Free indirect speech: Nattan stood looking out the window.Italicized thoughts: Nattan stood looking out the window.Nattan said, “I was going to give it to Benn in Fell Creek, but he wasn’t home, and I had to get on the road.” The way the characters speak to us can take several forms: Let’s look at a scene that opens upon a place where the reader and the protagonists must receive information. A short story has no room for bloated exposition. So now that we know what must be conveyed and why, we find ourselves in the minefield of the short story:ĭon’t give your characters long paragraphs with lines and lines and lines of uninterrupted dialogue.
My rule of thumb is, keep the conversations short and intersperse them with scenes of actions that advance the plot.Īuthor James Scott Bell says dialogue has five functions: How many words do you intend to devote to it?.What do we want to accomplish in this scene? Ask yourself three questions. If nothing comes of it, the conversation is a waste of the reader’s time. Tolkien said that dialogue must have a premise or premises and move toward a conclusion of some sort.
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