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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41006
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41006
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I don't think there IS a good way to handle a lengthy **monologue**. Agents and publishers will reject them out of hand, or demand they be changed. Readers are looking to be entertained, not read a lecture.

### The Answer is to Imagine More, and _Write_ More.

Basically, beginning writers are often lazy. They want to deliver a message, or build their world, or describe a character's background, or talk about how the culture works or an abusive parent screwed up a character's psychology, so they just dump it on the page: Resulting in big blocks of bland text that create a huge memory load for the reader to digest, and nobody wants to plow through it.

There is nothing wrong with having a philosophical message in your writing, but a monologue is just plain boring. There is no conflict or action, and THOSE are what readers find entertaining.

So your best bet is to deliver this stuff, not in a monologue, but an **argument** with the student disagreeing, misunderstanding, failing to answer questions correctly, or whatever. It is also best to avoid two talking heads: Have this conversation while DOING something that can be described. Cleaning house, exercising, sparring, walking, shopping, cooking, gardening or harvesting.

Don't make your master so certain or just a delivery mechanism for a canned philosophy: Have him respond specifically to the student's questions.

Have the student misunderstand and the master rephrase or simplify or _lengthen_ the answer.

Make him a teacher that _wants_ the student to understand the lesson.

Have the master ask open-ended questions of the student to learn their background or a source of their misunderstanding, so the student gives a long answer. Make the student a puzzle for the master to solve.

In short, to be a commercial success or at least fun to read, we must break up large blocks of exposition or monologue by introducing **_conflict_** that keeps the reader interested. This doesn't have to be a fight, just events and mental states (every 100 to 200 words) that keep the monologue from progressing _smoothly_.

This will inevitably make the monologue significantly longer, even two or three times as long. That is appropriate, long monologues are usually an indication of a severely under-imagined scene; and it is the job of the writer to assist the imagination of the reader. Always remember, readers **do not mind reading** as long as the reading is interesting, and one of the things that makes it interesting is conflict.

Original score: 6