Day 22
30 mins editing + 15 mins planning + 1hr 15 mins planned writing
I am so happy with the task this week. I * love * writing dialogue. My lead sense is audio and I take great interest in the sound of speech and what it reveals about people. I enjoy mimicking others and find fictional discussions so much easier to write than descriptions, thoughts, action, plot, the rest . . . (!) My ideal writing session is a wordy two-person play. However, that is not always what I want to read or watch. Besides, the storylines I write are too complicated for only that; I need to construct a world for the reader which goes beyond two people having a chat.
I also dislike reading pure dialogue. To me it is there to zoom in on characters for a while, to enjoy their company. It needs to be put in context. I don’t think it has the same impact without being anchored to action or scene. On stage or radio it’s okay, because you can see or hear different personas, and there is movement and dynamic. But on the page it is hard to stay interested in pure dialogue. The most vivid example of this is Alan Garner’s Red Shift, where characters talk and talk obliquely about a world I am not situated in. For me, an interesting story was spoilt by having nowhere to hang my hat.
As for improving dialogue in general, Jacqui has the following tips:
- dialogue is there to slow the pace and bring you into the real lives of the characters
- story dialogue (usually) needs to sound naturalistic, but heightened and edited to avoid wasting time and attention
- dialogue must have a purpose — any conversation needs to develop the theme, character, or plot
- reading your dialogue aloud is a good way to tell if it sounds right
- characters should sound different to each other when they talk
Exercise
- Option 1: 1,500 words: experimenting with dialogue however you want
or
- Option 2: 1,500 words (I added 30 mins editing + 15 minutes planning): a character tries to persuade another character to act against their will, where the scene begins with dialogue, but is not written only in dialogue.
My response
- Because dialogue is my natural setting and the thing which comes easily, it is the other disciplines which I need to work on. However, I enjoyed being in my comfort zone this week.
- I like to follow a prompt, so I chose the second option, where one character is trying to persuade the other to do something. Coercion is a large part of my story so there are different combinations of characters to try that with. I decided on a lesser-seen duo, where one of them is opaque to us. Jacqui asked for us to be barred from one character’s thoughts, so this fit perfectly for me. The one whose thoughts we can’t access is one of the “baddies”. I believe that someone is only a “baddy” in fiction when we can’t access their thoughts, experience their reality, and see the world from their view. The more we get to know a character, the less we think of them as a baddy, and more as a person who does bad things. I think there is a large psychological distinction for us there.
- After my blip in Part II, I feel much more connected to the work and less like I’m wading through treacle. Perhaps I’ve just built up enough previous material to start to find the substance of a story in it, or perhaps I was just struggling with a generic case of middle-itis.
all course content copyright Jacqui Lofthouse thewritingcoach.co.uk