““One danger zone is dialogue ... At the moment of ultimate showing, we writers get nervous. ... We allow characters to tell us about the story, to soliloquize, to have insights into their lives that no real person could manage. We also work very hard to control the part of dialogue that is not in the character's voice - the tags. We have the characters chortle and wheeze and whisper and whine; we use adverbs to remind the reader and reassure ourselves how things are being said. A nice contrast to this tendency is the following conversation, form Ernest Hemingway's story 'The Sea Change': 'No thanks,' he said. 'It doesn't do any good to say I'm sorry.' 'No.' 'Nor to tell you how it is?' 'I'd rather not hear.' 'I love you very much.' 'Yes, this proves it.' 'I'm sorry,' she said, 'if you don't understand.' 'I understand. That's the trouble. I understand.' How different our experience would be if the storytelling were more anxious: 'No thanks,' he said bitterly, the words sharp in his mouth. 'It doesn't do any good to say I'm sorry?' she poignantly wondered. 'No.' Phil touched her hand with his, then drew it away. He ground his teeth. 'Nor to tell you how it is?' she Sapphically queried. 'I'd rather not hear,' he groused. 'I love you very much,' she said, perhaps ingenuously. (Peter Rock)””
![“In her childhood, [Sylvia] Wright had heard a tune in which some lines seemed to be 'They have slain the Earl Amurray / and Lady Mondegreen.' It wasn't until years later that Wright realized the lyric was 'They have slain the Earl of Moray / and laid him on the green.' We all have mondegreens…” quote by Tin House Books](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/0e6/tin-house-books-48623_children_in-her-childhood-sylvia-wright-had-heard_3035219.jpg)
