DIALOGUEWeek 3 Creative Writing

DIALOGUE

In fiction, human

dialogue attempts to

marry logic to emotion

Types of Dialogue

SUMMARY: Can be part of the narrative, so that

much of the conversation is condensed.

Eg: After sending in his resignation, Toby was

finally able to discuss with Marge how to

implement their retirement plan: where they

would go, what they would see, what they would

eat, and most importantly, how to avoid other

people exactly like themselves.

Types of Dialogue

INDIRECT SPEECH: Reported in the third person so that there is a feel of an exchange, but without quotation marks.

Eg:

Has she made breakfast yet? He had been waiting since she woke up, for her to make the breakfast. It had been her idea, her offer.

Ah, he knew it, no, she hasn’t. Yes, he was still waiting, and will keep waiting, and not do anything else, until he’d been fed. He was a human being, not the cat and dog roaming around the house aimlessly with nothing to live for but exist for the sake of the ecosystem. If she were more into human beings than four-legged beings she would’ve remembered his breakfast.

TYPES OF DIALOGUEDIRECT SPEECH/QUOTATION: Good for illustrating dramatic action – possibility of discovery/decision.

Eg: “But I thought you hardly knew her, Mr. Morning.”

He picked up a pencil and began to doodle on a notebook page. “Did I tell you that?”

“Yes, you did.”

“It’s true. I didn’t know her well.”

“What is it you’re after, then? Who was this person you’re investigating?”

“I would like to know that, too.”

- Siri Hustvedt, Mr. Morning

TYPES OF DIALOGUE

You can combine all three, take advantage of what effect they have in the text, make your narrative more interesting, varied, fruitful.

Eg:

They differed on the issue of the holiday, and couldn’t seem to find a common ground. (Summary). She had an idea: why not some Caribbean island over Christmas? Well, but his mother expected them for turkey. (Indirect).

“Oh, lord, yes, I wouldn’t want to go without a yuletide gizzard.” (Direct).

WHAT IS GOOD

DIALOGUE?“There is a tentative rule that pertains to all fiction

dialogue. It must do more than one thing at a

time or it is too inert for the purposes of fiction.

This may sound harsh, but I consider it an

essential discipline.” – William Sloane, The Craft

of Writing.

NOTE: The idea is to make dialogue mean

MORE than what is actually being said.

WHAT IS GOOD

DIALOGUE?Therefore dialogue in fiction is NOT merely transcribed speech

It is DISTILLED speech – the filler, the small talk, the little bits and pieces are edited away, and the real conversationremains.

“You don’t simply copy what you heard on the street, you want to make it sound natural, but that doesn’t mean it isnatural. It takes careful editing to create natural-sounding dialogue. Generally, that means keeping things brief, and paying attention to the rhythm of the sentences. Sentences are short. They’re not particularly grammatically correct, but rather quirky and characteristic of the speaker” – Alice LaPlante.

Take out the written conversation from before, and distill it into a real, interesting conversation. Stick to facts as much

WHAT CAN DIALOGUE

DO?SHOW CHARACTER.

“It is indeed a pleasure to meet you.”

“Hey, man, what’s up?”

Same purpose – regular greeting.

Same people?

What dialogue can do

CHARACTER in dialogue – through VOICE.

Using particular diction (choice of words), or syntax (word order in sentence) can tell things like class, period, ethnicity, etc.

Eg: “I had a female cousin one time – a Rockefeller, as it happened-” said the Senator, “and she confessed to me that she spent the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth years of life saying nothing but, No, thank you. Which is all very well for a girl of that age and station. But it would’ve been a damned unattractive trait in a male Rockefeller”

Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.

What Dialogue Can Do

Eg: The Knight looked surprised at the question.

“What does it matter where my body happens to

be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all the

same. In fact, the more head downward I am, the

more I keep inventing new things. “Now, the

cleverest thing of the sort that I ever did,” he

went on after a pause, “was inventing a new

pudding during the meat course.”

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

What Dialogue Can DoEg: As soon as I arriving London, I look around the sky

but no any fogs. “Excuse me, where I seeing the fogs?” I

ask policeman in street.

“Sorry?” he says.

“I waiting two days already, but no fogs,” I say.

He just look at me, he must no understanding of my

English.

- Xiaolu Guo, Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

What else can dialogue

do?Set the scene in a narrative.

Eg: “I have a lousy trip to Phildelphia, lousy flight

back, I watch my own plane blow a tire on

closed-circuit TV, I go to my office, I find Suzy in

tears because Warren’s camped in her one-room

apartment. I come home and I find my wife hasn’t

gotten dressed in two days.” – Joan Didion, Book

of Common Prayer.

What else can Dialogue

do?Advance action in a narrative – move the story

forward.

Change the relationship between one character

and another, increase drama.

When dialogue itself becomes the means of

telling the story.

Dialogue as ActionEg: Mother of seriously ill toddler looks to radiologist, anxious for information:

“The surgeon will speak to you,” says the Radiologist.

