Two Gossips In A Café. By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2005

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

two gossips in a café.
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2005

• "look at him. posing git!
  white cotton shirts and he always sits at that table.
  i knew him way back when he was no-one but yet even then
  he ate lobster".
  
  "he drank wine. fierce amounts!
  water these days and by all accounts, only salads".
  
  "outrageous"!
  
  "a rock star now! wont even see us
  and that viscious cow he's hooked up with"!
  
  "she's a scream! thin as a rake!
  i reckon she's out for all she can take"!
  
  "more coffee kate"?
  
  "yeah. why not? I've a half day.
  order more gateaux. it's my turn to pay.
  
  nice here innit"?
  
  "sure is hun.
  
  check out his butt. a weekend wae him
  i'd soon lose my gut"!
  
  "shssssh! here they come"
  
  "hi michael. hi mary-jean.
  your hair was gorgeous in 'she' magazine".
  
  "very pretty...
  
  new band mike?
  
  your life's all go. thought you were brilliant
  on jools holland's show".
  
  "ooooh! he's lovely"...
  
  "who? oh jools! really nice bloke.
  i met him in harrods but he never spoke"!
  
  "bye michael"!
  
  "stuck up brats"!
  
  "youth of today!
  i think she's a front and he's really gay"!
  
  "i thought that too"..!
  
  "happy though"?
  
  "Yeah, I suppose".
  right. you get the waiter. i'll powder my nose"...
  
  "same time next week"?

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Really need some help with this one Delph mate. When I wrote it I was inspired by all the potential I had with my DVD camera. I had this picture in my mind of the two characters sitting in a little café somewhere like Soho. Both are unhappy with their lives and meet up once a week to dissect society, people, places - everything lol.

I think I should also explain the differing colouration of text here too. It's a temporary thing to signify each character's switch or camera cut-to. I would really appreciate if you could give me some guidance on presentation as text here for the benefit of readers.

Eventually, I would like to see this set to film and aiming to tease out the comedy elements of it all. Both characters are meant to be completely over-the-top. I would mix in the clink of cups and saucers and maybe background café sounds like annoying but low-level Euro-Pop from a distant radio.

There's no rush with any of this though. I know you're really busy with your own work mate.

Cheers ...

[Catherine Edmunds]

Nice one, Lugh. Some great ideas here.

Okay. Formatting first. Using colour works fine, unless some of your readers are colour blind. A large proportion of males have a degree of colourblindness, so that's why I wouldn't use it.

Generally speaking, the simpler the formatting, the better. Then the words shine through. That's why I would never embolden the text, either.

So, the answer? This is how I would do it. I'm just going to concentrate on the formatting and not address anything else at all for the time being; I'll return to talk about the text later.


two gossips in a café
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2005


look at him. posing git!
white cotton shirts and he always sits at that table.
i knew him way back when he was no-one but yet even then
he ate lobster.

he drank wine. fierce amounts!
water these days and by all accounts, only salads.

outrageous!

a rock star now! wont even see us
and that viscious cow he's hooked up with!

she's a scream! thin as a rake!
i reckon she's out for all she can take!

more coffee kate?

yeah. why not? I've a half day.
order more gateaux. it's my turn to pay.
nice here innit?

sure is hun.
check out his butt. a weekend wae him
i'd soon lose my gut!
shssssh! here they come

hi michael. hi mary-jean.
your hair was gorgeous in 'she' magazine.

very pretty...
new band mike?
your life's all go. thought you were brilliant
on jools holland's show.

ooooh! he's lovely...

who? oh jools! really nice bloke.
i met him in harrods but he never spoke!

bye michael!

stuck up brats!

youth of today!
i think she's a front and he's really gay!

i thought that too..!

happy though?

Yeah, I suppose.
right. you get the waiter. i'll powder my nose...

same time next week?

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Thanks Delph

I went a AWOL there for a day and a half. Just needed a break. Back now though ...

I really like the suggestions you have made for Two Gossips In A Café and appreciate the time you have taken to edit and review. I hadn't thought of italics / standard text, and what you have shown me here is brilliant in more ways than I can begin to explain. It makes perfect sense ...

I'm really looking forward to any other feedback or guidance you can give me on this piece because I honestly believe in its potential to become an entertaining video-poem if scripted properly.

Cheers

[Catherine Edmunds]

Regarding the line, "sure is hun"; this was in the "Gadfly" column by Mike Amos in yesterday's Northern Echo...

