Dialogue about dialogue

I'm remaking the list for the dialogue only story and dropping the talk in the car going somewhere.
1 is the discussion over where to put father's ashes. There are several places and odd comments from one of the three speakers telling of how someone puts the urn away when people visit because Father couldn't stand certain people. While this is a problem many people deal with, can it create enough tension? People need to be concerned about what will happen. We need two people to fight over where the ashes will go.
2 is the two wives after the funeral. It can't just be a cosy chat with no tension. What happens is wife no 2 is uppity and then finds the daughter of wife 1, the common one, is the professor teaching her son and the relationship changes. The deceased didn't know about the daughter because she was conceived in a farewell after the divorce. Where does it start however, at the get together after the funeral, or at an arranged coffee morning? I think just after the funeral when both daughter and son are there.
3 I tried the lesbian suicide and arguing with the vicar or priest about the church being more interested in power than love but I don't think it would get to 1500 words.
4 The two old sweethearts. The woman is brought to the get together by her son in case there is something sinister. I need to hold that suspicion until the end. Maybe at the end the woman discovers the man is rich and the  keenness to get together changes to her. It's and idea.
5 The couple are buying a carpet but argue and all their marital problems come out. Is this an apology for some misdemeanor? Does she want it simply to impress an acquaintance? this could be many layered and worth pursing even if it doesn't work out for this competition. 

By this stage, there would normally be a clear favourite but I'll give 1, 2, 4 and 5 a bit more thought and put 3 on the back burner.

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A British King

After all the disagreements, raids incursions and invasions, the crowns of england and Scotland were united in the wisest fool in Christendom, James Stuart. James shook the smoke of Auld Reekie, Edinburgh, from his garments and rushed away down to London as soon as he heard Queen Elizabeth of England was dead. His royal household, tailors, hairdressers, cup bearers and kitchen staff, rushed after him, only to find a kitchen staff already busy in the palace. With their strange accents and rude manners, they stood out like bees in a wasp nest. Most decided to go back to Edinburgh and a band of them were set upon by the London mob. Unlike today's MPs, James was too busy enjoying his new luxury apartments to pay any attention and it created ill feeling out of which should have come brotherhood. The real tragedy was that Jimmy had come from an environment where he depended on the support of his barons to rule, even to keep his head. As a boy, he'd been captured and recaptured by one lot, then the other  but now he found they thought of him as the Big Chief and people fawned on him, so he taught his son to behave as a real king should, and, of course, he lost him his head.

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More dialogue

This dialogue only, conversation story I am on for a Writing Magazine competition ia taking a bit of a turn. Let me
 list the ideas, including the new ones.
1 was the conversation in the car going somewhere. It needs to come to a conclusion somehow and I can't see anything other than after the moaning about the people  - How nice to see you. which would make it a character study, not a story.
2 Was a will reading where two women had a go sat each other and one found she was pregnant. For me, that would need to have testing and the results outside dialogue.
3 Where to scatter ashes will come to a decision and is a real possibility. Why not here, why not there, then in the end the decision that meets the needs of wife, son and daughter.
4 was two wives after his funeral. Would they be friends? The elder has a common accent and but her daughter is a professor. The younger one has a son who is being taught by the professor. Lots of options as to where that can go but not the old falling in love to find they are brother and sister.
5 would be the funeral but of a girl or boy who has committed suicide after seeking advice from the church. A talk between mother and father and the vicar. The church is more about power than love debate. How would it end though?
6 two old sweethearts, widow and widower, meet and talk. Will they get together or has he arranged a meeting for something more sinister?
7 they are buying a carpet, maybe, and argue. Is this an apology for some misdeed. Can we sort out a rift between the husband and wife?

3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 all have possibilities and even when I've written the competition entry the others will work.

