Dialogue

Dialogues, trialogues and septalogues – basically any situation where one living entity is speaking to another – are quite simply the most difficult part of writing a story. If you think about films, the primary mode of displaying human relationships is through words. It is in fact the only time in a dramatic production that words are actually used over props, special effects and camera footage. Dialogue is therefore identifiable as the most important and awkward type of interaction any human being can perform.

This prompts the immediate reaction to set out dialogue as clear and segregated from the rest of one’s writing as possible.

Kim and Jono bumped into one another at the park.

“Hello.”

“Hello. How are you?”

“I am well thanks. How are you?”

“I am well too, thank you.”

The human brain tries its hardest to see the world as simply as this, even in real-life situations. But the fact is that nothing is ever so straightforward. Humans speak with their bodies as much as their words. Consider the difference made even to my trite dialogue above when I do the following:

“Hello!” Kim puffed, ending her spirited jog as she landed flat on her heels in front of Jono.

“Hello. How are you?” Jono replied, quite unprepared for Kim’s sudden arrival. He slipped his mobile into his pocket, self-conscious about the message that glared across the screen.

“I am well thanks,” Kim panted out, gaining her breath. Her eyes met his for a moment and she quickly looked away. “How are you?”

Jono shrugged and looked at Kim’s feet. Her sneakers were muddy, choked with long spaghetti threads of grass. “I am well too.” He tried to look at her eyes again, but she was obviously just as nervous as he was. A weak smile lifted his lips at the thought. “Thank you,” he murmured.

This is how even the most basic dialogue should look. Time doesn’t stand still when two people talk. Thousands of things are happening all at once. Even if the person who the protagonist is speaking to isn’t that interesting, it says a lot if a character is busy describing the background while someone is talking to them. Similarly, if two people with real chemistry are talking, the background fades and the speaker’s tiniest gestures become significant.

Short Stories

Has anyone every wondered why there is a natural expectation that books will eventually become screenplays? Worse, I think, is that nobody seems to have any qualms about it when it happens.

The way I see books is like this:

If you take enough time out of your week to sit down and read a book, you are making a serious dedication. You are encouraged by this use of your time to connect with the characters, learn more about their lives and their personalities. You are encouraged to think things through, test what you would do in similar situations to what the protagonist is going through, psychologically probe their actions and the cause behind their actions, and in turn find a cause for your own actions.
Books, by my most accurate description, are longstanding relationships between the Artist and the subject. They are strong, lasting connections formed by ample time and understanding.

Films, or 'flicker shows', as I prefer to call them (I've never actually called them that in public, but it still sounds cooler to say 'Would you like to see a flicker show?' than 'let's go see a movie'), are vastly different. Most of the focus behind a flicker show is to bombard the human senses with immediate sensations, relying on an external source rather than an internal one (as with writing). During a flicker show you sit down for at the very most (except back in yonder days of 'War & Peace' and 'Gone with the Wind') three hours, usually without being able to pause and digest all the information that's coming at you.
In this way, movies are hardly more than first impressions to the human mind. They provide an oversight; the casual glance at an idea before brushing it away without giving it the chance to grow. I don't mean to say that flicker shows are necessarily wrong or evil - just that they are different to books.

It takes a very certain type of attitude to walk away with a lasting effect from a flicker show. The viewer has to be ready to sit down and contemplate the idea, form their own mental connections based solely on those 2 to 3 hours of sensation. In many ways this can be seen as a more intellectually fulfilling means; because the viewer cannot rely on anything but those brief sensations they are forced to think things through without any guidance (as a reader would have if they read a book), and through thinking alone, they are seen as 'stronger' individuals. The fault in this is that they are only elaborating ideas from one point of view; they are close-minded if they do not consider that there may be more to the story that what they witnessed during the brief flicker show.

There is much more than this, of course, but as with any story this one must include separate chapters so that the reader can pause, think, and return after reflection.