![]() But I suspect that's not what you're talking about.Īs far as I know - and I'm happy to be corrected here - this is rarely done because it breaks so many rules of storytelling. letters, reports, postcards) or a monologue from the main character(s). It's possible, and common enough, to have none if you're writing the kind of novel that's epistolary (written communication, eg. It depends on the type of novel you're writing, and also on your skill level as an author. The short, cop-out answer is: It depends. If you want to learn more about dialogue learn from the best, pick up some books on screenwriting or playwriting. Now the dialogue contains both subtext and conflict. Continuing the example above, the security guard suspects he’s being conned, so he subtly attempts to learn more about the protagonist who of course doesn’t wish to be discovered. So even if an exchange of dialogue is small and focused, it must contain its own conflict. Since drama is conflict, the use of dialogue in storytelling requires that it contain and advance character conflict. Overtly, a conversation might involve a protagonist making small talk with a security guard, but in actuality, the protagonist is attempting to con her way into the building. The problem invariably arose from the same two issues: lack of subtext and conflict in their dialogue.Įvery effective piece of dialogue in a film will have something going on below the surface of the conversation (all is not what it appears). When members of my writer’s group, unaccustomed to dialogue, attempted to employ dialogue in their stories it typically accomplished nothing. The point here is, screenwriting forces a writer to use dialogue to convey story. ![]() A typical two-hour film script only contains about 20,000 words. Metaphors, literary style, overt exposition, and character thoughts are all off-limits. In screenwriting (my hobby) story must be conveyed exclusively with character actions and dialogue. I’ve belonged to a number of writer’s groups and have found that budding novel writers often view dialogue as extraneous because they don’t understand how it works. ![]() The path to reaching larger stories is not padding them with unnecessary material. But your question also hinted at story length and a fondness for economy in writing, which I think is a good thing. Since the author’s voice in a novel can communicate both the characters' actions and directly relate their state of mind, there is no fundamental need for novels to contain dialogue.
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