How to write an introductory dialogue? [closed]
Closed by System on Aug 6, 2018 at 16:52
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What are different ways I can write a dialogue where a character is introducing himself to a woman in a professional setting?
I don't want to write explicitly like this,
"Hello Miss Emily, my name is Dr.Alfred Miller, I am the professor of Physics here at the university."
Edit:
In my novel, my protagonist is a saleswoman in a technology company and she is in the office of professor Alfred Miller. Her company has already sealed the deal with the university about the tech product. She is here to get the details of Professor's requirement. She arrives in the office of professor with a mutual friend they have, Susan. I have written the following dialogue, the next line is when the Prof introduces himself.
“Hey Alfred, good morning.”
“Hey morning Sue, how are you?”
“I am good, thanks, meet my colleague Emily.”
“Hello Emily, ...he introduces himself.”
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2 answers
At the moment, your suggested dialogue is very dry. Every piece of dialogue should ideally serve one of two purposes:
1: Move the plot forward.
2: Expose something about a character/their relationship with a character.
A good example of economic usage of a greeting to establish something about characters immediately are the sheepdogs from the looney tunes.
Every day, one punches in to their sheepdog job while the other punches out. They curtly say to each other:
"Morning, Sam."
"Morning, Ralph."
This summarises both their relationship to each other (they cover each other's off shifts) and their role (punch-clock sheepdogs who have as much apathy for their jobs as human punch-clock workers).
Think about what this greeting or introduction is trying to achieve. If it's literally just a polite greeting with no caveats or additional meaning, reconsider having it as a dialogue exchange at all; it could easily be summarised with 'Dr Alfred gave Emily the same milquetoast greeting he gave everyone else', or words to that effect.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38146. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Speaking as a professor (with a PhD), I would introduce myself, to a friend of a friend, by my first name. As an aside, a saleswoman should not be introduced as "a colleague" in a university setting, a colleague is somebody of similar rank, and in this setting implies a PhD. That is certainly what I think when anybody is introduced as "a colleague." Susan should introduce her as a "friend". Also, unless this is a VERY small college, it has multiple professors of physics, so "I am THE professor of physics" is inappropriate, "I am A professor physics" is what he would say. If you want some prestige, make him "THE Department Head", that is singular and suggests experience and seniority (without being so high up that he is more managerial / administrative than practical).
"Hi Emily, I'm Alfred. Dr. Miller if we are being formal."
"Oh, are you a teacher here?"
"I'm the Physics Department Head, that takes up most of my time so I'm exempt from teaching classes, but I do have three students working on my research projects. What has you two wandering the halls?"
Something like that.
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