Author: WyattPitts

Which is most important in writing dialogue from memory: accuracy, succinctness, or liveliness? According to Wikipedia a dialogue is a “conversation between two or more people as a feature of a book, play, or movie”. “the book consisted of a series of dialogues”. To bring that down a dialogue is a conversation between two or more people in real life or a movie or a book. I love reading books with good dialogue in them. There are three ways that you can use dialogue in a story. There is accuracy, succinctness, and liveliness. Accuracy is staying on one topic through the whole conversation. Succinctness is a word that I have never heard about before. According to Wikipedia succinctness is “marked by compact precise expression without wasted words“. And last but not least liveliness. Liveliness is when there is action packed into a story with a lot of words and interesting thoughts. What do each of these have to do with a story? Let’s go farther and find out.

First let’s look at accuracy. In a fictional story there will probably not be accuracy because the author could of probably made it off the top of his or her head. In “The War Of The Worlds” H.G. Wells used a lot of inaccurate things because martins would probably never come and invade earth if they existed. If they did though he would be very accurate about it. In biographies or autobiographies accuracy is crucial to the telling of the story of one’s life. You do not want to have fake details about someone’s life even if it were an accident.

Next is the term succinctness. I don’t think it is good to be succinct because I like the extra details in a book or movie. Sometimes things are better if they aren’t succinct. there are some good things from being succinct though. G.A. Henty’s books are not succinct so that is probably why I like them so much. I enjoy reading stories where the dialogue is clear and not confusing, but I do not like when the dialogue is brief. I like reading long conversations, it keeps me involved in the story and I like getting to know the characters. 

Now for liveliness. I like liveliness because I like action. Action is good in a story. I also like long conversations with lots of detail. Out of all of these three liveliness is my favorite because action is amazing and in long talks is even better.

As Kourdakov was writing his book he used many contrast to tell us how different things worked in his book. One of these was communist meetings and Sunday afternoons. As a communist Kourdakov hated Christians or as they called them Believers. I don’t think that any one knows that reason accept if you lived back there when it was happening. They raided the Christians meeting and gave them hard beatings they would never forget. Kourdakov did not get much days off accept for some Sundays. On a Sunday morning Kourdakov’s boss told him to get his men and go to a specific area in the woods because there was going to be a Christion Baptismal meeting there. Kourdakov and his men treated it like a normal day off in the woods drinking and playing their guitars and other stuff they did like that until the raid.

Another contrast that was discovered in the book was Kourdakov’s private life and his public life. His private life was working in the KJB or the secret police. Kourdakov was told by his boss to keep the things that they do (beating and taking specific Believers) a secret because if the public found out what they did they might revolt against them. besides his private life was his public life. Kourdakov liked drinking vodka with his cadets because they were like family to him (His parents died, his brother had left him, and he was raised in many different orphanages). Almost everything he did was with his cadets and no one expected him of any wrongdoing. We would never had known this if he had never contrasted his private life and his public life. These contrasts made his book very interesting.

In the beginning of Sergei Kourdakov’s autobiography “The Persecutor” Kourdakov wrote down that he jumped off Russian boat into the ocean off the coast of Canada into a humongous storm. You may be asking some questions like what led to this failed assignment and why did he jump off pf a Russian boat? This paper is about the choices he made that led to this failed assignment. He chose whether to join the Army or Navy, joining a crime syndicate or staying clean, and telling the truth about suicide or telling a lie. I will tell you about all of these one at a time in this essay.

First whether to join the army or to join the navy. Kourdakov’s father and grandfather were both in the army but soon enough at an enemy camp they were worked to death. Soon enough when Sergei got old enough he wanted to go and work in the army. First he asked some people if he should and they all said that it is a hard life in the army and to stay away from it. Everyone said “You come out of the army and you start as a factory worker. What kind of future is that?” After a while he asked some people who were once working in the navy for information about their life in the navy so he joined the navy instead.

As a teenager Kourdakov joined a crime syndicate. According to the dictionary a crime syndicate is “a loose affiliation of gangsters in charge of organized criminal activities.” It is also another name or word for a mob or mobsters. A crime syndicate makes money by drug trafficking, arms smuggling, extortion (threatening people to get what you want), theft, and financial crime. Because of joining this syndicate he did very well as a KJB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) agent (which later in his life he got honored for).

As when Kourdakov was in the army a good friend committed suicide by jumping out of a three story building and dying. Kourdakov’s boss told him to lie about it and say to everyone that he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing. He did what his boss told him to do and lied to everyone about his friend dying. Kourdakov tried to help his friend, but he didn’t accept and committed suicide. In case if you ate wondering suicide is the act as if one killing himself. Suicide is terrible so if you ever see someone trying to committe suicide try to help them.

I have not finished this book yet but I hope to soon and find out how many other turning points he had in his life besides just these. Probably jumping off a Russian boat into the ocean in a blazing storm was the biggest turning point in his life. So far this book has been very interesting so please read it.

What I remember most from “A BUS OF MY OWN” is when Jim Lehrer is telling the story about when he was a child playing on a pinball machine. Jim’s dad and a friend went to go get something to drink so his dad gave him a coin to go play on the pinball machine. He goes to play on it but as soon as he starts it he regrets it because he has to go the bathroom. He never won a game before, but then he won for the first time ever! He kept playing and playing and playing until he won so much games that he peed in his pants! He did not want to go to the bathroom that he thought that if he left the machine somebody would come by, see all the games won, start playing, and then not believe Jim if he told him if it was his games that were won. He won more and more games until he saw his dad come in that he got so scared that he ran for the bathroom as fast as he could. His dad went into the bathroom and told Jim to come out cause it was time to go but if he did not want to talk that was fine. His dad was still talking when Jim rushes out and runs some blocks away. I remember that story because in my opinion it is the most funny story in the book. If you have kids tell them to read this story or read “A BUS OF MY OWN.”