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Exercise #254: Craft
Posted 3/7/08
Today’s exercise not only comes to us from Sharon Tabor Warren, she also wrote it. Thanks, Sharon!
Natural dialogue is possibly one of the greatest challenges that face a writer. A writer's ear must be trained to catch authenticity and it's a subconscious process. One cannot write the dialogue of coal miners or Texas wildcatters if one has not mingled with those people or, at the very least, read a great deal about them.
Good dialogue portrays the characters and the reader is not told of characteristics in lengthy prose. Instead, he learns about the characters in the same way you and I would learn if we met someone new.
In a recent exercise, there were some comments made about missing tags in a telephone conversation. The writer felt they weren't needed, several readers found the dialogue difficult to follow without tags. The bottom line is that a reader needs to be able to read the dialogue without confusion and the writer might not be the best judge since it is known to him or her which character is speaking.
Said is an acceptable tag and it needs nothing else: "You can't be serious," she said in astonishment. This is an example of writing down to the reader. When we read the dialog, don't we know the character is astonished? In the same vein, avoid tags such as gasped, whined, chorused, screamed, snarled, etc. Those words are unnecessary and obtrusive.
Look through some of your writings (not limited to Desk Drawer exercises) and see if you can find a scene with dialogue that might be improved. Copy it to your exercise in its original form. Then, rewrite the dialogue with the above points in mind. If you can't find anything that needs improvement, have a go at the dialogue at the bottom of this exercise. You're free to change anything you like but stay with the concepts of the dialogue as it is presented.
You might find this site interesting and they give some exercises that will challenge you further on writing dialogue: http://www.poewar.com/12-exercises-for-improving-dialogue/
Note the increased word limit for this exercise.
Word limit: 1500
Please use the subject line
SUB: Exercise #254/yourname
Sample dialogue to use if you wish:
(396 words as is)
“I don't believe I've met you before,” Marcy said to the tall young man who stood alone in a corner. He held a beer in one hand and a plate of finger food in the other. She wondered how he planned to eat the food.
He took a sip of beer. “Uh, no,” he answered, hesitantly, “this is the first time I've been to one of Joe's parties.”
“How do you know Joe?” Marcy asked with curiosity.
The young man smiled. “He's my cousin,” he replied.
“Then why haven't you been to one of his parties before?” Marcy queried, determined to get the whole story.
“Well, because I just moved here from our hometown,” the young man replied. He stacked his plate of food on top of his can of beer and snagged a meatball.
“You're pretty good at managing to eat and drink at the same time,” Marcy purred like a kitten. “What's your name?” she asked.
“Sam,” he replied curtly.
He hadn't asked for her name but Marcy was determined to take this conversation further. “I'm Marcy. What do you do, Sam?” she asked.
Sam had another sip of beer. “I'm in school,” he answered reluctantly.
“For what?” Marcy asked.
“Uh, well, I'm not sure yet,” Sam replied after a pause.
“How can you be in school at your age and not know what you want to do?” Marcy persisted.
“Well, look, I'm a vet, I came back from Iraq a month ago, and I'm at a crossroads. It isn't unusual for returning soldiers; we have a lot of conflicts to deal with.” He said it with force tinged with bitterness and belligerence. He turned and walked away.
Marcy turned to a friend who stood nearby. “What a jerk that guy is,” she whined. “I'm sorry I gave him my name.”
“Oh, Sam?” her friend asked. “He's a nice guy with a lot of baggage,” she explained. “Joe says he was a real fun-loving guy before he went to Iraq but now he's not the same . . . ” She paused. “I guess his time in combat screwed with his mind,” she added.
“Maybe more than his mind,” Marcy said archly as she moved toward the bar where another unattached male was mixing a martini. She thought he might be more her type.
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