David Walsh in Redcar recalls that in East Cleveland -- as doubtless elswhere -- the affectionate term "honey" (or "hinny") is often abbreviated to "hun".
All very well until a Council for the Preservation of Rural England delegation visited the area in his days as a local councillor.
Afterwards they adjourned to the pub, the CPRE leader -- a German lady with good English but a marked accent -- insisted on getting the beers in. "That'll be £6.20, hun," said the barmaid.
"I tried very hard to explain it to her," says David. "I doubt if she believes me yet."

[Catherine Edmunds]

Okay, back to the serious critiquing. Here are the thoughts that occur.

Generally speaking, you shouldn't use exclamation marks, except in exceptional circumstances. If you read that first line without the exclamation mark, it's actually much stronger. With the exclamation mark it's wide-eyed and surprised; without, it's nasty and bitchy. I'd be inclined to go for the bitchiness. The same goes for probably all the exclamation marks in this piece. Drop the lot, in my view.

"...he was no-one but yet even then" should drop either the "but" or the "yet" as both make a bit of a mouthful. I would put a comma after "no-one" and keep the "but".

"viscous" means gloopy. "vicious" means nasty. "viscious" doesn't mean anything.

I'd put "order more gateau" rather than "gateaux", simply because it feels more natural to say "order more cake" than "more cakes", but I could be completely wrong here.

Now. Dialect. Decide what you're doing. "innit" is Southern. "hun" is Northern (they'd say "luv" if this was London). I think you need to get a very clear idea of their regional accents, and emphasise them far more. Many of the lines here work perfectly well in the queen's English, but then you suddenly inject phrases like "a weekend wae him" which suggests quite a pronounced accent. So yes; more dialect; more odd spellings if you need them to indicate how they're speaking.

I like the way the rhyming comes and goes. Gives it a nicely disjointed feeling; much more naturalistic than if they spoke in perfect rhyming couplets all the time -- but still enough rhyme to make it funny.

I'll return to this if I have any further thoughts. It's a fun piece of writing, Lugh. I'll be fascinated to see what you do with it.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Excellent critique Delph ...

Totally awesome ...

I've got my work cut out for me today lol. I'm gonna grab a cuppa and a sandwich then get to it all.

If it's ok with you I'll post it both to this thread and to my collected works with full acknowledgement of your editing. Then, if you're up for it, we can work further on this piece? There is no rush though Delph...

Cheers ...

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Hi Delph

I have taken your editing guidance for this piece and employed them with it all. The whole poem works much more effectively and gives; Two Gossips In A Café, some more of the comedy I was seeking to tease out. As a result the central characters are much more lifelike now.

Your tips on dialect have also been duly noted and I have worked with them to make the two characters come across as Londoners, perhaps in their late 30's or early 40's. I have always envisioned this piece set outside at the tables of a bistro / café and in summertime. With your editing skills this has become a lot closer. Thank you ...

I have also worked with the stanza / verse structures and returned them to either 5 line verse or 5 line broken, which was the way I had intended it in my original drafts.

I have included my standard dark red font in it because the black or normal font colour on the Sensitize messageboards doesn't reveal the switches from standard text to italic very well. Glitch in the matrix I guess.

If you have any other editing guidance for Two Gossips In A Café, I would be very grateful. You can either read it directly below this message, or be taken to it on a seperate page of Sensitize by clicking here.

Thanks Delph

Lugh...

_______________


two gossips in a café
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2005 / 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Editor - Catherine Edmunds.

• look at him
  posing git
  white cotton shirts
  and he always sits
  at that table
  
  i knew him
  way back when
  he was no-one
  but even then
  he ate lobster
  
  he drank wine
  fierce amounts
  water these days
  and by all accounts
  only salads
  
  outrageous
  
  a rock star now
  wont even see us
  and that vicious cow he's
  hooked up with
  
  she's a scream
  thin as a rake
  i reckon she's out
  for all she can take
  
  more coffee kate?
  
  yeah. why not?
  I've a half day
  order more gateau
  it's my turn to pay
  
  nice here innit?
  
  sure is luv
  check out his butt
  a weekend with him
  i'd soon lose this gut
  
  shssssh. here they come
  
  hi michael
  hi mary-jean
  your hair was gorgeous
  in 'she' magazine.
  
  very pretty...
  
  new band mike?
  your life's all go
  thought you were brilliant
  on jools holland's show
  
  ooooh. he's lovely
  
  who?
  oh jools
  yeah really nice bloke.
  i met him in harrods
  but he never spoke
  
  bye michael...
  
  stuck up brats
  
  youth of today
  i think she's a front
  and he's really gay
  
  i thought that too
  
  happy though?
  
