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Q&A Is it possible to write a novel completely devoid of dialogue?

Short answer: yes. The question is complicated, though, by what counts as 'dialogue'. If you read - for example - Birgit Vanderbeke's The Mussel Feast (Peirene Press, 2013, trans. Jamie Bullock)...

posted 10y ago by micapam‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2020-01-22T13:31:22Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9138
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 · 2019-12-08T03:08:29Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9138
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T03:08:29Z (over 4 years ago)
Short answer: yes.

The question is complicated, though, by what counts as 'dialogue'. If you read - for example - Birgit Vanderbeke's _The Mussel Feast_ (Peirene Press, 2013, trans. Jamie Bullock) you won't find any direct speech - i.e., dialogue in quotation marks. But there's plenty of reported speech in there. It's a more difficult technique than direct speech, but the reward is that the entire texture of the prose is conditioned by the narrative voice. There's a greater cohesion, something a little more like storytelling and less like conventional prose fiction. I bring this up just an example, to show that the question has more nuance than just dialogue vs. no dialogue. It's a question primarily of form, and secondarily of content. You haven't gone into much detail about the aesthetic considerations in play, so I can't offer any advice specific to your piece.

And as for writing a novel that _most_ people would like (mentioned in another answer this this question). Screw that. Write a novel _you_ think is the best novel you can write, and would be enjoyed by a reader with precisely your taste. If your taste coincides with the zeitgeist, so much the better. But if you're not writing for yourself, you will be able to smell your novel's inauthenticity from the other end of the block. (The other, complementary piece of advice is to read both broadly and deep, so your taste is as informed as it can be .... but that's a given.)

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-10-12T05:32:55Z (over 10 years ago)
Original score: 7