“Are you finding something?”

“The surgeon will speak to you,” the Radiologist says again. “There seems to be something there, but the surgeon will talk to you about it.”

“My uncle once had something on his kidney,” says the Mother. “So they removed the kidney and it turned out the something was benign.”

The Radiologist smiles a broad, ominous smile. “That’s always the way it is,” he says. “You don’t know exactly what it is until it’s in the bucket.”

“In the bucket,” the Mother repeats.

“That’s doctor talk,” the Radiologist says.

“It’s very appealing,” says the Mother. “It’s a very appealing way to talk.”

- Lorrie Moore, People Like That Are the Only People Here.

Dialogue As Action

Does the Mother feel differently about the

Radiologist after the conversation? Is there a

movement between how she was talking to him

at beginning of passage, and how she was

talking at the end?

What has happened? How will the Mother react

now? Will she now make different choices, take

different action?

Something has altered in the story – minor, but it

has.

SUBTEXT in DIALOGUE

Dialogue meaning more than one thing –

meaning more than what is said.

Sometimes great meaning can be found in what

is NOT said.

‘Reading between the lines’ – extra, important

parts of the story that’s in the silences around the

dialogue – is SUBTEXT.

SUBTEXT in Dialogue

Reflects life – people, when emotional, seldom express it as it is. “I am happy,” “I feel sad”, “I am angry”.

Does not sound realistic.

People often say something else, but mean these things. The emotion is shown, not told.

Love scene – narrative tension – less when couples immediately say I love you. More when they know it, but talk about the weather, their friends, their homework.

SUBTEXT in Dialogue

The purpose of human exchange is to conceal as

well as to reveal – to impress, hurt, protect,

seduce, reject.

A line of dialogue should always leave the sense

that more could have been said – Anton Chekov.

People may or may not say what they mean, but

always say something designed to get what they

want – David Mamet (playwright).

SUBTEXT in DIALOGUEEg: Daughter of a doctor, who died recently, takes a phone call. The doctor used to perform illegal abortions. (Alice Munro, Before the Change)

A woman on the phone wants to speak to the doctor.

“I’m sorry. He’s dead.”

“Dr. Strachan. Have I got the right doctor?”

“Yes but I’m sorry, he’s dead.”

“Is there anyone – does he by any chance have a partner I could talk to? Is there anybody else there?”

“No. No partner.”

“Could you give me any other number I could call? Isn’t there some other doctor that can-”

“No. I haven’t any number. There isn’t anybody that I know of.”

“You must know what this is about. It’s very crucial. There are very special circumstances-”

“I’m sorry.”

SUBTEXT as DIALOGUE

The thing not mentioned? Subtext?

Abortion.

Not wordy/eloquent, simple exchange, but good dramatic action – for both daughter and caller, things are tense, stakes are high. Both are emotionally involved but for different reasons.

PLENTY of subtext in good fiction –

“There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show” – Ernest Hemingway.

SPECIFICITY in

DIALOGUERemember specific details vs generic details?

Showing vs Telling – showing, with specific details, is far more interesting, more emotionally engaging.

Eg: “It’s perfectly clear from all his actions that he adores me and would do anything for me”

OR: “I had my hands all covered with clay slick, and he just reached over to lift a lock of hair out of my eyes and tuck it behind my ear.”

Which do you believe is more loved?

SPECIFICITY in DIALOGUEInformation conveyed naturally in dialogue, if emphasis is on human emotion.

Information (telling): “My brother is due to arrive at midafternoon and is bringing his four children with him”

BUT: “That idiot brother of mine thinks he can walk in the middle of the afternoon and plunk his four kids on my lap!”

Same info, emphasis on emotion – reveal character, draws in reader.

Also: “I can’t wait till my brother gets here at three! You’ll see – those are the four sweetest kids this side of the planet”

Also same info, emphasis on different emotion – different character, story going a different way.

Exercise – homework – take information in dialogue you’ve heard and rewrite it with different emotions – anger, disgust, wonder, sadness, curiosity, jealousy.

DIALOGUE FORMAT and

STYLEHAS to be invisible. Don’t draw attention to it.

What a character SAYS has to be in quotation marks. Thoughts, NO.

Begin each line of dialogue on a new paragraph. Helps to orient reader as to who is speaking, especially when there’s a dialogue scene with a lot of information being passed on.

Punctuation: always inside quotation marks.

Eg: “I wish I’d taken the picture.”

NOT – “I wish I’d taken the picture”.

DIALOGUE FORMAT and

STYLEDialogue tag – tells us who has spoken.

Russell said, Connie said.

Always use comma at the end of it, even if line of dialogue sounds like a full sentence.

“I can drive,” said Tina.

‘Tag’ – means for identification, so ‘said’ is enough. For modern fiction purposes, don’t use anything else, and don’t add adverbs to it.

She gasped, he laughed, they snorted, he exclaimed. NO

He said quickly, she laughed loudly, they said forcefully, he told animatedly. Also, NO