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Q&A Dialogue writing practices?

Jim Van Pelt has a great one: In a nutshell, two students talk to each other so that each speaks twice. One of them records what they said. That produces four lines of raw dialogue like this:...

posted 13y ago by Standback‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-12T20:05:58Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/3942
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T01:56:09Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/3942
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T01:56:09Z (almost 5 years ago)
[Jim Van Pelt has a great one:](http://jimvanpelt.livejournal.com/322874.html)

> In a nutshell, two students talk to each other so that each speaks twice. One of them records what they said. That produces four lines of raw dialogue like this:
> 
> “Are you practicing with the band tonight?”
> 
> “Yeah, we qualified for state, so we’re doing extra time.”
> 
> “Congrats! Where’s state this year?”
> 
> “Colorado Springs. The same place we did it last year.”
> 
> The exercise is, without changing any of the dialogue, to insert thoughts, actions and descriptions so that the reader is in a scene instead of just seeing a record of speech.

It's worth reading the whole entry, for student responses.

The key here is that dialogue, and its effect, are heavily dependent on the surrounding description and action. You can play the same dialogue a dozen different ways - and trying to do that is a great exercise for understanding how to choose which way to play yours.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2011-09-13T20:11:45Z (about 13 years ago)
Original score: 6