FROM SPEECH TO DIALOGUE: ACTION TO INTERACTION

How a person speaks is a reflection of who that person is. But speech is not just a means of display, like a peacock's plumage. We don't just speak at each other to prove how articulate or forceful or clever we are. We speak to each other.

Dialogue is what we get when we engage in that singularly human exercise of speaking to each other. It's dialogue that allows us to have the most complex interactions and relationships— and the most agonizing misunderstandings. Language is, of course, meant to communicate, and no matter how often we misinterpret each other, we keep on trying to connect through words.

But language provides more than connections. It also powers action. Anyone who has tried to find an address in a foreign city knows how essential conversation is to getting something done. So let's go beyond individual voice and speak of voices: arguing, agreeing, jawing, joking— making conversation that matters.

You might rent some videos with snappy dialogue, like the screwball comedies of the 30s, or David Mamet's films. Listen for the reaction pauses in those lightning-quick exchanges, and see if you can use for rhythm and balance in your own witty repartee. You'll probably also notice the repetition that links one line to the next like a drumbeat:

"So I say, baby, let the good times roll!"

"Right. Let 'em roll. I know how that works. You let those good times roll right over you, and tomorrow I'll find you plastered on the sidewalk."

Consider some purposes of conversations in your book (the purposes to the conversants, not just to your story), e.g., persuasion, intimidation, comfort, seduction, alliance-building, information exchange, time-passing, boasting....

Just keep focused on the results of this dialogue; what this conversation can do to these characters. Here are some effects that can come right from conversation, without any further action.

• A conspiracy to do something.

• A breakup.

• An alliance.

• A change in vote or position.

• A discovery of the key to a puzzle.

• A deepening mystery.

• A misinterpretation.

• A revelation of a secret.

• A change in attitude.

• A change in behavior.

• A flirtation.

• A deception.

• A surrender.

EXERCISE

1)       Consider some purposes of conversations in your book (the purposes to the conversants, not just to your story), e.g., persuasion, intimidation, comfort, seduction, alliance-building, information exchange, time-passing, boasting....

Choose one purpose and craft a conversation in which the purpose is not fulfilled-- but which still advances the plot in some way.

2)      List ways your characters might interact in conversation, e.g., fight, deceive-doubt, interrogate-resist, sweettalk-resist, sweettalk­-succumb, comfort-accept, mutual flattery. Choose one and craft a conversation that shows the relationship changing in some way because of the interaction.

For example, John is trying to confide in his mother. He confesses his big secret-- that he got a tattoo on his buttocks a few months ago, and he thinks something went wrong.

"Mom, do you know anything about, well, hepatitis?"

"Hepatitis? I know it's a disease drug ad-- I mean, I know it's a disease. Why? Are you, umm, maybe doing a report for school?"

"No."

"What is it, sweetie? Come on, tell me. You know you can tell me anything. I might get mad, but you know it never lasts. I'm your mother. I love you no matter what, remember? And if you need help, well, I'll get it for you."

"I know. I know. Okay, I'll tell you. Just promise not to get mad, okay? I mean, you can get mad if you have to, but don't get too mad. I-- I don't know what to do!"

Mom can sense, probably from her son's tone of voice, that this is serious. So she stops herself from saying something inflammatory about drug addicts, and reminds him instead of her unwavering love. This keeps him from pulling away defensively, and makes him realize that he can trust her to help him out of the trouble his secrecy has gotten him into. Their relationship will be strengthened by this, because they are both being reminded of what that essential parent-child bond means.

3) Revise to make the change in relationship more clear. Dialogue, just like narrative, can cause things to happen in the story-- and SHOULD. :) A conversation, an overheard whisper, a ringing declaration, can make the plot go into a new direction. Striving for this can just about instantly vitalize your dialogue by making it more than just clever conversation. It will be... ACTION.

You can probably come up with other ways dialogue can cause change. But the important thing is--make the dialogue you have serve that purpose.

Look at the passages, especially the long ones, and see how they can affect the plot either now or later. (That lie she tells in chapter 2 sure better come back to haunt her in chapter 10 or so!)

 One other thought-- make the characters work at it. The key to effective dialogue, I think, is that the speakers have to spark a bit off each other to get to the change-point. Otherwise you could just summarize it in narrative: -- She told him about the paper hidden in the Bible.--  But if you're going to have dialogue, make the tension in it lead to the change, propel them towards change. "Give me that back! You can't just rifle through my Bible that way!"

TYPES OF DIALOGUE ACTION AND INTERACTION

Remember John Barnes's definition? He's a theater historian, so he's used to plays, where dialogue is all-important. ACTION is any irreversible event that changes the course of events course of events of the story.

Key words: IRREVERSIBLE — CHANGES

So Jack speaks his confession into a recorder, then instead of hitting playback, he rewinds and records over it: No go. That's not action because it's reversible.

But if Sally is hiding under the bed. and hears him dictating, he can rewind all he likes, but she still knows the truth, and will now be able to act on it. That's irreversible dialogue. Anything spoken aloud and heard by someone else is irreversible. But that does mean anything he says just to himself doesn't count. Introspection is well and good, but he can always take it back. His thoughts have to be heard to be irreversible. He can speak them aloud, or act on them… only then does a thought become irreversible.

 Harder still is making sure that dialogue has an effect, that it changes something not just in the plot, but in the relationship. How can you accomplish that? First, start by deciding that you're not going to have long stretches of dialogue that just displays how funny this guy is, or shows how well they get along, or passes on to the reader some necessary information. All that is fine, but think how the conversation will crackle when the reader realizes that this moment of conversation is going to change something.

  What sort of change can a conversation bring?

Especially in a comedy, making information exchange a conversation of
conflict can provide a bit of humor. Here's an example from a historical novel: 

"Jane, do let me put my bonnet up. I have been out all day looking for
your bir–" Lucy stopped and clapped her hand over her wayward mouth.

 "My bir– my birthday gift? Oh, Aunt Lucy! What? What did you get me?"

 "Your birthday isn't for three days."

 "Oh, tell me now! Tell me!" Jane put her little hands to her heart. "I
promise to be good!"

How long does Lucy hold out before she tells what the gift is? Now there's bound to be an information exchange, but it isn't just a quick spill– there's conflict, and character revelation, and lots of whining before she imparts the important fact.

 What's important is that the story changes somehow because one character has passed on some information to the other. So make something happen as a result of this exchange. The niece insists on going to the stable to see the birthday horse, and there she meets the young Mr. Ferguson, nephew of the best friend of Lucy's late husband. Eventually this "seed" conversation can lead to a change in their relationship, where the younger lady becomes more adventurous than her aunt.

