“You Talking to Me?”
It’s All About Dialogue
Nothing teaches you as much
about writing dialogue as listening to it.' – Judy Blume
That
said, a lot of the dialogue we hear every day would not be interesting enough
for the page. What you discover from listening is the rhythm of talk, the
personalities it will reveal of the speakers, and the dynamics of the relationship
between them. Once a writer understands those fundamentals and is able to bring
them to the page, they can give the reader more information in a good
conversation than in pages of descriptive narrative. Dialogue can be the soul
of the story.
In
this workshop we will discuss how to provide insight into characters, create
mood and tension, and propel the story forward through realistic dialogue.
There will be an assignment for
day one, and we will create scenes and stories based on that. We’ll read
examples of dialogue and discuss why some work well while some fail. And, of
course, there will be daily exercises and prompts—the fun stuff of workshops.
Clif Travers is a visual artist and writer, recently relocated to the
woods of Maine from the
jungles of Brooklyn. His writing has been featured in Underwood Press,
freeze frame fiction,
Crack the Spine Anthology, and Coffin Bell Journal, among others. He
received his MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at the University of
Southern Maine. He is working on a collection of short stories and novellas
titled The Stones of Riverton. They are tales inspired by the
gravestones in a small town in Western Maine and based on the rumors of the suspicious deaths
of those that lie beneath them. Clif grew up in the town of his stories and has
returned there to discover more. He lives in a tiny cabin in the woods with his
dog Ollie. It’s a long way from Brooklyn.
