Do I rely overmuch on dialogue?
There’s a trick to handling dialogue. A story needs a narrative
voice to anchor us in the story, to tell us who these characters are and how
they relate to each other. Without that, we lack understanding of
a) what is going on (no context)
b) where they are (no description)
c) why they are having this discussion.(motivation)
It’s good to have a description of the surroundings which may or may not be important to the conversation. Since we cannot hear the voices, we miss out on clues such as dialect, tone, emotion.
The very first literary agent I ever applied to said bluntly, “You’ve forgotten the who, why, what, where and how.” (I think those are the words she used. It was at least fifteen years ago! But if I misremembered, I’m sure you get what she meant.)
If a reader has to go back and read every word three times
over to get the sense of what is unfolding, they will give up from sheer
exhaustion. So remember - just dialogue may look cute, but it will not do the entire
job.
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