Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48111
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48111
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

I will second @MarkBaker and @Amadeus: **avoid the repetition.**"But I need the response," you say. "It doesn't flow," you say. Very well, that's the problem you need to solve - how to make it flow despite cutting away the part of the dialogue that would be boring to the reader.

Tolkien faced a similar dilema several times in the course of _The Lord of the Rings_ when characters met each other after being apart. Most notably, at the Council of Elrond, much is recounted that is new to the reader, but also everything that has happened so far is "told" to those present, as well as all of _The Hobbit_. This is how Tolkien dealt with the situation:

> To some there Bilbo’s tale was wholly new, and they listened with amazement while the old hobbit, actually not at all displeased, recounted his adventure with Gollum, at full length. He did not omit a single riddle. He would have given also an account of his party and disappearance from the Shire, if he had been allowed; but Elrond raised his hand.  
> ‘Well told, my friend,’ he said, ‘but that is enough at this time. For the moment it suffices to know that the Ring passed to Frodo, your heir. Let him now speak!’  
> Then, less willingly than Bilbo, Frodo told of all his dealings with the Ring from the day that it passed into his keeping. Every step of his journey from Hobbiton to the Ford of Bruinen was questioned and considered, and everything that he could recall concerning the Black Riders was examined. At last he sat down again.  
> ‘Not bad,’ Bilbo said to him. ‘You would have made a good story of it, if they hadn’t kept on interrupting. I tried to make a few notes, but we shall have to go over it all again together some time, if I am to write it up. There are whole chapters of stuff before you ever got here!’  
> ‘Yes, it made quite a long tale,’ answered Frodo. ‘But the story still does not seem complete to me. I still want to know a good deal, especially about Gandalf.’  
> <sub>J.R.R. Tolkien, <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>, book II chapter 2 - "The Council of Elrond"</sub>

None of what the reader has already heard is repeated. At the same time, Tolkien avoids the kind of ugly visible cut you want to avoid. Instead of recounting to us _what_ is being told by the characters, he tells us of _how_ it is told, how the tale is met, even how comfortable each speaker is in telling their tale. Those things are all new to the reader, unlike the content of the hobbits' tales, which is already known. The skip doesn't stand out, the reader isn't bored, and the conversation flows naturally towards the next speaker, who then continues to recount things which the reader doesn't know yet.

Consider skirting around what you need to repeat in a similar manner. Find something else to hold the reader's attention, and avoid repetition. Repetition is boring.

Original score: 3