Writing Exercise #2: Dialogue
Posted by Star on 10 Jan 2010 at 03:14 pm | Tagged as: Misc Writing
Exercise paraphrased and slightly modified from two exercises appearing in Fiction Writer’s Workshop by Josip Novakovich.
This one should take about three pages, and runs from Monday, January 11 to Sunday, January 17.
This exercise focuses on dialog. Your scene: Two men and a woman eating dinner. Man #1 is in love with the woman, who is in love with Man #2, who in turn is in love with himself. (I’m sure you could rearrange genders as you please.) You want to show your reader this without coming out and saying it. Illustrate it through body language, through the way they speak and act toward one another. A secondary goal in addition to the descriptive bits is to practice mixing dialogue and action or description. As you’re doing this, also be sure that you keep each character distinct. Let us know who’s talking without using dialogue tags.
Happy writing!
