  Short Stories
This week: Edited by: Mavis Moog  
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Do you use enough dialogue in your short stories? In this newsletter, I try to encourage you to use more, and answer some questions about punctuation.
Mavis Moog |
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Dialogue
H. B. Aldrich, in his book, Short Story Writing For Beginners says, "My advice to the beginner is to present as much of the story as possible in dialogue form. It will not read too much like a play script, for a certain amount of narrative will be unavoidable, but if dialogue is carefully treated it will give the story reality and freshness.
"Dialogue can be helpful in giving all kinds of information, and personality of a character can be shown most vividly by it."
There is much written about showing and not telling. Generally it is considered dull to write long narrative passages which tell the reader back story, inner thoughts, motivations and reactions. The advice is always to show not tell.
One way of thinking of this it to imagine a film is to be made of your story. How would the director portray all that narrative? If the answer is simple, because it's full of action, you have probably got it right. If it would need voice overs and complicated sequences of flash-backs you have probably got it wrong. I spend much time extolling the virtues of imagery and colourful prose. I think these scenes, in a movie, would be handled by excellent cinematography. Considering your characters as parts in a film will help you to make their behaviour tell the story for you, but it is not an entire solution. Believeable dialogue is also important.
Some writers seem to think that believeable dialogue means it must be absolutely true to life. I think this is a mistake. Most real conversations include far too much incidental, irrelevent material. For instance, think about how you greet your colleagues at work each morning. If a writer were to faithfully transcibe every, "Good morning. How's the kids? Did you see that TV programme last night?" the reader would soon lose interest. Real conversations are often very disjointed too. Speakers interrupt themselves or are interrupted by events around them. Sometimes, people speak far longer than would seem comfortable in a story. I know people who talk for five minutes without a break, and I would never dream of filling four pages with one character's speech. When writing dialogue we need to write what seems natural, not what actually is natural.
Dialect, or lack of it, can be used to great affect in dialogue. I must give a word of warning to reviewers here though. I have seen dialogue criticised because the reviewer doesn't think someone would talk like that. Very often, this is a reflection of the reviewers' narrow experience of language use throughout the world. Non-American, English speakers do have their own speech patterns and consideration should be given to this.
The dialogue should advance the story in some way. Masses of irrelevant chit-chat will simply bore the reader as much as it bores the listener in real life. It is important too, not to make the dialogue too abrupt. As in narrative, words should not be wasted, but verbal mannerisms and clever handling will make your dialogue build character, advance the story and flow well.
In this example, the first passage is left completely bald; the second shows how tags can make it flow better.
________________________________________________________
"I'm going out."
"Where?"
"That's my business. I don't have to answer to you."
"Only showing polite interest. Why are you being so secretive?"
_______________________________________________________
"I'm going out," he said, suddenly.
"Where?" she asked over her shoulder, as she rearranged the magazines in the rack.
"That's my business. I don't have to answer to you," he snapped.
"Only showing polite interest," she replied, with a mild look of surprise on her brow, "Why are you being so secretive?" ________________________________________________________
Tags are not essential. In fact some writers make it a specific art-form to write dialogue without any tags at all. Have a look at Editor's Picks for examples of dialogue stories.
Punctuation
There has been much debate about some aspects of speech punctuation. I have researched and double checked this brief guide. I hope it will help you iron out any doubts you may have. As you can see, some points are far from definitive.
 Only spoken words should be in quotation marks.
Each new speaker should have a new paragraph.
Each piece of speech should end with some form of stop or comma before the close of the speech marks.
Tags which follow the speech should not begin with a capital letter.
Continuation speech, after a tag, does not need to start with a capital letter if the spoken sentence is mid-way through. (American)
All speech should begin with a capital letter. (British)
If a spoken sentence is complete at the end of the speech, it can be finished with a full-stop (period), before the speech marks, even if a tag is added. Such a tag should still have no capital letter. (Fowler's Modern English Usage)
Even if a spoken sentence is finished it should end with a comma before the speech marks, if a tag is added. (Commonly accepted)
A stop can follow the speech marks if the quote is intergral to the sentence. Such as, He was reading, "Far From The Madding Crowd".
A preceding tag should be separated from the speech by a comma before the opening of the speech marks.
A post-speech tag should have a comma between the basic tag and any further information. For example, "Blah blah blah," he said, as he left the room.
There are varying opinions and systems. Whichever you choose to follow, I suppose the golden rule is, "Be clear and consistent."
I wrote a light-hearted, short essay about punctuation some time ago. You may find it entertaining and it explains more about American vs British systems.
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This is one of a group of stories in vivacious  's portfolio, which take a fresh look at Bible stories. I found this one refreshing and thought-provoking.
Well-written and plenty of dialogue, this story flows and surprises.
For those of you in a rush, this extremely short story is full of excellent imagery.
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Here's an example of a story written in dialogue only. I think it works.
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These two are also written in tagless dialogue. What do you think? Does it work well?
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This contest should give you some inspiration. Closing date 20th April.
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Here's a contest for very short dialogue stories. Closing Date for this round is 7th April, but new rounds will follow.
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AuntyNelly
Thanks Mavis, an interesting NL as usual.
I was reading with interest the insert you wrote about Will Self, I will certainly look him up.
Take care, AuntyNelly
schipperke
I will have to check out this author and see if he is available at my local library.
As far as being saturnine and good looking..well Mavis, you can borrow my glasses if you want
I knew my description of Will Self as goodlooking would be controversial  .
Here's a provocative response to my review of Will Self's story from a writer who feels strongly patriotic about his reading material  :
Strange Wulf
Perhaps this comes a bit late, since I haven't checked my email in a while, but I was not impressed by any of the quotes you provided.
In fact, they were quite painful to read. I felt like I was reading something written by an elitist who used fancy words to please himself and his peers. Which I, being the red-blooded American I am, apparently am not.
You can love this author if you wish. I'll stick to those who speak my language and tickle my funny bone. |
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Short Stories: April 05, 2006 Issue [#962]
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