is a--"

Hmm, somehow I think my mind is making a distinction between "setting up a rhetorical question and answering it" and "splitting a statement into a statement and question parts", with the lattter being the thing I find myself noticing in my reading. It might be a false distinction, but, hmmmm. The sentence you put here, I don't think I would even notice from, say, Ray Kowalski (though, man, it'd sound weird from Fraser, even setting aside the talking to himself). On the other hand, something arranged like "And you? Are an asshole." or "That's fine, but I? Hate this." seems weird to me in the mouths of many characters.

extra-belatedly...

[china_shop]

This has tripped me up in a couple of stories, too. I kept going back wondering "How many times has this construction been used?" It's so easy to overdo.

My take: it's basically used for emphasis, right? And if we're talking Kowalski, I'd expect something more like, "And, man, you're an asshole" or "And you are a fucking asshole." Because the rhetorical question is like emphasis-lite, and for a lot of characters, lite sounds off. Is that maybe the problem?

Also, the "And you? Are an asshole" suggests a rising intonation on "you" that sounds off to me in that context. I'd expect a firm low tone and maybe a pause. You know?

(I did socioling years ago too. God, I hardly remember anything.)