HMontanna78: just tell me who it is!
AcousticGrl: I already told you. No.
HMontanna78: y not? ill tell you who i like! :)
AcousticGrl: no way, Ashley! and besides, why would that make me want to tell you?
HMontanna78: its called sharing, meg
AcousticGrl: well I don’t want to
HMontanna78: is it jimmy?
AcousticGrl: heck no! and don’t think you’ll trick me into telling u
HMontanna78: peter, its gotta be him
AcousticGrl: no! hey, did you watch the Jonas brothers last night?
HMontanna78: don’t change the subject! Zack. its him isn’t it?
HMontanna78: omg it IS him! why are u interested in him?
HMontanna78: meg?
AcousticGrl is typing...
AcousticGrl: sorry
AcousticGrl: my mom called me
HMontanna78: liar. you like zack i cant believe it lol
AcousticGrl: that’s not true!
AcousticGrl: and if tell him I wont talk to u anymore
HMontanna78: whatev i wont tell him because u will
AcousticGrl: stay out of it!!
HMontanna78: maybe u should tell him @ lunch
AcousticGrl: just back off, okay?
AcousticGrl: brb
AcousticGrl: back
HMontanna78: I’ll tell him 4 u if u want
AcousticGrl: NO!
HMontanna78 is typing...
AcousticGrl signed out
well I put this story in the context of a middle schoolers' conversation on IM. I tried to use as little punctuation as possible because texts and IM's are typically that way, and this was very hard for me. I also used lots of slang and made sure that everything was either a message, or the IM telling you what the other person is doing. Those were my rules. I used that function of IM and spaces to show emotion without words
ReplyDeleteOkay, good stuff. And I think the middle school milieu also allows for a kind of ramped up emotion, too, right? I guess one thing, though, is that there's not a whole lot at stake. I think we get the sense something's coming when AcousticGrl's mom calls, but it doesn't lead anywhere. And you could have saved yourself some words by eliminating their names and the stage direction about typing. There's a lot that could be done with this, even to replace direct dialogue in a longer piece. Keep working with it!
ReplyDelete