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As a reader, I'd rather not have a story start with dialogue, and it's more about background and voices rather than context per se. Why? I create particular voices for characters in my mind when I...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T05:25:09Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30916 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
Jeutnarg
·
2019-12-08T05:25:09Z (over 4 years ago)
As a reader, I'd rather not have a story start with dialogue, and it's more about background and voices rather than context per se. Why? I create particular voices for characters in my mind when I read them, and it's annoying to have to change those voices. Giving me dialogue without any details on the character 'locks in' a voice that may be radically different than the character's voice really 'should' be. Especially if this opening dialogue keeps revealing a bunch of information about motive, background, etc., then I spend a ton of mental energy just updating voices. Analyzing your example by this metric, at first I'm forced to choose between a dark, commanding voice and a desperate, high-pitched voice for that first sentence. Voices are only settled at the end of the second sentence, since now I know which person was making threats and the power dynamics. Everything from then on is fine, voice-wise.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-10-19T19:01:49Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 0