Using that same story progression, here are some common events that happen because of the action and interaction in dialogue.

DISCOVERY

Discovery is another form of information exchange, but instead of just passing on what one already knows, it results in a revelation of something neither speaker knew. Talking together helps them put together pieces of a puzzle.  

"The stablemaster writes to say Jane didn't attend her riding lesson today," Lucy said, staring at the note as trepidation filled her.

 Captain Ferguson frowned. "You know, that must have been your Jane I saw in my nephew's curricle! I thought it looked like her, but I assumed you had her well-chaperoned."

"They are courting!"

Discovery requires that both contribute some essential fact, and the sum is a new piece of information. The conversation is active because, without this particular sharing of facts, the truth would never come out. This use of dialogue is especially good when you want both to participate in the discovery of some event or clue. It gives them a way to cooperate, to produce something together, and in a romance can subtly show how well
they're suited.

ALLIANCE

A conversation can also result in an alliance of interests. It's most fun if the conversation leads them to realize they need to work together, especially if that's a frightening prospect.

 "I don't care what you say, Captain Ferguson." Lucy looked implacably at him. "My sister sent Jane to me so that her daughter can marry well. And I regret to say that a penniless young lieutenant isn't going to suit."

 "You think I want my nephew shackling himself to some twittery little snob?"

 "My niece is not–" Lucy stopped and listened to the echo of his words.  Then, slowly, she said, "You don't want this marriage either?"

It's best that they start out somewhat at odds, so the conversation brings them to alliance. Thus, in the course of the dialogue scene, they move from adversaries to reluctant allies.

CONSPIRACY

Sometimes when two people realize they have a common interest, they end up conspiring together. This involves agreeing tacitly or openly to work together more or less in secret. So the concerned aunt and uncle above might agree to work to stop the wedding. They're creating a shared goal and a plan to achieve it. Take the conversation further if you can. A plan requires action, so as they're arguing and negotiating the steps involved in stopping the wedding, you'll be showing them learning to work together– and where they're in conflict.  

"I remember when I was nineteen," Captain Ferguson observed, as if it was a century ago and not just a decade. "I would never have let a relative tell me whom I could court."

 Lucy sighed. "Jane is just that way. She thrives on opposition. A very dear girl, but..." She glanced over and could see that Captain Ferguson was struggling manfully not to say that this must be a family trait. She said, "They are counting on us to object, aren't they? So why don't we ... surprise them?"

 "You mean, pretend that we are in favor of the match?" Captain Ferguson frowned in thought. "Well, I can't think of anything more likely to make Joseph think twice, than me telling him that Jane is a perfect wife."

 Lucy said decisively, "Let's then. Let's take every opportunity to throw them together."

 "Do you attend the Haversham musicale tomorrow night? We can insist they sit together. With both of us nearby, of course, so as not to excite
their suspicions."

  

Conspiracies lead to joint action. Use this conversation to set up regular meetings between them, for example, where they have to act together to further their shared goal. Secrecy only adds to the fun of their meetings.

COMBAT

Maybe your characters are getting along way too well, especially if they're conspiring. Well, bring on a conversation that leads to greater conflict. But don't make it trivial. Oh, the surface-level topic might be trivial, but see if you can make their
responses reflect some internal conflicts. 

Lucy declared, "Everyone in my family gets married at St. George's."

 "Since we plan that they won't actually get wedded, what difference does it make? It will be easier to set the wedding outside London– easier to cancel it, that is, with the least fanfare."

 "Jane will think I disapprove if I set the ceremony anywhere but St. George's."

 He regarded her with narrowed eyes. "Your wedding was in St. George's, I seem to recall." He added, "It rained. All day."

 "This is England, Captain Ferguson," she said coldly. "It frequently rains here, and not just outside of St. George's. If you hadn't left in the middle of the ceremony, you would have seen that we made a game of it, leaving the church under our umbrellas."

 "A game. Yes. I've observed that you considered marriage itself a game, Mrs. Endicott."

 She gasped, but he was going on as if he cared not that he had just impugned her virtue. "No St. George's. I will not hear of it. I will not have my nephew even consider marrying in the place where you married my poor dead fool of a best friend!"

Again, aim for some change in their relationship. They start out thinking they can clear this little problem up, but find that actually, the more they talk, the more at odds they are– and it will be especially interesting if it reveals why they are really in conflict.

TREATY

Conflict is the fuel that powers the plot, but you can't have them always fighting, or the reader will start to suspect these two have no reason to ally. If they have been at odds, then a conversation can lead to some kind of truce, reluctant or not. Again, there must be change from the state in the beginning of the conversation to another state at
the end.

 "Gretna Green?" Lucy whispered. "They've eloped?"

 "Damnation. They've got a two-hour head start on me."

 Lucy grabbed up her bonnet. "I'm going too."

 "Nonsense," he said. He couldn't imagine even a few hours alone with Lucy. They would do nothing but argue, and every angry word would put new scars in his heart.

 "Let me go along," she said. "It might spare Jane's reputation if I'm there to bring her home."

 He stood irresolute, his hand on the door. Finally he muttered, "We will do them no good if we show up fighting like Napoleon's artillery against Wellington's cavalry."

 She smiled suddenly, sadly. "I promise to be civil to you. If you promise to be civil back."

 "Oh, all right."

 "Let's take your phaeton. It will be faster."

 A treaty should lead to some shared decision– taking his phaeton, for example– to show that their cooperation is not just talk.

DECEPTION

Remember that the act of lying is, in itself, irreversible. That is, once it's done, it's very hard to take back, and the resulting mess of admitting to the lie or being caught in it can be extreme. So if one character is deceiving the other, see if you can make him lie directly in conversation.

 Speaking it aloud makes him commit more to the deception because he cannot take it back now. But make sure the deception has an effect on the plot. For example, she relies on what he has told her to make a decision or take an action, or, alternatively, she recognizes it as a lie, and his deception destroys her trust in him. Or she challenges him and forces him to tell her the truth. 

"You never told me about when John died." She looked grimly at the road ahead. "I should know. I am his widow."

 Captain Ferguson's fists closed more tightly on the reins. "You saw the commendation. He died a hero."

 "Yes. That's what the commendation said. That he died saving someone. But you were there. Whom did he save?"

 He recalled John protecting his Portuguese mistress with his body as the grenade exploded nearby. "He saved me."

 "That is very gallant, Captain. Untrue, but gallant." Lucy turned her merciless gaze on him. "Tell me why you are lying."

