Dialogue (15 page)

Without the dialogue, the scene would feel stagnant, like it's standing still even though there's action and the characters are moving around. The dialogue helps give the scene its momentum as we watch Mike caring in a nurturing way for Kyra while staying focused on getting them out of there. Action without dialogue often lacks substance. Granted, as I said above, there are times in a story when only dialogue or only action or only narrative is what's needed for that moment in the story, but most of the time you want to weave these three elements together.

narrative into dialogue

Narrative seems to be the favorite element of most writers. I seldom see stories that use too much dialogue, but I often see stories that use too much narrative. Narrative tells, dialogue shows. There's a time for telling and a time for showing. This is the skill in learning to weave—knowing when to do what.

Narrative is the part of the story that does any number of things but show characters talking to one another. It might describe characters or setting, reveal background, flash back to the past, move into a character's mind and reveal thoughts, characterize, and philosophize. In the first person and/or literary story, especially, the story's voice comes through most effectively in narrative, since the story is most often character-driven rather than plot-driven, and the protagonist has a very personal story to share with the reader. In this type of story, the protagonist is developing a more intimate relationship with the reader, gaining the reader's trust and can talk more directly to the reader through narrative.

The problem is this stuff gets boring when that's all there is. The reader will follow an interesting character anywhere, as long as there's plenty of action and dialogue in the story. What you want to do is anchor as much of your narrative as possible within the context of a scene so it's not hanging out there on the perimeter in a vacuum. If there's something important you through narrative, find a way to create a scene and get your characters interacting, then weave the narrative into the scene.

So this time, we're going to approach things from the opposite direction. Instead of weaving the dialogue into the narrative, we're going to weave the narrative into the dialogue. Check out the following scene of dialogue, first without narrative, then with narrative.

Without narrative:

"Honey, I really think we should stop and ask where Dover Street is."

"Not necessary, sweetheart. I know where I'm going."

"Then why have we been circling this neighborhood for the last 45 minutes? It only took us 20 minutes last time Bob and Sue invited us over for dinner."

"That's because we had written directions in front of us."

"Why are you so stubborn? What's the big deal with stopping at that 7-11 right there and asking where—"

"The people at those 7-iis never speak English, that's one good reason. It's a waste of time."

"And driving around like this isn't?"

"No, because we're getting closer."

"We are—watch out! You just turned down a one-way street, you idiot!"

"There's the house. Told you I'd find it."

With narrative:

"Honey, I really think we should stop and ask where Dover Street is." This is only the third time I'd made this suggestion.

"Not necessary, sweetheart. I know where I'm going."

"Then why have we been circling this neighborhood for the last 45 minutes? It only took us 20 minutes last time Bob and Sue invited us over for dinner." Why did he have to be so stubborn, affirming the stereotype about men not being able to ask for directions? Why couldn't he ever be just a little bit unpredictable?

"That's because we had written directions in front of us."

"Why are you so stubborn?" We passed Elm Street again—the third time now. "What's the big deal with stopping at that 7-11 right there and asking where—"

"The people at those 7-iis never speak English, that's one good reason. It's a waste of time."

"And driving around like this isn't?" Juniper Street again.

"No, because we're getting closer."

Closer. Right. We'd passed this same intersection at least five times now in our scenic tour of Bob and Sue's neighborhood. The truth was I wasn't even sure this was their neighborhood. I didn't know whether to keep arguing with him or let him drive us around until midnight.

"Sure, we are—watch out! You just turned down a one-way street, you idiot!" Was he even awake?

"There's the house. Told you I'd find it."

When you find yourself writing a scene that ends up top-heavy with dialogue and you need to weave in some narrative, simply put yourself into the character's situation and imagine what she is thinking and observing in the moment. You're the actor in a movie and you have to play all the parts. Be aware that any narrative thrown into a scene of dialogue slows it down a bit, so place it strategically in places where the tension isn't affected by a line or two of narrative. In the above scene, we get to know the female character in a way that we don't in the dialogue-only scene.

weaving dialogue, narrative, and action

Most of the time, we want to balance our scenes using all three elements: dialogue, action, and narrative. This is one reason you want to put your character in a scene with other characters as often as possible. Scenes that are woven engage the reader at an emotional level so much more effectively than scenes that are only dialogue, only narrative, or only action.

Following is an example of a well-woven scene from Sue Monk Kidd's
The Secret Life of Bees.
In the following scene of this literary novel about the civil rights movement, Kidd seems to want to talk to us about the risk of getting "stung" if we want to be true beekeepers. If we want to make a difference in the world, we must take risks, and loving something is enough reason to do it. Rather than "preach" to us through narrative alone, the author blends the scene using dialogue, action, and narrative, pulling the reader in.

