An update from our seventy-third Writing Workshop A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, November 5 Today’s workshop called for the writers to pull from their own bookshelves and study the ins and outs of literary dialogue. The participants were asked to share out especially inspiring scenes of dialogue from their favorite books and identify why this dialogue was employed by the author. Examples included Keepers of the Lost City by Shannon Messenger and Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. We then reviewed a side-by-side comparison of the same scene from Harry Potter in both script and prose form in order to learn about the powers of subtext and providing background information in an engaging way. With these concepts in mind, the students entered into a five-minute write, in which they were challenged to recreate this scene from Harry Potter using only omniscient third-person narration. After time was up, Katelyn shared her impressive work. The writers then studied a number of examples of dialogue and characterization from classic literature and opera, including Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend and Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. In these works we observed the power of spoken dialogue over simple narration in certain situations. We then sent the writers into their 30-minute writing period with efficient, character-based dialogue in mind. The day’s readers included Greta, Yueling, Katelyn, Kristen, Crystal, and Nova. The Challenge: Write a story or poem incorporating effective, sophisticated dialogue between two or more characters. The Participants: Anya, Ava, Celia, Crystal, Greta, Katelyn, Kristen, Nova, Pearl, Reethi, Yueling
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How Stories Work—Writing Workshop #44: Writing Dialogue
An update from our forty-forth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday, October 8, plus some of the output published below This week’s workshop, Conner began with the caveat that these tools for writing dialogue, while strict, are just his opinion, and that we are free to write dialogue however we like. Conner’s “eight tools for writing dialogue,” not rules, started with the suggestion that dialogue should be realistic, but not too realistic. For example, even though most people overuse the word “like,” we don’t need to pepper our dialogue with these phrases. The rest of the tools were as follows: 2) use dialogue to reveal characters (differentiate characters, show a character’s personality, make character’s seem real, only write down interesting, essential, and surprising dialogue). As an example we read an excerpt of dialogue from Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God. 3) Start dialogue late, and end dialogue early. In other words, forget about hello and goodbye; jump into the dialogue at the moment the dialogue is essential, and end before the dialogue gets tedious. 4) Avoid the “information dump,” situations in which the characters are presenting each other with information they already know, but that the audience doesn’t. This information should be placed in summary. 5) Gestures are more communicative than words. As an example, we revised the sentence “‘I can’t believe it,’ he shouted, covering his mouth in disbelief” into “he covered his mouth.” 6) Have your characters talk to each other while simultaneously doing something else (as in the 2013 Pulitzer Price winning play Disgraced); 7) Use indirect dialogue, or when characters speak past each other with their own agendas. We used an example from Hemingway’s story “Hills Like White Elephants,” wherein the man wants to talk about their relationship, whereas the woman wants to talk about literally anything else. But you don’t want to get too indirect to the point of using non-sequiturs. 8) Avoid synonyms of the “to say” verb. They often end up being redundancies. Let the reader infer the mood rather than explaining it. The Challenge: Write a poem or short story entirely in dialogue, in which the characters are doing something else—walking, building something, making dinner, writing a letter, playing a game, telling a story—while talking to each other. The Participants: Emma, Anna, Alice, Russell, Savi, Anushka, Arjun, Allie, Robert, Aditi, Benedetta, Tate, Ella, Josh, Samantha In the Kitchen Emma Hoff, 10 “And she brought along all of her friends… I swear, people flit to her like moths to a lamp!” “Moths… horrible things.” “And I simply had to sit there and take it all, trying to pull her over to the side to tell her that I’d never invited any of these people without seeming rude!” “They make holes in clothes, you know that? Well, they’ll never get near any of my clothes… they’ll have to meet my swatter first!” “And then she insisted that they were ‘ever so kind,’ and ‘wouldn’t I let them stay?’ and I had to say yes. She makes me so angry sometimes!” “I would never invite her to a party… she’s just as bad as one of them moths!” “And then she said, ‘oh, Jerry, you’re ever so kind to let them stay!’ and then bustled about, trying to help, but she didn’t do anything at all! She isn’t even interesting to talk to!” “Parties are such a waste of time… oh, look, I’ve burned the potatoes! Stop distracting me with your talk of insects.” “But I’m not talking about insects… here, let me help you, you’ve gone and covered the whole counter with potato skins, how many did you use?” “Don’t tell me I didn’t hear you… you were talking about insects! Female insects, who do nothing but buzz in your ear all day, who you, for some reason, invite to your parties.” “Well, it was definitely a mistake… I’m serious, how many potatoes did you use? And you’re not planning on using all those green beans, are you?” “I’m not planning on wasting my time looking at that silly recipe… I trust my cooking instincts. You can never have too many potatoes.” “This is absolutely ridiculous!” “Maybe you can invite that bug and her millions of friends over to finish our leftovers.” “Stop calling her a bug!” “Why? I thought you didn’t like her.” “I simply don’t believe in calling people bugs.” “Phooey… Myrtle called Janet a nosy fly all of yesterday… of course, I won’t tell her that I agree with her, I would never live it down…” “That many green beans is quite enough…” “You know, Myrtle was telling me earlier that I should go to a nursing home somewhere, where someone can take care of me… I told her that I had my son to take care of me, if you weren’t always away at your parties…” “You can stop glaring at me, you’re exaggerating… and don’t dump all the green beans in!”
How Stories Work: Writing Workshop #29: Writing Dialogue
An update from the twenty-ninth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday February 26, plus some of the output published below To begin today’s workshop, Conner showed us the opening sequence from the 2001 film adaptation of Waiting for Godot, asking that we notice what made the dialogue good—specifically to notice how the dialogue works, how the two characters respond to each other, how the dialogue is simultaneously funny and mysterious, notice its indirectness and opacity, and how it opens itself up to various kinds of communication. One of the most important observations from this scene was that the characters didn’t spend time explaining the situation to each other. After we discussed each other’s desires for writing dialogue like Emma’s tendency to omit implied filler words such as “hello, or goodbye,” and Amelia’s desire to portray the character’s as human and non-robotic through realistic conversation, we moved on to Conner’s “seven tools for writing dialogue,” not rules, starting with the suggestion that dialogue should be realistic, but not too realistic. The rest of the tools were as follows: 2) use dialogue to differentiate characters; 3) avoid small talk; 4) avoid the “information dump”; 5) gestures are more communicative than words; 6) have your characters talk to each other while simultaneously doing something else (as in the 2013 Pulitzer Price winning play Disgraced); 7) use indirect dialogue. The Participants: Emma, Sophia, Nova, Amelia, Ananya, Alice, Josh, Zar, Samantha, Ellie, Chelsea, Quinn, Penelope The Challenge: Write about 2-4 characters who are having a conversation while struggling to build a bird house. The instructions for building the bird house are provided below: Rinse out the milk carton with dish soap and warm water. Cut out a 1/2 to 3 in (3.8 to 7.6 cm) hole on 1 side of the carton. Poke small drainage holes into the bottom of the carton. Punch a hole at the top so you can hang the birdhouse. Glue 3 in (7.6 cm) sticks to the top of the carton to make a roof. Paint the carton’s exterior with water-based paint. Tie string or yarn through the hole at the top of the carton. Place small rocks or sand at the bottom of the carton to anchor it against the wind. Hang the birdhouse at least 5 ft (1.5m) off of the ground. To watch the rest of the videos from this workshop, like Lina’s below, click here. Lina, 11
