. . . By understanding how real speech works—with its half-spoken phrases, false starts, interruptions, and misdirection--you can begin to play dialogue like an instrument. Sometimes your characters may speak without listening, with interesting possibilities for plot. Or maybe someone is enraged, her words saying one thing, but her tone revealing another. Or another character may barely know what he feels or means, and you might make him inarticulate on purpose. The results can be either comic or tragic. Either way, let your dialogue reveal character and advance the plot.
1 comment:
"Playing dialog like an instrument" is what makes theater so exciting. I love watching that happen. It's hard to write tone and sarcasm but I love it when a writer can make dialog jump off the page as I read it. I'm reading a book right now that goes 8 or 10 pages before there's any real dialog. It's very hard to get into a story like that.
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