  Yeah, i suppose.
  right. you get the waiter.
  i'll powder my nose...
  
  same time next week?

[Catherine Edmunds]

Ah yes, much better. I only have two minutes here at the moment so just a couple of points: if these are Londoners, then it's Jools 'Olland, and the shop's called 'Arrods.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

LOL

Will get it updated tomorrow Delph.

Thanks

[Catherine Edmunds]

A couple more 'take-em or leave-em' thoughts...

'way back when
he was no-one'

would possibly reader better as

'way back when
he was nobody'

also, 'outrageous' is very polite. I'd have written 'out-bloody-rageous', but that might be a bit strong. Depends on your characters. Sounds natural to me ('maybe it's becorz, I'm a Londoner...')

You've missed out an apostrophe in 'won't even see us'

'sure is luv' I'm not sure about. If you keep it, you need a comma after 'is' (sure is, luv). You might want to consider 'too right, luv' as an alternative. 'sure is' sounds a bit American to me.

'he's lovely' okay, but how about, 'he's luverly'?

'i'll powder my nose...' definitely needs to be 'i'll powder me nose...' (drives my hubby crazy when I use 'me' for 'my' all the time, but honest guv, that's 'ow I speak.)

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

I'll get onto this later Delph. Cheers

Had a major problem with this pc earlier. It crashed and burned. Diesel's running a few checks on it all now and muttering in a strangely Russian form of gibberish. Interesting though. Musical almost with a lot of 'fecks' and 'whit tha''s' ...

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

A couple more 'take-em or leave-em' thoughts...

'way back when
he was no-one'

would possibly reader better as

'way back when
he was nobody'

also, 'outrageous' is very polite. I'd have written 'out-bloody-rageous', but that might be a bit strong. Depends on your characters. Sounds natural to me ('maybe it's becorz, I'm a Londoner...')

You've missed out an apostrophe in 'won't even see us'

'sure is luv' I'm not sure about. If you keep it, you need a comma after 'is' (sure is, luv). You might want to consider 'too right, luv' as an alternative. 'sure is' sounds a bit American to me.

'he's lovely' okay, but how about, 'he's luverly'?

'i'll powder my nose...' definitely needs to be 'i'll powder me nose...' (drives my hubby crazy when I use 'me' for 'my' all the time, but honest guv, that's 'ow I speak.)

two gossips in a café
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2005 / 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Editor - Catherine Edmunds.

• look at him
  posing git
  white cotton shirts
  and he always sits
  at that table
  
  i knew him
  way back when
  he was nobody
  but even then
  he ate lobster
  
  he drank wine
  fierce amounts
  water these days
  and by all accounts
  only salads
  
  out-bloody-rageous
  
  a rock star now
  won't even see us
  and that vicious cow he's
  hooked up with
  
  she's a scream
  thin as a rake
  i reckon she's out
  for all she can take
  
  more coffee Kate?
  
  yeah. why not?
  I've a half day
  order more gateau
  it's my turn to pay
  
  nice here innit?
  
  too right, luv
  check out his butt
  a weekend with him
  i'd soon lose this gut
  
  shssssh. here they come
  
  hi Michael
  hi Mary-Jean
  your hair was gorgeous
  in 'She' Magazine.
  
  very pretty...
  
  new band mike?
  your life's all go
  thought you were brilliant
  on Jools Olland's show
  
  ooooh. he's luverly.
  
  who?
  oh Jools
  yeah really nice bloke.
  i met him in Arrods
  but he never spoke
  
  bye Michael...
  
  stuck up brats
  
  youth of today
  i think she's a front
  and he's really gay
  
  i thought that too
  
  happy though?
  
  Yeah, i suppose.
  right. you get the waiter.
  i'll powder me nose...
  
  same time next week?

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

I've made the recommended editing changes to Two Gossips In A Café now Delph and agree, it flows much better. One niggly-naggly doubt though and it's about capital letters.

When I made the changes from 'jools holland's' show to 'Jools Olland's' show and 'harrods' to 'Arrods' I followed your guidance and capitalised because they are names of people and places. This then left me thinking that all names had to begin with capitals e.g; 'michael' becomes 'Michael', 'kate' becomes 'Kate' and 'mary-jean' becomes 'Mary-Jean'. Am I right in doing this or should all text be lowercase?

Cheers

[Catherine Edmunds]

I would go for all lower case, but include apostrophes to show the missing letters in 'olland and 'arrods.

This poem's fun, Lugh. Makes me smile each time I read it