 Just keep in mind that a lie will almost always be revealed as a lie, sooner or later. As President Nixon said (and boy, did he know!), it's not the crime but the cover-up that gets you in trouble. The very fact that one character lied to the other, even with the best of motives, should create conflict – within the liar while it's still secret, and within the relationship when it's revealed. The revelation of the lie will manifest issues with trust and honor that might have been buried for years. So if there's a lie, have it revealed early enough that there is time for them to work through its consequences.

THE TRUTH

You can't take back telling the truth either. So a conversation where a long-hidden truth is revealed will lead to real change. Just remember to set this up earlier, whether it involves alluding to a secret or posing a question, such as why Captain Ferguson stalked out of his best friend's wedding. 

They gazed at the sign welcoming them to Gretna Green, Scotland's most famous site. "So Jane and Charlie now hate each other and refuse to speak, much less marry."

 Lucy sighed. "I almost started believing in love at first sight again, imagining them wed. But–"

 "But now, you are made a cynic all over again." He smiled down at her. "And we still have that damnable church reserved." Suddenly he took her in his arms. "What do you say, Mrs. Endicott? Shall we make use of the reservation ourselves?"

 Lucy opened her mouth, then closed it again. Finally she pressed her cheek against his chest and whispered, "A wedding? You? And I?"

 "I haven't been, I suppose, entirely honest with you."

 "I know about John's mistress," she said.

 "I don't mean that. I mean– oh, hang it all, Lucy. I love you. I've loved you all along. I walked out of St. George's that day because I couldn't bear to see you marrying anyone else, especially my best friend."

 "Oh." She took a deep breath as she felt his heartbeat beneath her cheek. "You know, I don't truly like St. George's Church."

 "You don't?"

 "It always rains there."

 "Yes, I've noticed that."

 "Look." Lucy pulled away long enough to gesture at the sky. "The sun is shining now. And I hear they know how to give weddings here in Gretna –"

The truth can't be taken back. It's possible for the listener to misinterpret, but even then, the conversation should always have some effect, should change the characters and their actions. The moment one or both speaks openly about a secret (love, or the trauma in the past, or the conflict between them)– well, that's the truth the reader's been waiting for. Take your time with this conversation. Think of the revelation as the irrevocable and dangerous telling of a secret truth, with potentially dire consequences. And leave a little time to show the actually wonderful consequences awaiting the character brave enough to tell the truth.

 Dialogue takes up a lot of space in a book, and is particularly appealing to readers, as it reveals character in so many ways. So don't waste the space. Look at dialogue passages, especially the long ones, and see how they can affect the plot either now or later. (That lie she tells in chapter 2 sure better come back to haunt her in chapter 10 or so!)

 One final thought-- make the characters work at it. The key to effective dialogue is that the speakers have to spark a bit off each other to get to the change-point. Without conflict in the conversation, you might just as well summarize it in narrative: She told him about the paper hidden in the Bible.

 If you're going to have dialogue between two characters, make the tension in it lead to the change, or propel them towards change.

RELATIONSHIPS IN PROCESS

The people we talk to the most are the ones we have the most trouble understanding, right? That's because we tend to hear all sorts of echoes from the past. We also have more than one purpose in talking to a loved one— we might want information and reassurance. We might even want to fight a little.

These are some ways people interact in conversation:

fight-flight                  fight-fight

deceive-doubt              deceive-believe

interrogate-resist         interrogate-answer

sweettalk-resist           sweettalk-succumb

comfort-accept            comfort-reject

mutual flattery                                    mutual insult

A married couple, for example, has had this conversation a dozen times before. They even finish each other's sentences.

"Colbert's on."

"Want to stay up and watch it?"

"Yeah, sure. Just flip off the light--"

"So you can rest your eyes. I know, I know. I just want to hear the Top Ten list."

Try to establish the familiarity then throw some wrench into it--change it so it's no Ionger a rote conversation but actually becomes an interaction fraught with potential action:

"So who's Colbert interviewing tonight?"

"Let's see what it says in the TV Guide. Hmm. That new action star, Tim Gordon--"

"Tim Gordon? You know, I went on a blind date with him once. My brush with fame, I guess. He wanted to go out again, but I turned him down because you and I had gotten back together."

"You never told me that."

"It didn't matter, did it, when he was a nobody. I never knew he'd end up being a star."

"So what you're saying is-- you wish you'd gone with him that night instead of me?"

Now it's not so familiar, is it? You can have one overreact because of something out of their shared past-- that will hint at an unresolved conflict.

Take pains to avoid the clichéd exchange of insults. That gets old fast, and seldom results in either the true deepening or the true resolving of conflicts. Instead, make this conversation cause some change in the relationship.

For example, one speaker can finally break an old pattern by responding to an old provocation in a new way-- asking a question, or walking out, or sympathizing. Think CHANGE.

EXERCISE!

Choose a scene from your story that involves two people in some conflict with each other.

1)      Think of this relationship at this point in the story. How will their conversation reflect their current feelings about each other, and their reasons for being together?

2)      Is this encounter cooperative or confrontational? Are they working together or against each other? How can you show their reluctant alliance, or their hostility, or their friendly competition in their dialogue?

3)      Are both equally open and forthcoming, or is one keeping secrets? If there's a secret being kept, can you indicate that in the dialogue? No, don't let the other character in on it, but can you have the secretive one start to say something, then abruptly change the subject, indicating to the reader that there's something hidden there?

4)      What emotion or attitude is each character trying to convey? Trying to hide? Is that coming out in their speech?

5)      How well do they know each other? How does this affect their verbal interaction? If they know each other well, what can you do to make this an unique conversation? If they don't know each other, do you show in their dialogue openness or distrust or wariness or excitement or something that means this encounter has great meaning?

6)      Do you show the relationship changing at least a little because of this encounter? At the end, for example, does she feel trusting enough now to confide in him? Or maybe he's figured out she must be the thief because she's spoken so familiarly of the layout of the museum? Does the way they talk shift because of this change in the relationship?

There's Subtle, and There's Obscure

The more sophisticated the writing and plotting, the less obvious the exposition. But that doesn't mean there's no exposition, only that it's done subtly and carefully through the characters in a way that is consistent with the way they think, speak, and interact.


An example of subtle exposition is in the movie Lincoln, which by narrowing the focus to a couple weeks before Lincoln's second inauguration, presents an unfamiliar take on a very familiar subject. That means that there has to be exposition (there's a lot we don't know), but it has to be rendered carefully (we think we know a lot, and we'll notice any "lecturing" or "As you know, Alphonse" explanations). So what the writer and director did was to portray Lincoln as someone who likes to hear and tell stories. (This happened to be true to the historical character, but is universal enough a trait that it could have been invented without penalty.) From the start, Lincoln is shown telling stories about people he knew, people he represented in court cases. So when in the middle of a folksy story, there's a nugget of actual information, it goes down easy. It "sounds" in character.

