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Q&A How to deal with cliche dialogue?

Oh, you are doing well here. Very well. You are breaking a rule about cliche dialogues exactly where it should be broken. You are writing a meaningless, dull prattle that lulls the reader into sli...

posted 10y ago by SF.‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:43:52Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/12795
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar SF.‭ · 2019-12-08T03:43:52Z (almost 5 years ago)
Oh, you are doing well here. Very well. You are breaking a rule about cliche dialogues exactly where it should be broken.

You are writing a meaningless, dull prattle that lulls the reader into slightly bored indifference and then you drop the bomb of “Animal Self-Destruction Observation Group” which makes me go "What?!" - and then you drop another - “That’s good.”, the mother completely missing it, suddenly adding a lot of depth to the story, by showing how shallow and ignorant a person she is. And from that point on what was so far dull and boring, despite not changing the tone the least bit, looks sinister and gritting.

This is exactly a very well executed trick of lulling the reader into boredom only to shock them out of it. Well done and don't change it!

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-09-06T10:42:07Z (about 10 years ago)
Original score: 2