Dialogue of What

Writing dialogue has always seemed to be a tricky part of writing any story. People usually can describe a room, the hue of certain rug and the detailed qualities of a bookshelf.

Often in writing, this is used to fill an insane amount of pages and make the action and/or dialogue occurring feel more real. I have no issue with this practice, nor this mind-set.

But I guess the parts of stories that interest me the most are the characters, and the development of them. This happens with interaction, and more often than not, that interaction happens with other characters as opposed to their environment.

Either someone has done something to someone else, or said something, but words are spoken and exchanged. I have talked about the flow of a conversation, and all types of conversations have this.

From introductions to talks at coffee shops with long time friends to phone conversations with past lovers, every conversation you have ever had with anybody has a flow. These flows can be placed on different characters in different settings.

But the interactions are what is always different. It is like playing music. You can play the same song countless times, and the audience may not see the different intricacies that only you know. That is how dialogue in the written word works.

You know what will trigger your characters. You know what will set one off into a fit of rage, or what will make them calm and calculated. You know what will be the turning point and what will end the dialogue. You know all of this.

What dialogue does as well is allow you to emit these changes without using 25 pages to simply say, “My character is different now.”

A good writer doesn’t waste words on setting up the environment and setting and progress of the story. A great writer make you forget your reading at all and puts you with the people in the story.

So, go out and have a conversation with a stranger, or an old friend. Listen to the words being used, listen to the flow and watch for what makes the conversation stall and what makes it more lively. Watch how they act, and more when talking about certain things.

These details can easily be placed onto the pages of works, but it is how we use it that makes all the difference. We all talk, we all interact. We all do this naturally. Describing an environment is fantastic, but describing it without “describing” it is even more fantastic.

Teaching Technology

On Tuesday, I am going to venture to Birmingham, Ala., to teach a group of professionals the finer aspects of Social Media.

This is not my first excursion into teaching, let alone teaching technology. But I find that teaching something as robust as Social Media can be, daunting.

However, one of the things I find most interesting about Social Media, and my subsequent ability to teach, is how much fun it truly is.

I could wax poetic about the finer points, the case studies and theories about what works and does not work in the world of Social Media.

And the irony of the situation is that I am teaching people face-to-face to use programs that allow them to connect where ever they located, taking away that face-to-face aspect.

To act as if Social Media has not changed how we exist in our society is myopic at best foolish/idiotic at worst. For instance, one of my most favorite people in the world (sarcasm) use to say, “I don’t understand why people like Facebook. I think it is stupid and useless.” Now, she is insanely in love with a guy she met through a Social Network. See, idiotic at worst.

Because here is the finer point that the haters of Social Media miss. When we watch the news, it is someone talking TO us. When we read a newspaper, it is someone talking TO us. And when we listen to the radio, someone is talking TO us.

Social Media makes us realize that at the end of each machine that connects us, there is a person at the other end. And they are talking WITH us.

The infinitive to preposition switch is extremely important, and I don’t think I need to go into the finer points of the English language to express how important that switch is.

That is lesson one. Tune in next week for how to post pictures of your crotch on your Twitter account.

Stories make me understand

One of the things I find difficult to tolerate is when anyone says to me, “You don’t understand.”

I guess, my issue, isn’t necessarily that I have a certain lack of knowledge on a certain concept, because I have plenty of that. I don’t understand how to conduct heart surgery, and I certainly couldn’t save a pelican from an oil spill. I don’t understand how to play “Free Bird” or how to gut a pig.

Plenty of actions exist this world I have no idea how to execute. But there is something I do know, and it is humans and our emotions.

So, what bothers me is when people tell me I don’t know how it feels to lose someone, or that I don’t what it is like to tend to someone with a disability. Or that I don’t know what it is like to have a child serving for our country or that I don’t know what it is like to live on the streets.

My vast imagination allows me to comprehend theories that are something only the insane use to dream about, and I can use this imagination to argue my beliefs and thoughts.

The one thing, that I know absolutely everything about in this world, is to be human is to empathize. Too often do we walk in our own little world ignoring how bad somebody’s day has been. Too often do we think our struggles are the most significant struggles to somebody else. Or too often do we compare and use these things in our lives to say, “You don’t understand me.”

Odds are, I have been through something similar, as I have had significant others with debilitating issues, barely scraped by on my own, had friends serve abroad and have lost someone close to me.

I may not understand every single little thing about another human being and their experience, but never have I said, “you don’t understand.”

Because I am here to make you understand, and as we are humans, you will empathize, not sympathize or patronize. Likewise, I am here to empathize and understand. I don’t necessarily want to help, and will never claim to have all the answers.

Sometimes we someone to share the burden of just knowing, and luckily my shoulders are broad. And this journey isn’t anyone’s to walk alone, least of all I should know this.

So, if it is some thing I don’t, say, “Here, let me teach you something.” Maybe I know something similar, and we can exchange tales of how we got to where we are going.

I always prefer tales as opposed to barriers.

