I blather (and I mean blather) at Booknista

[sartorias]

Mary Sue at Booknista interviewed me. This was a phone interview, and she did a fabulous job of boiling down an hour's talk into a zippy interview, while faithfully transcribing all my disjointed word soup

Comments

[auriaephiala]

"If we truly reproduced dialogue the way people speak (like certain of my nearest and dearest punctuate their sentences with the word "so") I, at least, would bail fairly soon."

When I write up my journalistic interviews, the first thing I do when transcribing is to drop almost all the "kind of" and "sort of" and "you know" -- plus all the false starts and the worst of the repetition. It's just a fact that people seem to need those verbal tics to give themselves enough time to think while talking, and if you include them you make the interviewee look bad for no reason.

The problem comes with a few people whom, once you've transcribed them, you realize didn't actually finish that sentence or that thought, although it sounded fine at the time.

Some interviewees talk in complete sentences and paragraphs and you can publish a transcript of an interview with them with only light editing. Others need lots of paraphrasing in between the quotes to make an understandable story. And, interestingly enough, it has nothing to do with their intelligence or talent as such.

[sartorias]

That's fascinating stuff. I once had to transcribe a panel (it was a very, very long document!) with five well known writers talking. When I got done, I thought, these people are going to be furious--three of the writers never actually finished a sentence. All smart, talented people, as you said. But they went on and on, punctuating everything with "you know" and "no, but really" and repeating themselves and emphasizing with constant repetitions of "literally"--language they never would have written. So I took those out and added periods where I thought they might fit. Then sent it out to the various writers for them to vet before it went to print--and no one complained "I didn't say that!" even though I had amended their words.

I tried so hard to eradicate "you know" from my speech during my teaching days.And I have heard recordings of myself back then when I spoke fairly fluently (for me) but that I think was successful because I was speaking on subjects I knew well, using words I'd often used.

When engaging like this interview, yes, it doesn't surprise me to hear the you knows creeping back in--as the mind rummages around trying to articulate images and ideas.