The Gift of Dialogue

I've often been told that my fanfiction characters sound just like the characters do in the books/films/movies I've borrowed them from. (In my favorite example, a friend clearly remembered watching a LOST scene that I wrote.) As far as imagined dialogue goes, I have a gift...and a curse.

The curse part is that I've sometimes had whole arguments without even being in actual contact with my opponent at the time. Or I've imagined that they will say something nice that then they don't say and I'm upset at them for not saying it. So mostly I try not to have imaginary conversations with real people.

Sometimes, lately, I give myself a pass where my dad is concerned. Because sometimes I really do think I know how the conversation would have happened. Today, for instance, if I had been able to call him on my way home like I wanted to, we would have had a conversation like this one.

ME: "So today I learned that saving money on gas probably means investing it on better shoes."

DAD: "How's that?"

ME: "On the way out of work I had to drop something off at the main office, so I walked across campus in heels and had to walk all the way back to my car, which was much closer to my office, and I was wearing sandally shoes that try to be leather but really aren't, and they don't really have a lot of bend to them. So now my feet feel all pinched."

DAD: "Well, that was pretty stupid, huh?"

ME: "Yeah. I'll probably do it again. I'm too cheap to buy nice shoes considering the amount of time I spend sitting at my desk is so much greater than the amount of time I spend walking around."

DAD: "You have a rolling chair, right? You can ride it across campus."

ME: "That wouldn't look weird at all."

DAD: "Less weird than you'd look with your feet falling off from wearing cheap shoes."

And although imaginary conversations like this can make me sad, because I miss really talking to him, they make me happy, too. Because I'm so thankful I talked to him enough to have established a father/daughter conversational style that stuck in my head. I hope it stays stuck there until I get to use it with him again.