Oppositional characters-- the opposite of attentive listeners-- are used to evoke-- paradoxically, through their opposition to the telling-- more information. At one point, a fellow Republican exclaims, "Not another story! I can't stand to hear another of your stories!" which just provokes Lincoln to grin and tell another.

At one point, Lincoln provides his own opposition. There's a particularly knotty bit of explanation needed, because we all know about the Emancipation Proclamation, and I'm sure I'm not the only viewer who was thinking, "Why wasn't that enough?" Whenever readers are going to have questions, then it's a good idea to consider giving them an answer-- but subtly. So Lincoln asks this himself, and plays devil's advocate-- it might have been unconstitutional. Or maybe it was all right during the war, but the war is ending. Maybe he did the wrong thing. He argues with himself (to an audience of younger aides), and through this conflict, we get all the information we need to answer our question, why do we need an amendment?

So: Subtle.In character. In conflict. Use opposition. Use interaction.

But there's subtle exposition, and then there's obscure. I'm reading a book now which has a fairly complex set of events leading to the characters' having to make big serious decisions. I'm at the point where one major character is going to take some major action. So two of his aides are talking. A says to B, "I hope that C will do the right thing." B gets angry, and replies, "C always does the right thing." A comes back, "Well, just tell him, we're counting on him to do the right thing."

So I read that scene, and I went back and skimmed the previous chapter, and I still had no idea what "the right thing" is. I mean, it's not just that I don't know precisely what they meant. I don't even know the basic area of what they meant. Did they mean morally? Did they mean about the staff? Did they mean legally? Did they mean about themselves?

That's too subtle. I'm a good reader, and I was paying attention. And while I'm okay with not knowing everything, I'd like to know a little. (There are about 12 major characters in this book, so, alas, I don't know enough about C even to know what -he'd- think this was.) But really, this is just a dialogue problem. A few more words here and there, and there would be enough to satisfy-- maybe not enough to make it all clear, but enough to keep me aware so that when (I hope) there's a resolution I'll know it's happening.

For example:
A says to B, "I hope that C will do the right thing about (one word, maybe? us? about the evaluation? about the account?)."
B gets angry, and replies, "C always does the right thing. He's no (deadbeat? traitor? idiot?)."

 A comes back, "Well, just tell him, we're counting on him to (what? keep us safe? tell the truth? solve the problem?)."

That is, with just a few words-- completely in character, because we don't actually speak that cryptically unless we're being overheard, and that wasn't happening here--  we could get a sense of whether this is the staffer scared they're going to be used as a scapegoat, or if this is about some payment, or if it's a problem only he can solve. We don't need to know everything-- but we do need to know a little.

And it only takes a little. How would these two converse if they weren't being forced by their author to be obscure? They'd still be subtle. But they wouldn't be cryptic.

The reader has only what we put in there. Now exposition can be handled many ways. But if there's exposition needed, decide how much the reader needs to know, and find a way to tell it.

Alicia

As You Know, Alphonse...

Theresa's post about exposition reminds me of something our friend Lynn Kerstan used to laugh about, the "As You Know, Alphonse" dialogue, where one character tells another something they both know, just to get the information (exposition) out. Like:

Paula said, "As you know, Alphonse, Murray is our own sainted father, and you and I lost him twenty years ago in a tragic windmill accident, right in front of your very eyes. And ever since, you have been deathly afraid of windmills, so much so that when you won a trip to Holland, you gave the ticket to me, your sister."

What's the problem? Well, of course Alphonse already knows his father's name and that Paula is his sister, and surely knows he himself is afraid of windmills. It sounds artificial, and it is, because of course Paula would never really say it that way. She'd never recite a bunch of info that her conversation partner already knows. It's a clumsy way to avoid putting exposition in the narrative (where it belongs-- that's one of the purposes of the non-dialogue parts).

Of course, we can do exposition (information conveyance) clumsily in narrative too. But while it might be clumsy, it won't be too inauthentic if it's not in the mouth of someone who would never say it.

How then can we convey to the reader the reason for Alphonse's terror of windmills? Or whatever the important info is there? The ticket to Holland? The name of their father?  One question is, of course, what does the reader NEED to know to understand this scene and to build suspense or interest for what's to come?  One problem I see a lot in exposition passages (in or out of dialogue) is that the information is thrust out indiscriminately, without consideration for what is the important piece of information, and without consideration of if this is the best time to tell it, or if maybe it should be presented only partially (to build suspense). Another aspect which is important especially in dialogue but also for character point of view is the character's motivation for telling/thinking this bit of info.

Let's start at the top. What's the important info here we want the reader to know? Maybe it's that ticket to Holland. (Don't ask me what the plot is where that's most important. This is just an example!) In that case, maybe all that other stuff isn't necessary right here. Maybe it is, but notice-- all that is ALPHONSE'S motivation, not Paula's.  Paula didn't see the windmill accident and suffer lifelong trauma. What's Paula's motivation here? What does she want? Why is she bringing up this no-doubt painful subject? Once we know that, we can decide what about that paragraph of info is really necessary, and we can decide how best to convey it.

I generally use a mix of dialogue and narrative, in the point of view of one character. That is, the speaker says something, and the POV character (the speaker or listener) reacts mentally, maybe filling in some important bit of information, maybe translating the information (rightly or wrongly). And the dialogue doesn't have to say much-- just enough that the listener and speaker both have enough to know what this is about, and the reader gets some idea too. (It's important to cut the speech off -after- the speaker has said enough that the reader has at least some notion of what this is about.)

For example, let's say the whole point of this, Paula's motivation, is that she wants Alphonse to accept a gift of money that he needs but is too proud to accept. So she wants to remind him that she owes him because he gave her that trip to Holland.  See how immediately this will transform that exposition? Now there's a reason for it to be there-- her desire to give back.  Let's see:

Paula said, "Come on, Alphonse. You know I owe you. Remember that trip to Holland you gave me? You didn't--" Too late she remembered the reason for that generous gift, and how embarrassed Alphonse had been last year, confessing to his secret fear of windmills. She tried to cover up her lapse. "I mean, really. I owe you more than a thousand dollars for that."

