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Yup, that works.

OK. Thank you folks you’ve given me an idea.
Maybe I can get round it by not implying the ringing sound is unbroken. Does this work?

I rang her mobile. No reply. Desperation prompted my repeated dialling. More than anything else I wanted her to be safe. Even wanted to hear her saying fuck you and calling me a fat cow. Only she could end this…[Read more]

…PS am certainly intrigued by the story’s ending now anyway

Ref Tony’s previous comment, if a call can’t connect to a mobile it doesn’t always go to voicemail. Plenty of times I’ve called a number and instead of an answer or voicemail, heard something to the effect of ‘the number cannot be reached’ (can’t remember exact wording).

In any case, I think if the caller was worried and desperate to get hold o…[Read more]

I remember reading after a train crash disaster, of the non-stop ringing of victims’ mobiles. Could you hot say “Somewhere there was a phone that seemed to keep on ringing and ringing.” ?

If it’s on Google it MUST be correct!!!
But it doesn’t really matter, if, within the context of what you write, it IS correct. As long as you “hang a lantern” as Harry Bingham of Jericho Writers, puts it, your readers will believe you. Go for it!

Yes, so damn annoying. I expect we’ve all been here with our stories in one way or another. Just when I sat back happily, thinking I’d at last finished my story, that thought about plausibility came to me. And it won’t go away. However…
Last night I tried carefully writing into the story the stop-start from repeated redialling and thought it…[Read more]

Yes, but… Who would repeatedly ring a number that kept going to voicemail? Some might try twice but no more than that, surely.

And I suspect that perhaps the caller is no longer in a position to make repeat calls any more than the receiver is able to answer, but I’m just guessing.

I still think the simplest answer is to establish early on that…[Read more]

That’s exactly the sort of detail-conundrum that gets my knickers in a twist, too! I agree with @philippaeast on this. I’m hearing a mobile that rings and rings, cuts out and then almost immediately rings and rings, cuts out, etc etc. Without knowing exactly what that signifies in your story I think it has the same level of hopeful/hopeless effort…[Read more]

Damn don’t you just hate when reality gets in the way of a good turn of phrase! I do love the sound of that last line.

I wonder if you could play with the idea of someone repeatedly redialling so that the ringing sound becomes continuous even if each call begins and ends. Perhaps you could tweak the last line slightly to read something like…[Read more]

Thanks for your comments Daeds and Tony Lyttle. My mobile won’t just ring and ring, but whether it is or isn’t possible with mobiles generally, maybe most readers would just think (if they thought anything), ‘Oh, my phone doesn’t do that but other phones might’. I do want my story to be realistic, but perhaps I’m getting overly fussy in my old age!

It sounds a wonderful last line and conjures up all sorts of possible scenarios; I can understand why you want to be able to use it. I wonder whether you can, though.If, as Daed suggests, you can prove it works by testing turning off your own voicemail, fine, but I suspect phone companies have a system that will automatically disconnect a call…[Read more]

Very good question. You could have a play with the settings on your own phone to see if you can stop it going to voicemail, or set it for a greater number of rings before it does? I’m sure I’ve known mobiles that ring for ages before the go to voicemail, and also as the caller you can cut off the call and ring back almost instantly if the pho…[Read more]

@jillybean you MUST!

Mantra.

I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

Such is the mantra, spoken quietly in hope during clandestine gatherings, or whispered in the darkest moments outside of them, when dreams of life lived to the full fall beyond my control and are squashed like bugs in the mud.

For certain, this mantra is against the teachings of…[Read more]