Dialogue #1

Dialogue #1

All of us have read novels where we either could not follow who was speaking, or the means used to differentiate between speakers was forced.  Dialogue moves your story so that we are not just reading narrative.  When our characters are speaking, we need to see them, perceive their emotions at the time (without being told, i.e. telling the reader rather than showing).  What is their mood and can we identify with them?

If there are only two characters speaking, you can have a few sentences, one following the other without stating who is speaking. However, you must clearly show who is initiating the conversation.

Let’s take a simple scenario:

John entered the front door and at the sound of the slam, Snap, their terrier, who’d come to greet him, turned tail and jumped into his basket.  Mary came from the kitchen and seeing the look on her husband’s face, stopped a few feet away.

“You’re home.  Dinner’s almost ready.”

“I’ve been to the bank”

“I see.”

“How can you keep charging these things when we can’t pay for them?” He flung his jacket across a chair and glared at her. “I want the card, Mary, now!”

She felt tears stinging her eyes. “Our neighbor, Beth, is going through a hard time. I thought she’d like some flowers…”

“But red roses? Mary we’re practically living on mac and cheese as it is. ”

She went to her purse, got the card from her wallet and threw it at him. “Here is your precious credit card.”

• 1. What does the scene tell you about the characters?
• 2. How do we feel about John, Mary?
• 3. Can you visualize the scene?

Cont’d next month. J