Post History
As you say, there are many stories that work that start with dialogue. Far too much advice about writing is much too mechanical in nature. Dialogue is just a mechanism for telling a story. Rules ab...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2020-01-03T20:41:50Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/23786 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:25:06Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/23786 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:25:06Z (almost 5 years ago)
As you say, there are many stories that work that start with dialogue. Far too much advice about writing is much too mechanical in nature. Dialogue is just a mechanism for telling a story. Rules about which mechanism to use are silly, and usually easy to prove false with counter-examples. What a story must do is to establish conflict. Can you do that with dialogue? Of course you can. But note that conflict does not mean violence. Nor does it mean confrontation or argument. Conflict, in story terms, means desire and obstacles to that desire. Bullets whizzing by heads are not exciting or gripping until we care about whose head they are whizzing by and understand what desire drove them to the place in which bullets are apt to whizz by heads. Desire and obstacle are what you need to establish. Dialog is as good a tool as any for doing it.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2016-07-13T05:38:55Z (over 8 years ago)
Original score: 3