Prepared by: Alex Quisenberry
Posted on: Sun, 9 Sep 2001
Reposted on: Sun, 12 Sep 2004
A back-to-basics exercise where every
member is expected to post a
SUB.
This week we'll look again at DIALOGUE,
essentially a repeat of
Practice-W's 2nd exercise. We started in January with about 35 members,
and some of those are no longer with us; however, even with the losses
Practice-W now numbers closer to 65.
One most difficult skills for a writer to
master is DIALOGUE.
Clearly, DIALOGUE is not the presentation
of words in the manner we
speak them. Few of us in 'conversation' use complete sentences. Yet,
the
sentence fragments we normally communicate with are certainly not what
we normally see as written dialog.
On the other hand, although we learn to
write in complete
sentences and thoughts, using this "complete" structure in our DIALOGUE
is
awkward and stilted. We do not write DIALOGUE the same as we wrote
prose.
Find that fine line between the way we
speak and the way we write
to complete a DIALOGUE Exercise using a minimum of other written
material.
Take between 300 and 500 words to write a
scene between TWO
characters. When the scene ends we should know the central conflict
between these two, and a great deal about their personalities.
Alex Quisenberry's wrap-up
Posted on: Sun, 16 Sep 2001
This is a tough week to summarize. After
Tuesday morning's tragic
news
*everything* was, and remained, a little out of kilter . . .
The DIALOG EXERCISE had many restrictions
and several parameters. It
seemed as though we didn't want to be confined to all these rules this
week.
A good number of us presented a conflict
between our characters.
Many, but certainly not all, stuck to the
two character requirement.
Some developed these characters so that we
knew a good deal about
them
at the end of the post, and this week we had the latitude of using up
to
500 words for that development.
Several used DIALOG with a minimum of
other material to carry the
story
to their readers.
A couple of us even used Dialog in such a
fashion that the story was
shown (and not told).
But oddly, only a few of us did all the
things required. All the
subs
were excellent, well writing, but I think we were a little . . .
distracted.
This was our 2nd time to offer DIALOG to
the group. We did learn
that
good dialog which carries the story line is still one of the toughest
tasks in this craft.
I appreciate all who participated this
week, when our hearts might
not
have been in the effort.
The work was remarkably good. And, if you
feel you missed the mark
this
time, rest assured, we'll look at Dialog again.
Alex Quisenberry
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