The First Five Pages: Dialogue

Well, in this chapter I learned the reasoning ‘why’ behind the things I had picked up by looking at the dialogue in some of my favourite books.

I also learned that chopping up my dialogue as I have being doing here and there to mix it up, is evidently distracting if you do it too much. I have a feeling that a lot of what has been covered so far in the book will really hit me in the chapter on pacing and progression. It almost makes me want to leap ahead…but I won’t. I will hold myself off.

Okay…I just read through the first four (I’m such a rebel, I didn’t do ‘five’) pages of my ms and you know, what, maybe I’m not quite as bad as I thought with the breaking up the dialogue thing. Whew.

On to the next chapter on dialogue.

Later…

Read the next chapter on dialogue. I think I understand why my character was always ‘looking’ everywhere. I’ve been trying to describe too much of the everyday while trying to build the feeling of a scene. I think after my second try at a novel, I got past the desire to try and make the dialogue totally everyday and therefore commonplace and dull. At least I hope so. It is still realistic to my characters, but mostly I have cut the crap.

Although it worries me. He says if you find an extraneous line on the first page, you will likely find one on every page thereafter. My question is, how do you know what is ‘extraneous’. Some is obvious. Sure. Some can be done without and won’t be missed. Although what about the take it or leave it lines that add miniscule bits to one paragraph or page? The overall effect of taking out all those lines could leave you with a slightly bare feeling that you can’t quite put your finger on.

I suppose it comes back to ‘art’ and ‘style’.

But does it? The lines I am thinking about are not cut and dry. If I let myself–in the right mood of course–I would slash everything, leaving me with a husk of a story.

So, should I go through my ms again looking for lines I can cut? I always find some. Yet, I always add some too. Hmm…