Murdoch’s Fall from Grace

The sensationalism of Fox News during the Obama Administration’s first iteration has been nothing short of just that, sensational.

Bogus headlines, flat-out lies and the constant perpetuation of misinformation have led to a different type of news source in the U.S. It has been shown in studies, that viewers will only gravitate toward news sources that they believe follow their views.

Viewers do not want “Fair and Balanced” unless that fairness and balance directly falls into their bias. So, Fox News is – media at its finest, and journalism at in its worst form.

But all of this was conducted by a CEO who was routinely hands-off. And by hands-off, I mean, the man Rupert Murdoch steered Fox News and other new outlets under his helm into a right-wing juggernaut.

The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and other outlets have continued their right-leaning position in the years since News Corp. bought them. Whereas some objectivity may have existed, with slight leans, these outlets are leaning so far now, they look like Michael Jackson in “Smooth Criminal.”

Now, all of this is receiving more attention, as New Corp. finds itself in a corner for advocating the actions of a phone hacking scandal from the now defunct New of the World.

The phone hacking scandal, for those not informed, has shaken the world of journalism, as the News of the World hacked and tried to hack countless cell phones owned by celebrities, politicians regular civilians and the culmination coming from the hacking of a murder victim.

Now, arrests are being made. Now, action is being taken. As these actions are illegal, these movements almost come too little too late.

Rebekah Brooks, former  Chief Executive of News International (owned by Murdoch), has recently been arrested for her involvement in the hacking scandal. She is the tenth of these kinds of arrests.

But the issue I have is that New of the World was the top-selling “newspaper” in England. Fox News is the highest watched “news” outlet in America.

Sensational is not always the best thing, in fact it is the worst thing. Because as we, the public, begin to lean toward more sensational headlines and more sensational stories, journalists will take more sensational actions to keep that pace up for us. They will cut corners, cheat and lie as much as they can.

But those that do that are no longer journalists. They are the bane in the world of journalism, and deplorable.

Likewise, as organization that allows these actions is more so disgusting. Anyone who thinks Murdoch was unaware of these actions is naive.

This fall from journalistic integrity wasn’t just one journalist, it wasn’t just one editor, it wasn’t just one executive. It was a culture bred from the top down. This fall came from less about providing facts and more about making money.

Murdoch shut down News of the World quickly, because ties exist between what happened in England and what goes on here in the U.S. He is afraid, and he should be.

Murdoch should be afraid, because somewhere, a true journalist is following leads, and writing. Writing a story that will take down the empire of lies and sensationalism Murdoch has built.

Ending of Space Shuttle Program Proof of America’s Decline

I cannot think of a better ending to the Space Shuttle Program. Oh, wait, yes I can.

See You Space Cowboy

It would be that it never ended.

Today was the last launch of the last of the Space Shuttles. The wires, hot plates, engines, metal and brawn that went into the creation of this angelic behemoths is something of legendary status. Atlantis had the honor of streaking through the sky, hurling itself into orbit as exclamation point on a program that has done so much for American society.

Yet, this is the end of the program. It did have to end at some point, well at least this iteration of it had to end. The shuttles were beginning to show age, and the instruments and technology was getting a little behind the curve. I mean, the technology used is far advanced from anything we use in the consumer world of technology, but shouldn’t the shuttles be using holographic control systems or start looking like a Star Destroyer?

In the 1930s to let’s say the 1980s, we had a kick in the science. Why? Because we were competing with those dickhead Nazis and those crazy Russians throughout all those years. We had innovate and invent ways to be better than them. Early on, the inventions were used for war, then as the Cold War progressed, science and technology was invented in case we went to war.

But the NASA and other Space Program endeavors within the United States were created to defeat those pesky Russians in another area. The scientific advancement of our society.

Then something changed. We no longer had to defeat anybody in anything. America was No. 1 and everyone else sucked. Everyone had to learn English and we had to make up wars just so we could show off our new technology that kills people.

The thing that saddens me the most, is that with the proposed cuts the GOP has presented, Space Exploration could be a thing of the past. It could be a story I tell my children about one day. About how man flew into the heavens and continued to explore the unknown. About how our feeble little minds and tiny little bodies created machines and vehicles that allowed to travel and exist thousands and thousands and thousands of miles into the sky.

It could be the stuff of legends for my children.

Our ingenuity is what set us apart as a Nation. Many people will say it is our work hard mentality, or it is our roughness. Some will say it is our military mindset and world political prowess. But I believe is has more to do with our minds and willingness to stare at the void of space and say, “How do we get there?”

We no longer care about progress. We no longer care about ingenuity. We no longer care about extending a program that brought more understanding of our universe, of ourselves.

We care about the bottom line. We care about taxes. We care about being the ones who are right, as opposed to doing the right thing.

We have become too complacent. Our complacency is what shows our decline as a world leader more than anything else.

I can’t think of a better observation than our willingness to just say, “Yeah, we don’t need to go to Space anymore. I mean, Earth is all we need to know.”