Tuesday, April 03, 2007

The Next Line 23

Carina and Donovan are not lovers, although they will be later. Right now, they're just on a journey together, and he's been out all night.

From the cool way she appraised him, it was obvious she had been awake for awhile. "Where have you been?"

"Out."

"I can't believe you'd go out carousing when—"

"No, Carina. It wasn't like that."

She sat up, pulling the folds of the blanket around her. "Well, what else is one to think when a man stays out all night?"

"I had things I had to do."

"In the middle of the night in a strange town?" She reached for the new dressing robe lying across the chair by her bed. "That sounds like whores, cards and drinking to me."

"Not whores," Donovan assured her. "Absolutely not whores."

"So just cards and drinking."

"Yes." He sat down on his unused bed. "We were out of money, okay? I had to get us some more."

"By playing cards."

"You know that's how I get my money."

"I thought you just stole."

"Thanks a lot."

"So you don't steal?"

"Not always. Okay, so I picked a couple pockets, too. But most of the money I won."

"You picked the whores' pockets?"

"No, I didn't pick their pock--Shit!"

"So, you got wasted playing cards in some whorehouse, lost everything, ended up pick-pocketing, and got . . . what?"

Donovan looked sheepish. "You got any use for a half-dozen pineapple-flavored Trojans?"


Dialogue: bunnygirl.....The Next Line: Anonymous/ril

7 comments:

Dave Fragments said...

It's a fun scene but the continuation hit the flaw perfectly (like hit the nail on the head, scored a bullseyes, knocked my socks off...)
The dialog needs to be snappier, quicker and hit a few comedic beats - develop rythym, dance the watusi and march to it's own drum.

McKoala said...

This ready pretty well. 'Carousing' - historical vampires? 'awhile' should be two words.

LOL continuation!

Anonymous said...

It's not fair to criticise so far out of context, but I am interested: they're not lovers yet, but they're already talking like they are; what redeeming characteristics is this guy going to turn out to have that she should end up falling for him?

No idea where this comes in the book, of course, but it's intriguing.

The dialogue doesn't snap quite as sharply as it could, but you could easily edit it sharper.

Robin S. said...

Nice tension between the two characters.

The continuation is really good.

I'm so glad I'm not a big fan of the taste of pineapple, 'cause if I was, I'd have to miss out on it for a while after reading this.

Bernita said...

Reads well.
Only niggle is the shift betweem "We(were out of money)" and "my" (money), but maybe that's a typical male character thing, ie. "ours" when they don't have it and "mine" when they do.

shaded-lily said...

If I were Donovan, by the end of this exchange I'd be ready to leave Carina broke in the hotel room and go spend my money on whores.

Wonderwood said...

Nice job Bunnygirl! I thought the dialogue was lively and entertaining. Great continuation!