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Q&A Good idea to write a scene with just pure dialogue exchange?

There's no reason you can't do this, as long as it's the reader understands the information you're giving them. The clearer way to do something is nearly always preferred. Writers have formatted ...

posted 10y ago by Neil‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:46:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/12941
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T03:46:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
There's no reason you can't do this, as long as it's the reader understands the information you're giving them. The clearer way to do something is nearly always preferred.

Writers _have_ formatted scenes as screenplays within a novel, but it's a rare, experimental device. It also evokes a cinematic feel, which may not be what you want.

Long passages of dialog without _any_ descriptive text will tend to run into one problem: It becomes hard to follow who's saying what. You can only incorporate so many instances of characters naming other characters in their speech before it becomes artificial. It's hard to replace "she said" with "So, Sue, let me tell you a thing..." more than once.

I'd suggest you minimize descriptive text and dialog tags, but not remove them entirely. That'll keep the scene very stark and dialog-focused but make it easy to follow.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-09-21T03:16:48Z (about 10 years ago)
Original score: 2