The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: dialogue

  • Listening for Gold

    Moleskine
    My old Moleskine notebook. I still carry it around in my backpack in case inspiration strikes.

    Trying to write as a dozen conversations circle around me is maddening at times. Other times it’s pure gold.

    I’m one of those people who prefers to write in complete silence or maybe with some quiet music (sans lyrics), but the pressures of my day job don’t afford me that opportunity very often. Instead, I find myself putting words on a page as the room roars with impromptu meetings, phone conversations, and smack-talk over an occasional game of foosball.

    But let’s be honest, listening is what writers are supposed to be doing. If we’re not listening to the world around us, we’re robbing ourselves — and our writing — of one-fifth of our sensory input. How else can we write genuine-sounding dialogue if we don’t pay attention to how people talk?

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  • Poor Gift Advice and Other Tangents

    I am a terrible gift giver. I like to believe that I’m good at thinking about other people, but as I wrestled with this post, I was faced with the possibility that I might, in fact, be a very selfish bastard.

    When it comes to buying something for other people, I often have no idea what to get.

    I love connecting with individuals and genuinely care about the lives of others, but I can’t think of a single adult, outside of those related by blood or marriage, for whom I am buying a gift this season. I can’t decide whether or not this says anything about me as a person, but I thought I’d put it out there before I get to the advice-dispensing portion of this post.

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  • Where’s My TARDIS?

    Has there ever been something for you that can drown out the rest of the world? That can suddenly make deadlines and responsibilities seem unimportant? If you have, then you know how I feel about writing. When I get on a roll, nothing else seems to matter. This writing high is how I survived NaNo last year and how I plan on surviving it again. Okay. The writing high and a judicious application of coffee.

    There are many hard things about writing, finding the right words, editing, keeping it from becoming a cliché or something that’s already been written. But the hardest thing is to find time to write.

    It’s not that I can’t sit down and write in five minute spurts here and there. I can. But to truly become absorbed in the work I need hours, and that’s hard to plan time for. Squeezing in five minute spurts works… right up until that five minutes turned into thirty and I’m suddenly late for work. I would kill for a time turner or a TARDIS. (more…)

  • Too Many D*cks on the Dance Floor: Doing More with Less

    In my own writing, I don’t usually work with a large cast of characters. I like simple stories that are more or less stripped down to their bare essentials. Whenever I write a scene that has more than two characters, I tend to get worried about whether or not everyone is getting equal billing.

    Has the third wheel gotten enough lines? Do they even have anything to add at this point? Will the reader wonder where they’ve gone if I don’t mention them soon? It’s a point of stress for me that I try to avoid whenever I can.

    That being said, I see absolutely no reason I can’t offer you advice on the topic. Just think about it like someone with agoraphobia giving you tips on how to enjoy the great outdoors. At the very least, it could be entertaining. And, really, what else do you have to do for the next five minutes?

    (Most likely the answer is a lot of other things, but for now let’s pretend your schedule’s wide open.) So buckle up. Here we go.

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  • Can I have my settings back?

    When I can make myself laugh on a read through six months later, I know I’ve done something right. Either that or my sense of humor hasn’t developed any. There are moments in my writing that I’m quite proud of, moments where I go “I wrote that? That was me? Damn I’m good.” Sadly those moments aren’t quite as frequent as I would like, but they happen, and that is what is important. They’re often enough to satiate my ego.

    My first writing instructor complimented me on my settings and then suggested I work on improving my dialogue. It was both the best and worst advice I could have received, because I went on and took a play-writing class. If you’re not familiar with what happens in a play script, it’s a lot of dialogue, a few directional cues, and the briefest amount of setting instructions possible. I spent an entire semester learning how to write dialogue. By the time I came out of it, I was actually pretty good at it, or at least, that’s what I tell myself. (more…)