Rescuing bees took us the entire morning. Driving back into remote corners of the woods where there were barely roads, we would come upon twenty-five beehives up on slats like a little lost city tucked back in there. We lifted the covers and filled the feeders with sugar water. Earlier we'd spooned dry sugar into our pockets, and now, just as a bonus, we sprinkled it on the feeding rims.

I managed to get stung on my wrist while replacing a lid onto a hive box. August scraped out the stinger.

"I was sending them love," I said, feeling betrayed.

August said, "Hot weather makes the bees out of sorts, I don't care how much love you send them." She pulled a small bottle of olive oil and bee pollen from her free pocket and rubbed my skin — her patented remedy. It was something I'd hoped never to test out.

"Count yourself initiated," she said. "You can't be a true bee-keeper without getting stung."

A true beekeeper. The words caused a fullness in me, and right at that moment an explosion of blackbirds lifted off the ground in a clearing a short distance away and filled up the whole sky. I said to myself, Will wonders never cease? I would add that to my list of careers. A writer, an English teacher, and a beekeeper.

"Do you think I could keep bees one day?" I asked.

August said, "Didn't you tell me this past week one of the things you loved was bees and honey? Now, if that's so, you'll be a fine beekeeper. Actually, you

can be bad at something, Lily, but if you love doing it, that will be enough."

The sting shot pain all the way to my elbow, causing me to marvel at how much punishment a minuscule creature can inflict. I'm prideful enough to say I didn't complain. After you get stung, you can't get unstung no matter how much you whine about it. I just dived back into the riptide of saving bees.

How did Kidd know when and where to put what? This is largely an intuitive process, and I'm guessing she didn't do a lot of thinking about how she was weaving the elements of fiction as she was writing her first draft. You have to move inside of your characters in order to do this. You can't be thinking about how to do it, at least not while writing the first draft. During the revision process, when reading back through the story, you can see better when a scene is top-heavy with dialogue, narrative, or action. The perfectly balanced scene has a rhythm to it; you'll learn to recognize it when it's there.

And when it's not. The scene heavy with dialogue for too long a period of time can begin to feel unreal, like you're simply listening in on talking heads. Without active images or character observations of setting or mood, it feels like a radio interview with the sound effects missing. Likewise, a scene top-heavy with action can also feel unreal because it's unlikely that characters doing something—anything at all—would not be talking during the activity. Finally, the scene top-heavy with narrative, as we've discussed above, can simply be boring, as it is in real life when a person rambles on and on and on about a subject. Even if it's a subject in which we're interested, the rambling narrative can put us to sleep.

So learn to watch for any scene in which you've used only one of the three elements—dialogue, action, or narrative—and ask yourself if it feels real and emotionally engages the reader.

when not to weave

Having said all that, learning not to weave is as important as learning to weave. Is it ever a good thing to create a scene with only dialogue? Only narrative? Only action?

One reason not to weave is because you want to highlight a particular character trait in your viewpoint character or focus on something specific that the characters are talking about. You don't want the scene cluttered, the reader distracted, or the pace slowed by action or narrative. You know how

sometimes when someone is telling you a story, the setting, the other people around you, everything just kind of fades away, and you're intent only on what the other person is saying? This is what it's like when you cut away action and narrative and leave only your characters' spoken words.

Picture your characters in a movie and the camera is closing in, coming closer and closer to your characters, their facial expressions, their very beings. You can achieve this same effect with dialogue-only scenes.

Check out this scene in
The Feast of Love
by Charles Baxter. The viewpoint character, Bradley, works at a coffee shop called
Jitters.
His co-worker, Chloe, asks him what's the worst thing that ever happened to him. Up until that time, the author had woven dialogue, narrative, and action into a nicely balanced scene, but it was time to speed things up. Bradley starts to tell Chloe about how he and some buddies were in the cathedral at Notre Dame in Paris. The story's getting long and Chloe tells him to hurry it along. What

the author wants to highlight here, it would seem, is that Bradley actually thinks the worst thing he's ever done in his life is knock over a bunch of candles in a cathedral. The dialogue focuses on this alone.

"Let me finish this story... And because my hand was shaking, I reached down to the holder, this freestanding holder or candelabra or whatever of votive candles, and somehow, I don't know how this happened, my hand caused this holder of candles, all these small flames, all these souls, to fall over, and when it fell over, all the candles, lit for the sake of a soul somewhere, there must have been a hundred of them, all of them fell to the floor, because of me, and all of them went out. And you know what the nun did, Chloe, the nun who was standing there?"