Let's say you want to convey a bit more, maybe that Alphonse is her brother, which isn't apparent there (and presumably wasn't established before-- if it was, don't worry about it now). Well, in narrative, a bit of explication isn't all that noticeable, so you could amend a bit:

Paula said, "Come on, Alphonse. You know I owe you. Remember that trip to Holland you gave me? You didn't--" Too late she remembered the reason for that generous gift, and how embarrassed her brother had been last year, confessing to his secret fear of windmills. She tried to cover up her lapse. "I mean, really. I owe you more than a thousand dollars for that."

It's one of those narrative conventions that a name can be replaced in dialogue with either the pronoun (he) or a simple descriptor that the character might actually use. We do think of our siblings as "my brother" or "my sister," so that wouldn't strike the reader as odd.

Notice that the exposition there is confined to just his fear, but notice that the addition of "secret" helps make this seem more important. No, I didn't talk about the tragic windmill accident... but now the reader is alerted to something about windmills. Suspense is all about making the reader anticipate something bad-- in this case, some secret event involving windmills that terrified Alphonse. Later maybe one or the other could mention or think about dear old Dad's tragic end.

Now what if I want to be in her POV, but convey that Alphonse is still reactive to this subject?  Add her perception of his body language, like:

Paula said, "Come on, Alphonse. You know I owe you. Remember that trip to Holland you gave me? You didn't--" She saw her brother tense up, and too late she remembered the reason for that generous gift, and how embarrassed he had been last year, confessing to his secret fear of windmills. She tried to cover up her lapse. "I mean, really. I owe you more than a thousand dollars for that."

One thing to keep in mind is that the POV character is the one that tells us what's going on (for example, she sees the body language of her brother). The POV character doesn't have to interpret this correctly (Alphonse could be tensing up because he heard a car door slam outside and thinks it's the police), but how she interprets it can be a way to slide in more information gracefully (that he'd confessed a fear of windmills).

Now watch how different it can be in Alphonse's POV. Why? Because then we know his motivation at this moment, and also we can see him interpret (or misinterpret) Paula's purpose here. (You know siblings. Always assuming the worst.)

Paula said, "Come on, Alphonse. You know I owe you. Remember that trip to Holland you gave me? You didn't-- I mean, really. I owe you more than a thousand dollars for that."

Alphonse studied his sister coldly. Of course she'd take advantage of his financial problems to remind him of his humiliating fear of windmills. Hell, maybe she was even trying to tell him how much she blamed him because, long ago, as a child, he wasn't able to keep their father from climbing that windmill. It would be just like her, pretending to be all generous and giving, then sticking in the icepick of memory and twisting it in his guts.

Little edits after the first draft can help a lot in subtly pointing things out to the reader. For example, I first had "his father" then changed it to "their father" so that the reader wouldn't wonder, if only for a moment, if they had different fathers.

There are no rules here, but good writers can adroitly manipulate narrative and dialogue to convey what they want to convey. But the speaker and POV character's motivations in imparting this info are key to doing this effectively. The reader doesn't have to know every bit of backstory, but she needs to know what information is important right now to the story and characters. However, in the deeper forms of narrative POV, it's essential to impart info subtly enough that it seems to be coming out authentically from the characters' speech, thought, action, and reaction, rather than from an imposing author.

It helps me to read the scenes of authors who do this well and see how they do it.  Any suggestions for subtle authors and scenes?

Alicia

Exposition, Not Dialogue

Yesterday, among other things, we looked at a sample passage of description and discussed why it was description and not exposition. Today, I want to show you a paragraph in which dialogue is replaced with exposition in the form of narrative summary. This is from a story called "Gryphon" by Charles Baxter that has to do in part with a substitute teacher talking to students.

She talked for forty minutes straight. There seemed to be less connection between her ideas, but the ideas themselves were, as the dictionary would say, fabulous. She said she had heard of a huge jewel, in what she called the Antipodes, that was so brilliant that when the light shone into it at a certain angle, it would blind whoever was looking at its center. She said that the biggest diamond in the world was cursed and had killed everyone who owned it, and that by a trick of fate it was called the Hope diamond. Diamonds are magic, she said, and this is why women wear them on their fingers, as a sign of the magic of womanhood. Men have strength, Miss Ferenczi said, but no true magic. That is why men fall in love with women but women do not fall in love with men: they just love being loved. George Washington had died because of a mistake he made about a diamond. Washington was not the first true President, but she did say who was. In some places in the world, she said, men and women still live in the trees and eat monkeys for breakfast. Their doctors are magicians. At the bottom of the sea are creatures thin as pancakes which have never been studied by scientists because when you take them up to the air, the fish explode.

You might think this is dialogue, but it's not. It's a condensed, representative version of a 40-minute ramble from a substitute teacher. It might or might not contain exact quotes from her speech -- we can't be sure which sentences might have fallen as-is from her lips and which are the schoolboy's representation of the teacher's words. Because really, even if some of these words are verbatim, they're all part of the schoolboy's rendering of the speech.

This works as a technique for the purposes of this story because nobody wants to read a verbatim record of the entire 40-minute speech. So instead, Baxter chose to use narrative summary, which takes events on the story's true timeline and compresses them in to a smaller space. This way, we don't have tons of page space being consumed by a rambling monologue, but we still get the full flavor in this "highlight reel" type of compressed version. This is a rather long patch of narrative summary, so Baxter leads us into it carefully with some explanatory notes at the beginning (also exposition). And he peppers the passage with "she said" and other reminders that this is not the actual speech, but the boy's recollection of it.

If it had been written as actual dialogue, not only would it be substantially longer, but it would be in quotation marks to indicate that these are the true words spoken aloud by the character. It might look, in part, like this:

"I've heard of a huge jewel in the Antipodes," the teacher said, "that is so brilliant that when the light shines into it at a certain angle, it will blind whoever is looking at its center. The biggest diamond in the world is cursed and has killed everyone who owned it. By a trick of fate it is called the Hope diamond. Diamonds are magic, and this is why women wear them on their fingers, as a sign of the magic of womanhood. Men have strength, but no true magic. That is why men fall in love with women but women do not fall in love with men: they just love being loved."

This still feels like a bit of a ramble, but we lose the sense of time unfolding slowly as these stories about diamonds are told to the children. But doing it as Baxter did serves two goals: it enhances the sense of time passing, and it avoids weighting down the pace with a long but accurate representation of the actual dialogue.

So, here's the thing. The same basic story elements are being conveyed in the original and in my partial modification. A teacher is talking about diamonds, sharing legends and fables about diamonds in either case. The difference is not in the story content but in the narrative element being used to present the story. This is the cool thing about narrative. It's very flexible in how it can convey story.

