| “Dialogue is a skill best learned by people who enjoy talking and listening to others–particularly listening, picking up the accents, rhythms, dialect, and slang of various groups.” -Stephen King Welcome to the Week 12 discussion board! This week we’ll focus on exploring how to craft engaging and believable dialogue. 1. I’d like you to spend 20+ minutes eavesdropping on a conversation. While you’re listening, you should take notes. You should try your best to write down the words verbatim. Next, I want you to look for the conversational gems and extract the good bits. What is unexciting filler and has no need to be preserved? You want to distill your notes so that “filler” words are removed and only the essential elements of the verbal exchange are included. Before posting, read your dialogue out loud. If something sounds phony, delete it or make it less formal. Use contractions and sentence fragments. Rough up the language a bit. Make it believable. *It is essential that you not create a fictional conversation but do the work of observing, documenting, and then distilling an overheard conversation. At the beginning of your post, you should tell us where you did your eavesdropping and provide basic information about the people involved. I encourage you to write your dialogue in the format provided below. The dialogue you post should be 150+ words. Name of Person 1: Name of Person 2: 2. Sometimes what is not said in dialogue is even more significant than what is said. Read “Legacies” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48227/legacies by Nikki Giovanni. What is the conversation between the grandmother and the little girl really about? What goes unspoken? |
