Pretend you’re a novelist, a beginner, who after managing 129 pages of spellbinding drama and roller-coaster plot twists, has finally gotten your two main characters into bed.
I really enjoyed this piece. Deconstructing what goes on behind the scenes by the novelist while attempting to write even a few lines is fascinating! Plus i love the subject.. coffee brewing while i’m slow to get up ☺️ I don’t need to dialogue with my bed partner!
Thanks. I had to share it with my book club and a dear young person who has enrolled in a graduate school for creative writing! She got her undergraduate in fashion and now wants to teach creative writing… i’m guessing she has a long road ahead!
Thanks, all. In the course of writing the column, I became quite fond of Jack and Jill....I was trying to think of novelists/story writers to recommend who really use dialogue well, then realized basically all the greats are great at it. Just finished Dicken's Martin Chuzzlewit, all 800 pages worth, and it's crazy how patient Victorian readers were for long chunks of LONG dialog; all his characters, even the lowliest, deliver speeches when they talk, and somehow it all works... If I was really pressed to decide on one masterpiece of dialog it would be Eudora Welty's "Why I Live at the P.O." Priceless!
Excellent piece, Walter. Though I write less fiction than other things, I do know hard it is to write in dialect without sounding condescending. A real challenge, then, in my recent novel, NOW LOOK, was to capture the rhythms and cadences of the less educated character's talk while keeping it clear how much I admired and learned from him.
You are a teacher at heart, WD. Embrace it! Reading this gave me a longing to be a young, would-be novelist, eager to learn, discover, experiment. I recall reading something similar from a journalism professor many years ago and the many choices we had to make about word choice and potential bias.
On another note, your thoughts about dialogue made me think of Huck Finn and Twain’s dialect with Jim. I was mesmerized as a kid.
Lastly, and, sadly, these two lines stand out, “bigly”; didn’t know if I should laugh or cry:
Do staffers in the White House really exchange lines as sharp as those in West Wing? Not in the incoming administration I fear.
Thank you, Ms. Arena! Happy 2025 to you and yours!!!
I really enjoyed this piece. Deconstructing what goes on behind the scenes by the novelist while attempting to write even a few lines is fascinating! Plus i love the subject.. coffee brewing while i’m slow to get up ☺️ I don’t need to dialogue with my bed partner!
Thanks. I had to share it with my book club and a dear young person who has enrolled in a graduate school for creative writing! She got her undergraduate in fashion and now wants to teach creative writing… i’m guessing she has a long road ahead!
Happy anew year!
Thanks, all. In the course of writing the column, I became quite fond of Jack and Jill....I was trying to think of novelists/story writers to recommend who really use dialogue well, then realized basically all the greats are great at it. Just finished Dicken's Martin Chuzzlewit, all 800 pages worth, and it's crazy how patient Victorian readers were for long chunks of LONG dialog; all his characters, even the lowliest, deliver speeches when they talk, and somehow it all works... If I was really pressed to decide on one masterpiece of dialog it would be Eudora Welty's "Why I Live at the P.O." Priceless!
Excellent piece, Walter. Though I write less fiction than other things, I do know hard it is to write in dialect without sounding condescending. A real challenge, then, in my recent novel, NOW LOOK, was to capture the rhythms and cadences of the less educated character's talk while keeping it clear how much I admired and learned from him.
Better than whole books I used to read on the subject. Printing it out for my desk. Card echoing your final sentiment forthcoming.
You are a teacher at heart, WD. Embrace it! Reading this gave me a longing to be a young, would-be novelist, eager to learn, discover, experiment. I recall reading something similar from a journalism professor many years ago and the many choices we had to make about word choice and potential bias.
On another note, your thoughts about dialogue made me think of Huck Finn and Twain’s dialect with Jim. I was mesmerized as a kid.
Lastly, and, sadly, these two lines stand out, “bigly”; didn’t know if I should laugh or cry:
Do staffers in the White House really exchange lines as sharp as those in West Wing? Not in the incoming administration I fear.