Overlooking the excitement of being a father-to-be, sitting in the OBGYM can be fairly boring. The absence of a laptop (left it at home) and the fact that my game of brick breaker was abruptly interrupted (thanks, Jen) certainly didn’t help either. But one thing did. The windows. Permanently bolted shut, they were about as authentic as Twinkies, but I was nevertheless drawn to them (also true for Twinkies ). I watched sunlight trickle through, clouds roll past, the occasional bird collide violently into the pane (I’m kidding, of course…it was more of a gentle thud). Trapped within concrete and steel barriers, two sheets of glass saved me from an uncomfortable fit of claustrophobia.
This same phenomenon applies to writing.
When two characters are interacting, the reader has no access to information about the world outside them. She is, in effect, trapped within walls of dialogue. Not a place where anyone wants to stay for too long.
So why not give the reader some windows? Illuminate that dialogue with flashes of action that reveal the world around them. Not only does it engage the reader, but it gives us an opportunity to infuse some tone/theme/tension into our writing, turning pages of exposition into a narrative as entertaining as action.
Just don’t over do it. I can’t think of the literary equivalent to shades if you do.
Your thoughts are quite interesting. And congratulations on your impending fatherhood!
Thank you! It’s a wild ride, and I’m loving every second of it
Nice post, I agree. Per dialogue, funny how often I read dialogue in writing groups and the author is going on and on with long-winded conversation in perfect grammar, like everyone talks as if they went to Oxford.
Common dialogue is often choppy fragments. Don’t believe it? Record a conversation with a few friends not knowing they’re being recorded. Great way to work on dialogue.
http://thelittleuniverse.com
You’re so right about constructing dialogue the way people really talk.
And you know you’re reading great dialgoue when you can tell which character is talking by what’s being said and the way the character is saying it, without looking at any dialogue tags.
The only thing in a novel that doesn’t need to be English-perfect is amazing dialogue.
The dialogue construction does need to be correct, however. Nothing drives me crazier as an editor than an entire manuscript containing dialogue that’s incorrectly constructed and punctuated.
In my initial scan of a manuscript before agreeing to do a job, if the dialogue isn’t constructed properly, I won’t take the project.
Dialogue is sort of my hot button (can you tell?). Well crafted, clever dialogue that’s in the right balance with narrative can tip a mediocre novel over the line to good. But the reverse is true as well.
Amen.
Case in point: someone brought the misspelling of OBGYN to my attention. I was tempted to correct it, but due to my unfamiliarity with all things pregnancy related, I decided to leave it as it. The mistake speaks to my inexperience far more simply than I can.