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Bannockburn

It is good that history provides us with heroes, people whose courage we want to imitate but, now and then, the images get distorted and it is good to put things in perspective. For me, Bruce was a brilliant and determined general and I admire him for those qualities but a patriotic leader of all Scotland? At Bannockburn, Bruce's men were heavily outnumbered. They were outnumbered because many of the Scottish nobles were with Edward trying to save their hold on to their English as well as their Scottish estates. One report suggests the Scottish nobles, and, by implication their subordinates were so split and disaffected Bannockburn was more the last pitched battle of a civil war between Scots than and invasion by Edward. To back this up, Bruce had some 5000 men - gathered from all Scotland. I've seen more watching Partick Thistle at a midweek game! I've mentioned it before but - If Bruce had accepted Edward's overlordship, the result would have been a united Britain in 1314. It had been arranged that the Maid of Norway would marry the heir to the English throne, which had been accepted by the elder Bruce. There would have been no slaughter at Bannockburn. Bannockburn was not an academic exercise or great poetry, Scots as well as English died in agony from gaping wounds there. There would have been no Flodden, no Culloden. We all bemoan the indiscriminate slaughter that was WW1 yet ... 

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Conversations

I am working at a story for a Writing Magazine competition that will be all dialogue. Not so easy. No adding, I said, or Jim came in and mentioned. The action has to come from what people say. So, when do we have that situation? In a car going somewhere - 'Watch that truck!' 'It's parked in a driveway' etc. The first thing is that it needs to be clear who is talking. I did a bit in America for Bees in my BOnnet where the three people were from different areas in America and that was easy, You all and so on. If I stick to two then it will be easier. They can be going to visit and discuss their friends, how they met etc. and make a drama from there. They could be going to something like a funeral and discuss how the person died and how they had been treated by their family. Thinking like that leads me to a discussion at a will reading, where there could be an argument about who did what, or make that a discussion about where to scatter Jim's ashes, the discussion would follow his career and marriage - maybe the discussion could be a second wife and a first, that would have drama built in. A common accent and a refined one. Do the women agree or fall out? Already uncertainty! It might not be so bad after all.

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A writing lesson from Giles

I was in Waterstones just before New Year and found a Giles album. I hadn't seen one in ears and always loved his work. The cartoons are from years ago but many could have been published today as political and social comment.

As a writer what struck me right away is that a good article should be written like one of those Giles cartoons, you see the joke, that draws you into the picture, where you find - Granny is looking grumpy and clouting someone with her umbrella, Aunt Vera is taking her medicine and looking miserable while the apples spill out of the bottom of the paper bag, the twins are causing mayhem and the baby is biting the dog. It's not just a cartoon, it's a whole entertainment!

The opening of a well written article should present the main drama or what will interest the reader most about the subject. It’s the hook that entices the reader to want to know a bit more. Once the reader has become interested, the subject can be fleshed out.

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Bruce stirs trouble

Before getting too deep into Bruce, we need to look at the attitude of the Scots towards the proposed merger with the Maid of Norway and the son of Edward of England The Scots don't seem to have had any problems with it, in fact, seemed to welcome the idea. There is no hint in the poem, Sir Patrick Spence, which deals with her death, that the Scots were anything other than looking forward to her arrival. The, after her death, the Scottish nobles, representing the nation, asked Edward to mediate in the dispute over the title. Not only that but the rivals all swore fealty yo him. The resulting dispute was not, therefore, over his overlordship but over his choice of Balliol instead of Bruce. There is, of course, William Wallace's rebellion, a true uprising of the people, but were the people any more severely treated than the English peasants? The English peasants revolted en masse in 1381, so they can't have been any more pleased with their governance than the Scots. From that one moves to think the dispute over who was king of Scots was really just an argument between nobles. Bruce had estates in Wimbledon and Yorkshire as well as Galloway in Scotland, all Sassenach, or as near as made no difference. His brother, named Edward (imagine that),was educated at Cambridge. This was the set up when Bruce murdered Comyn and began to impose his claim on a land, for late thirteenth, early fourteenth century, relatively at peace.

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