The trick is learning how to manipulate those elements in a way that has the best impact on the reader. Ordinarily, we would urge you to avoid long runs of exposition. But here, in this case, compressing the dialogue into exposition was a good choice. So I wanted to share this for two reasons, first to give you practice in seeing the difference between exposition and dialogue, and second, to show you one place where the general guideline was rightly ignored.

Theresa

On Punctuation Gimmicks

Here's a good question from the comments. Tinlizzie says,

Off topic here but I had a question. I recently came across a book (reasonably well reviewed and published by a reputable house) that drove me nuts because the author substituted dashes for quotation marks.

Uhm, excuse me? Although the book did have pretensions to being more, it was basically a mystery/thriller and I was rather surprised that this was allowed to get through the editing process.

What are your thoughts on the apparent trend in *inventive* punctuation and structure that seems to be rising in publishing today? I, for one, can't stand it.

After all, if you think you're Faulkner, chances are you aren't Faulkner and should abide by the rules.

Well, yes. I'm no fan of bling -- my pet term for punctuation gimmicks that stand out on the page like sequins on a dust rag -- and this kind of punctuation definitely falls into the bling category. (Unless you're writing in French for the French market, in which case, allez-y.) (Past rants on bling: ellipses, colons v. em dashes, hyphens, and Alicia's open discussion of the punctuation in Cold Mountain.)

But your question hints at something else, and maybe it's worth mentioning here. You hint that Faulkner wannabes and other literary types might be able to get away with this, and it's worth examining why this would be the case. If we're all operating with a basic set of punctuation rules, why would litfic writers ignore those rules?

One of the fundamental differences between litfic and its commercial siblings is that litfic expects its readers to be sensitive to the manner of presentation. Things like word choice, diction, punctuation, sentence rhythm, paragraphing, and so on are all manipulated to achieve certain effects. And it's anticipated that the reader will expect these kinds of things in the text, much the same way a murder mystery reader expects a dead body or a romance reader expects a happily-ever-after ending. Litfic readers don't just remain awake to the possibility that form will be manipulated to achieve effects. We delight in it. (Or, at least, I do when I read litfic. And my fellow litfic fans appear to read it much the same way. Extrapolate from there.)

With books on the commercial end of the spectrum, however, it's expected that story will take supreme importance over anything that might distract from story. We routinely cut long passages of thematic description, for example, that would survive the knife in a more literary book. We are ruthless about pruning bling and other distractions so that the reader will never blink while turning the pages. We want them to be so caught up in and breathless with anticipation over the story that they might not hear a ringing phone.

In between these two ends of the spectrum is a middle ground where writers aim to incorporate some of the effect-generating flourishes of the literary crowd with the mass-pleasing story emphasis of the genre crowd. The book you describe might have been hoping for a shot at this middle ground. It's interesting terrain, and there's plenty of room for books to succeed in both commercial and critical terms. Past books of this ilk which we've discussed on this blog include An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears (brilliant manipulation of first person unreliable narrators), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (footnotes, intrusive narrator), Mr. B Gone by Clive Barker (incredible meta) -- I'm sure there are more, but I'm too lazy to look in the archives to remember what else we might have discussed.

In any case, as Alicia did when she questioned the dialogue punctuation in Cold Mountain, the important thing for all of us is to remain hyper-aware of the effect these kinds of things can have on the narrative. Litfic writers incorporate them because of those effects, and genre fic writers avoid them because of those effects, and middle grounders try to walk the tightrope between those two positions.

But for me, regardless of the type of book, my preference is still to avoid this kind of bling dialogue punctuation because it's a distraction without a purpose. Some find this kind of dialogue (without quotation marks, that is) to read more softly, as if it's incorporated seamlessly into the rest of the narrative. I don't. I take that beginning dash as a speech signal no different from an opening quotation mark. And I find the lack of a close-quote extremely distracting because I will find myself looking for the moment the dialogue ends and some other narrative element begins. There might be signals, such as verb tense shifts or paragraph breaks, but sometimes it's not clear. If I don't consciously stop to find those signals, then I'm likely to read everything as if it's being spoken by a character. Like this:

--But nobody wants to walk to school in the rain. Heavy rain, too, likely to break daffodil stalks. And it would ruin her hair, and she didn't want Jason to see her with a disgusting rain-do.

So the first (present tense, dashed) sentence is dialogue, that's pretty clear. And the last (past tense) sentence is interior monologue, also evident. But is the second fragmented sentence part of the dialogue or part of the character's interior monologue? It could be either. It takes me out of the story, and for me, at least, the dashed dialogue doesn't lull me into blending the dialogue into the narrative. It just confuses me because I no longer know what I'm reading.

All of which is to say, there are rules, and there are ways to break the rules, and there are those of us who will wish you would find other rules to break instead. Not sure that really answers your question, but that's my take on it.

Theresa

Telling Just Enough

Sometimes in dialogue we have one character say something to the other character which they both understand, but the reader probably won't (at least not without more cogitation that this nugget is worth).  I see this a lot with allusions, either to the character past or to some cultural element.  This allusion is meant to tell something, maybe to make a comment on something Character B is doing.  But since the reader doesn't have the same mental database or shared past, it just becomes a puzzler.

For example:

Hugo never changed. He was ever a cheapskate, no matter how many books he got on the NYT bestseller list. Mary gestured grimly at the rusted fender. "Remember Madame Levin?"

Hugo grinned. "Yeah. Okay. I'll get a new car as soon as I get my next advance check. I promise."

Now I know we've all been told that dialogue isn't the place for exposition, that characters shouldn't tell each other what they both know. Right. Well, given that, how can we give the reader enough info to understand who the heck Madame Levin is and what the hell she has to do with the car?

If we can't do that, for goodness sake, leave Madame Levin out of it.

What's a way to slide in enough detail without having Mary lecture Hugo?  Don't give Hugo the instant and total recall shown above (which isn't plausible anyway). Try something like:


 Hugo never changed. He was ever a cheapskate, no matter how many books he got on the NYT bestseller list. Mary gestured grimly at the rusted fender. "Remember Madame Levin?"

Hugo echoed, "Madame... Levin? No."

"Our old French teacher?" 

"Oh, yeah. Madame Levin. Ou est votre homework. Yeah, I remember her. What's she got to do with my car?"

"She had that old Volvo, remember?  Used to park it along the fence to the football field?"

Hugo's brow cleared. "Oh. Right. And that second-stringer heaved up a hail-mary pass, right over the fence, and--"

"And it went right through her fender." Mary nodded at the car. "Same thing'll happen to you."

