Distracting Discourse
First I must yet again apologize to my readers. Last week I
was ill and unable to update my blog. Not that there was much to update, I’m
sure you lot don’t want to hear of sore throats and snotty noses. But now I am
back to my blogging ways and must ask about dialogue.
I have just written a conversation between my main character
and prison inmate that I really enjoyed writing. He was winding her up and she
fell for it hook, line and sinker. There was a purpose to the conversation, my
main character needed to figure something out for herself, and the best way to
do that, I found, was to have a humorous yet purposeful dialogue between the
two characters. But that got me thinking about dialogue. Is it always necessary
or do we use too much? Does every conversation in a novel have to have a purpose
or can it be an atmospheric tool? If you want your character to feel a
particular way before an essential scene, is dialogue the best way to go? If
you want someone to be angry, is it best to be provoked by another character,
or will outside influences sway their emotions? If a love scene is to occur,
will flirtatious dialogue lead to this scene, or will the mood be set by
candle-lit scenery? Maybe the conversation is suppose to distract the reader from something that is developing?
Can superfluous dialogue be non-superfluous? By which I mean
can dialogue that is not necessary to the story, not there to paint a mood and
not helping to move the flow of the narrative ever really be left in? Does it
always have to serve a purpose or can we get away with distracting discourse if
it sounds really good? What do you think? Let me know your thoughts in the
comments below.
Read, follow, comment and enjoy. M x
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