Exercise: Dialogue
Dialogue is one of the most immediate elements in fiction. When we hear someone’s voice, that person is present for us – here, now. We’re in physical contact, and real time and narrative time fall into step with each other. Nothing reads as fast or as interestingly as well-written dialogue. Good dialogue is driven by the peculiarities of character and situation – the way a certain character turns a phrase, the pause that follows a shocking statement, a stuttering reply. Developing a good ear for dialogue is important. This week, start listening to how people say things. Develop the habit of eavesdropping on conversations at work, in restaurants, on buses. Quietly write things down that strike you as strange or revealing. Here are some characteristics of effective dialogue: •
Sounds natural – sounds like people talking. This is an illusion achieved largely by relaxing the hold that rules of grammar and syntax have on your writing, and by avoiding complex, gracefully balanced structures.
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Feels motivated by character and situation, rather than seeming contrived to deliver plot information to the reader.
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Reflects setting. The particular environment intrudes in various ways, interrupting, distracting, encouraging or discouraging bluntness, etc. (For example: if the scene is based on a married couple discussing the wife’s affair with the neighbor, the husband is not going to throw his chair across the room, if they are, say, in a caf é, or at a party. They will have to argue in whispers. Setting can add a secondary layer of tension to scenes of dialogue by setting limits).
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Includes gesture and other body language
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Involves tension of some sort
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Is particular and surprising
Option 1: Write an original scene of dialogue between two characters based on the criteria above. This scene should be based on some tension, to give it shape and purpose. This tension can be anything. Try not to go into detailed character description. This scene should be comprised of dialogue, and brief, concise lines of physical description. Try not to qualify every line of dialogue with an adverb. For example, not every sentence should be followed by: “… she said hesitantly,” or, “he said accusingly,” or “quietly,” or “angrily.” Try to insinuate the emotions in the lines of dialogue themselves, or in the subsequent reactions.
Option 2: Write a scene that plays on the familiar trope of the girl telling the boy that she’s pregnant, in which A is the girlfriend and B is a boyfriend. Imply that B is happily expecting the news, but that A, unhappily, feels compelled to admit that child may not be B’s after all. Don’t let either character mention pregnancy. Let each character guess at the next statement of the other and finish each other’s sentences. This same exercise can also work with one character trying to confess to having an affair. In this scene, the affair itself is never actually mentioned, but danced around, implied, cruelly suggested. Option 3: Write a dialogue about gift giving, in which A is a parent and B is a child. On the table is a wrapped gift. Perhaps it is not the gift that was expected. Perhaps it was. Option 4: Two friends, A and B, are walking into the far country. They are overtaken by extreme weather – heavy rain, intense heat, an ice storm, etc. It was A’s idea to take the walk in the first place. Option 5: Write a scene in which a young soldier, A, has just returned from a war. B is the soldier’s lover and can’t help but urge A to talk about the war. A responds to B’s questions, but indirectly, focusing on things like the music and language and food instead of the horrors of battle.