Hugo grinned. "Yeah. Okay. I'll get a new car as soon as I get my next advance check. I promise."

Too much? Well, then, maybe Madame Levin needs to remain in the distant, unrecollected past, not in this scene. This isn't a high school clique, after all, where the reader will put up with being excluded from all the injokes of the incrowd. :)

Alicia

Interlocking Dialogue -- Stimulus/Response

Just came across another example of dialogue exchanges that could be improved.  Here's the original:

He frowned. “You were in that class? I never managed to finish the term paper. Railroad schedules in Victorian Sussex. I remember the topic."

“I sat in the third row.”
 
 Just one of those bits of business. Probably the author wanted to imbed the idea that they were in this class together, or drop a clue about his knowledge of railroads or something.  But notice that the continuity of the question ("you were in that class?") and the answer ("I sat in the third row") is broken by the guy talking about his fascinating term paper.  Not a big deal, but it interferes with the reader's smooth reading of your narrative. And unless there's a reason to have the sentence elements this way, why be jagged?

So two options I can see:
1) Put the question at the end. Might have to rewrite a bit to make it clear the question is delayed because he's ruminating or reminiscing before he remembers his manners and makes the connection:

"I never managed to finish the term paper for that class. Railroad schedules in Victorian Sussex. I remember the topic." He frowned. “So you were in that class? "

“I sat in the third row.”

Moving the "he frowned" and adding "So" makes that question sound more like a conclusion or thought he came to as he recalled the course.

2) Have her respond not really to that question, but something he says at the end of his dialogue bit, like:
He frowned. “You were in that class? I never managed to finish the term paper. Railroad schedules in Victorian Sussex. Probably still have the incomplete on my record."

“I got an A.”

 There. She agrees she was in the class and adds a bit of information, which propels the story forward an inch or so, and does a bit of character differentiation (he got an incomplete, she got an A, or rather, he doesn't even remember the grade, and she does).


NOT a big deal. But the reader is going to notice a jagged stimulus/response diad if you don't. So train yourself to "hear" as you write or revise.  The fixes are usually minor and easy, once you notice the problem. 


You're in charge, remember. You might not be in charge of the plot or character (you know how things get out of hand), but you're completely in charge of these minor bits of narration. If you want to be known the elegance or eloquence of your voice, here's a place to start.  


But let me ask-- When you're reading, how sensitive are you to voice? How sensitive to these relatively minor (except perhaps to me and certainly to Theresa :) narration issues?


Alicia

In the moment narration

Another way to keep the narration vivid and concrete is to have as much as possible happen in the moment. Read through your scenes looking for anything that's even slightly retrospective and see if you can rewrite that to happen immediately, and that any reaction (and there should probably be a reaction to anything that happens) comes right then, not a few paragraphs later.

I think the retrospective happens when we need to show more or less simultaneous events but are hampered by the linear nature of prose. In film, we could have the video showing one thing (the child playing in the sandpile) while the audio shows something else (the explosion happening a few blocks away), but in language, we usually can't juxtapose or layer or intersperse so easily. So sometimes we have an event in one paragraph, then some simultaneous stuff in the next paragraph, and the reaction to the event in a third paragraph-- maybe a page later! And since it's a page later, we might have some backwards reference:
Paragraph 1 (they're talking, and he says something about missing her at the party)

Paragraph 2 -- Mary negotiated a tight turn and headed south on Rogers Avenue. The commuters were just starting out, and the sun was rising over the lake. The glare momentarily blinded her, and she just missed rear-ending a hummer at the traffic light. Her heart thumped in that panicky way that came when she barely, once again, cheated death or at least the auto-body repair shops.

She glanced at him to see if he'd noticed the near-crash. But he was looking sad, not scared. Now she remembered what he had said just a few minutes before. She had hurt him with her careless actions. "I'm sorry. I should have called to let you know that I wasn't going to make it to your party."

Notice the "had"? That use of past-perfect tense is usually a sign that you've gone into retrospective, casting events into the past of the book. There are several problems with this:

1) One is that using the past-perfect (had) tense throws the reader out of the narrative continuum, the sense that this is all happening right now, in this order. You never want the readers getting thrown out of the story journey, even for a second-- you don't know if you can get them back. Now this might be worth it if your purpose (as in an experimental narrative or avant-garde story) is to keep the reader off-balance, or to make the reader question the "reality" of the story, or to demonstrate in a post-modern way the "nuts and bolts" that go into building a story. But most stories aren't experimental and post-modern, so probably you don't want that effect in a more conventional narrative.

2) Having a seeming lapse of time (it might be only a moment, but it's half a page on the page) between what he says and her reaction might indicate that what he said wasn't important. (Now do consider that if you want to slip in a clue in a mystery, this might be a good "distraction" technique.) If it's supposed to be important, a more immediate reaction might show that. The respondent doesn't have to verbally respond right away, but if she reacts in some way immediately, it will highlight the importance of the what he said (or whatever the stimulus is).

3) Interlocking dialogue, where what he says leads right to what she said, is a sign of the author's control and focus. Of course you can't always have that kind of dialogue, and you might not even want it (I mentioned up-blog a Muriel Sparks story where the disconnected dialogue was a reflection of the character's alienation). But absent another purpose, we might work on how dialogue can interlock, stimulus-response, cause-effect. That makes it "conversation" and not just "two monologues going on at about the same time."

So how do you do this when you want intervening action? When they're not just talking, they're doing? A couple thoughts, by no means exhaustive--

--Think about putting the dialogue that should interlock together, and the action before or after it. You're in control here! She can be doing the driving thing, and just be coming out of a turn when he mentions the party, and she can respond to that right away, having already made the driving action.

-- You can intersperse smaller bits of action, not a whole paragraph, with the speech. You might actually stretch out the speech, do some "what did you say" to make room for more speech time:
Mary negotiated the tight right-turn and headed south on Rogers Avenue. "What was that you said?" The commuters were just starting out, and the sun was rising over the lake.

"I was just wondering if you forgot about my birthday party, that's all."

"No, no," she said, distracted. "I didn't forget--" The glare momentarily blinded her, and she just missed rear-ending a hummer at the traffic light. Her heart thumped in that panicky way that came when she barely, once again, cheated death or at least the auto-body repair shops.

She glanced at him to see if he'd noticed the near-crash. But he was looking sad, not scared. "What?"

"Nothing."

She had hurt him with her thoughtlessness. "It's not nothing. I'm sorry. I should have called to let you know that I wasn't going to make it to your party."

-- Keep in mind these people and who they are and how they would feel. Would Tony keep bugging her about this, or shut up after mentioning it once? Would Sarah be hypersensitive to his mood, or blind to it? Who are they? How do they interact, with the world and with each other? Don't lose who they are and how they are when you're writing the scene, just to get in some action.

-- Using repetition of keywords can make more coherence even in a somewhat distracted narrative. Notice how she re-uses "nothing" and "party" and "forget" from his lines. That helps the "interlock".

--Design sentences and paragraphs in ways that help the interlock. Look especially at the start and end. If she's going to "echo" something he said, even a word, try getting that to be one of the last things in his paragraph.
Also, transitions at the start of paragraphs (Theresa was mentioning this) can make for greater coherence. It might just be a word, but I really like occasionally (with me, it's frequently, but it's good at least occasionally) starting a speech paragraph with a sentence of either action or thought, but something that might relate to the conversation. Think "time and place," but also emotion, like:
Now she turned to look at him.
or
Sounded like he was accusing her. "What do you mean?"
or
When they got home, she pointed to the overflowing mailbox.
or
She thought about their future and slowly counted to ten. When she could speak calmly, she said,

These paragraph design techniques can really improve the flow of your prose, btw. Too many paragraphs that start with a line of dialogue might cause jaggedness. Experiment!

-- Quote tags can go almost anywhere in the speech paragraph-- before, during, or after the thing said. (Some paragraphs you might do without them altogether-- but probably not all.) Tags are not just a means of identifying who said what. They are also a way to create rhythm by adding a pause, something that can just be absorbed and accepted.

-- LISTEN to your dialogue paragraphs and passages-- not just the individual quotes and lines. Listen to the whole passage-- the rhythm, the interlock, the tone, the pace. You can vary each of those depending on the meaning of the passage, but you have to "hear" them to know when and how to vary.

-- Most important, know your characters and the way they think and interact. If you don't want her to come off like an insensitive blunderbuss, you don't want her to ignore for two paragraphs his sadness. If they're angry at each other, they'll be looking for things to get offended at, and reacting defensively to what they see as accusations. Show that in how quickly they respond. (After all, when you feel defensive, you respond right away-- if you take time to think, you might realize that his mentioning that his second-graders are moving from pencils to pens isn't really a slam on your inability to complete your master's thesis.)

Other ideas? I find in editing I'm often suggesting a short line (even just a single word) at the start of the dialogue paragraph (that is, before the first line of speech in the paragraph), but that makes it all the more important probably that the speech interlock around it.
Alicia

Subtle techniques, subtext of horror

I've been reading a lot of the shorter novels/novellas of a group of women who wrote in the mid-century, mostly postwar, English and American. I'm sort of amazed at their subtlety and the grace of their prose and scene design. I suspect that they don't get a lot of critical recognition because 1) they were women, and 2) they wrote in the crime/horror area predominantly. But their stories repay study. Here is what I've been reading:
Shirley Jackson (The Lottery and other stories, We Have Always Lived in the Castle)
Patricia Highsmith (particularly The Talented Mr. Ripley)
Muriel Sparks (The Driver's Seat, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie)

Many of these have been made into films, btw. Why? I don't know, but I think partly because actresses can really show their stuff here-- the characters are deeply textured.

I would characterize all of the authors as being preoccupied with the danger in everyday life, the murderer next door. Might this be a result of living through the war, and seeing how neighbors turned on neighbors (and turned them in to be transferred and killed)?

Anyway, I was reading Sparks and came across what I think might be a technique that reflects the theme (Modern life alienates us from each other) but also the progress of the novel (a woman who wants to die searches subconsciously for the man who will kill her).

That is, in The Driver's Seat, Muriel Sparks has a worldview of alienation-- she presents a story in which people don't connect, where characters never understand each other. And this "disconnect" is represented in several ways, as in the symbol of the heroine's clothing, garishly colored and clashing. But this disconnect is developed most intriguingly in the dialogue. When the main character speaks to other characters, often the meaning just goes by unheeded. In fact, often they seem to both be talking, but not to each other. They're talking PAST each other rather than TO each other. Here is an example where she is talking to an old lady she has been sightseeing with. Notice there is none of that usual conversational interplay, where one answers the other's question, or responds to the other's unstated worry, or repeats an important word.

(Mrs. Feidke shows up after having "a spell" and fainting in the previous scene -- Lise left her in the restroom, unconscious.)

Lise says, turning to smile at her, "Look at this idiot girl. She can't stop dancing."

"I think I fell asleep for a moment," Mrs. Fiedke says. "It wasn't a bad turn. I think I just dropped off. Such kind people. They wanted to put me in a taxi."

"Look at her," Lise says in a murmur. "Just look at her. No, wait. She'll start again when the man puts on the next record." The record starts and the girl swings. "Do you believe in macrobiotics?"

"I'm a Jehovah's witness. But that was after Mr. Fiedka passed on."

But in the end, when Lise has finally found the one she has been seeking (the "boyfriend" she subconsciously wants to kill her), the dialogue suddenly meshes:

"Before you went to the clinic, how long did they keep you in prison?"

"Two years," he said.

"Did you strangle or stab?"

"I stabbed her. But she didn't die. I never killed a woman."

"No, but you'd like to. I knew it this morning."

"You never saw me before in your life!"

"That's not the point," Lisa says. "That's by the way. You're a sex maniac."

"No, no," he says. "That's all over and past. Not anymore!"

"Well, you won't have sex with me."

She's driving towards the park and turns right towards the pavilion. Nobody's in sight. The wandering groups are null and voice, the cars have gone away.

"Sex is normal," he says. "I'm cured. Sex is all right."

"It's all right at the time," Lise says. "And it's all right before. But the problem is afterwards. That is, if you aren't just an animal. Most of the time, afterwards is pretty sad."

"You're afraid of sex!" he says almost joyfully, as if sensing an opportunity to gain control.

"Only afterwards. But that doesn't matter anymore."

Notice how they re-use each other's words (all right, sex), and answer each other's stated and unstated questions. They are conversing in a way that Lise doesn't converse with anyone else: fully engaged.

The change from the earlier "disconnect" to the ending "connect"-- which connects with the ending, Lise getting killed, btw, the two of them acting in concert-- is an example of change as coherence. That is, the constant is the conversation-- Lise talking to people-- but the change in that constant is in sync with some plot change (from a disconnect with non-threatening characters to a "connect" with the killer).

Do we ever create a coherence like that consciously? Or is it an unconscious sense of how the story changes that leads us to create parallel scenes that develop differently? I don't know. I suspect some writers do this subconsciously. Can we do it consciously without being too heavyhanded?

Alicia