or maybe I just talk too much.
8 Jan 2009 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouStarting back in mid-grade school, I had a policy of reading the library. (No, really. I started in the section nearest the door, and would go through every book, in every section, until I reached the end. Skipping the kid's sections, that is.) School libraries were small enough I could do this with reasonable speed, usually within a year or so, which meant my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years of HS I had to trek downtown to the Big City Library to get my fix. But anyway.
One book in particular, Ask Me No Questions, I'll Tell You No Lies, I can barely recall now except for a particular scene. The conversation is plot-laden; I think the young narrator was asking her baby-sitting charge about the child's step-mother, or something. But the entire two or three page scene was filled with business.
I can't even hope to repeat any of it, but I can generally reconstruct it -- because I'm not kidding when I say I went back and reread that one scene, a number of times, over the next year or two. I'd be in the library, pass the book, flip it open, and read just that part. (I had similar touchstone-scenes in every book; I never really reread a book so much as just sometimes reread the parts that had really worked for me.) An example rebuilt-line from the scene (just imagine a page or two of similar):
Thing is, there's two types of business. There's theatrical business -- where a character lights a cigarette, fiddles with his glasses, pours herself a drink, is 'busy' trying on shoes. It's used in film and theater, as a way to get around the fact that otherwise the audience would be staring at two people staring at each other through the conversation.
What I'm talking about is an extension of business, where it's buried in the dialogue. Having come from a quasi-(back)stage background, I was aware of how to read a script, and how directors would tackle what-to-do when really all you get (in the script itself) is what people are saying, maybe with some minimal blocking. I'd also seen plenty of productions where the stage-notes said, do this, do that, but the director decided, no, we'll do this instead.
One of the assignments in the class was to find several friends who'd read your play out loud while you listened. (Usually just read, no blocking or props.) It was to give us a sense of how other folks might interpret what you'd put on the page. One plot-point in my story was -- for no reason I can recall now -- focused on mixing orange juice versus diet soda, with alcohol.
The first time I heard the play read, there were stage blockings in there as notes, but nothing in the dialogue. The words were carrying the plot forward, but not this peculiar but important detail about what went into the drinks. I realized, not only did it sound strange when people read it out loud -- divorced entirely from the humor that was supposed to exist in the scene -- but it also gave a director way, way, too much leeway in deciding the drinks wouldn't be in there at all. (I'd seen that plenty of times, in productions where unstable tables or just-not-right cups or eww-I-hate-kool-aid issues would nix liquids onstage.)
So I decided to put the business into the dialogue, instead. Then I started listening to conversations I'd have with friends, and the people around me, and in studying the amazing examples of two specific plays, one being 'Night, Mother and the other being Bent (both of which are moving and engrossing and heart-breaking plays which if you ever have the chance to see live, DO NOT walk, but RUN to the theater to get yourself tickets!).
That intense listening (and the deconstruction we did in playwriting classes) made me realize several things about how people converse. Okay, fine, EAVESDROPPING along with reading plays made me realize there are specific patterns to our thinking-and-speaking skills.
1. We tend to have two conversations at once, usually in the same chunk of uninterrupted dialogue: what we want to say, and our reaction to what someone else is saying.
One -- the statement that comes out first -- is based on what we planned to say. (The infamous, "you're busy thinking of your next words, rather than actually listening to the other person" bit.) The second question or statement, then, is a belated response to the other person's comment.
That's also when we tend to mangle what-we-hear, a skill most valuable when writing arguments. (One of the recent authors I've read, Jay Lygon, nails this skill flawlessly.) The trick to it goes like this:
1. Figure out what the character's been thinking in his head.
2. Figure out the character's response to the previous character's words.
3. Use #1 as a filter to rewrite/rephrase #2.
I guess one construct might go something like this. This is hardly a complex example but it's the best I could do off the top of my head -- it's really hard to do an example, because it's such an organic thing. (At least for me.)
The line marked as (3) is where an argument gets away from the characters, as it will in real life -- suddenly A is not reacting to the series of (1), (2a), (2b), but dropping the one-word middle part and 'hearing' the combination of (1)+(2b), which comes across as a completely different kind of thing. So either A can be combative ("how should I know...") or helpful ("well, I told you the clicking sound is the alternator, or was it a buzz-buzz sound?")
When there's the option for (3) in an argument, that's when it can all go off the rails. This may end up in a door-slamming finale, or in either A or B relenting before it escalates, and the conversation resolves but only in a superficial manner -- that is, one of the two issues (usually the less personal) gets handled, but the other is set aside, or not brought back up.
OR, the argument loops, and that's always a fun one, because it's exactly how we do talk, although without the uhms and ahs and y'knows. A loop is when the argument gets derailed by (3), and goes along for several lines until one of the two abruptly yanks it back to their original issue. Done well, it can come across as a total non sequitor that still makes sense:
2. People's abilities to listen/respond vary widely, and that's another kind of subtle characterization, but one's that crucial to dialogue because it's the only place you can ever show it.
Some folks take a long time to answer, on a regular basis, because they really are pondering what was just said, and formulating a reply. Other folks will nearly eat the previous line, quick to jump in with their own canned response.
That's one way I like to characterize, and to notice characterization, though this I learned from reading Whedon's scripts for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the pacing is much faster than you usually see in plays. Some characters will allow a slight beat before responding, which indicates they're processing. Other characters shoot back a response almost immediately, while some consistently cut off the last words of the previous speaker's line.
That shows impatience, lack of listening, and focus (whether or not it's on the other person, or the character's own issues, or something else). It's also a way to make sure that each character has a slightly varied speaking pattern, because not every character is going to tromple each other's cues. Some will hold back, process, and then deliver the scathing retort.
3. Some responses are more of a triggered statement than a deliberate one.
That's another place that playwriting was of immense aid in learning dialogue, because in the theater, you have these things called cues. "That's your cue," we say, and the idea is that when you memorize your lines, you're also (usually due to practice, and not intentionally) learning the last word or two of the preceding line.
The actor's brain, then, ends up with something like this, from Act II, Sc 1, in Macbeth:
So redoing that scene from above, knowing the cue is "measureless content":
4. People are not consistently witty without some kind of planning ahead.
One of the things that really really bugs me are movies and television and books where everything anyone says is the sort of thing you'd love to say if, y'know, you had warning and plenty of time to come up with it. Thing is, we do, but we only throw them into conversation (normally) where either a) we've had a chance to plan out the conversation ahead of time -- such as when A has been fuming over the time, or B has been fussing over the car dying. The other is b) where the phrase's use is triggered by a cue.
That means that when a cue-word triggers the response (witty or argumentative or defensive or placating), that response is going to now come first. Sometimes, the response will even cut off everything else the prompting character might say, which is a way to either indicate a character's impatience (and his/her lack of actual listening skills and/or kneejerk reaction) or to make it perfectly clear to the reader exactly what triggered the response.
ETA: This relates to #3, as well. The easiest way to describe this is that we all have automatic responses to hot buttons, which are not actually words so much as phrases or concepts -- but in dialogue, a single word may preface a hot button. Like the "do you think we live in a barn" may, after enough repetition, get the "damn it, shut up!" response even if the triggering line didn't get any farther than the "do you think" and the reacting character says NOT AGAIN, SHEESH and reacts.
Obviously, to make it subtler, let the speaker get another word or two out before jumping in with reply, which can further confuse speaker & possibly readers, by thinking the later word is the cue, instead.
(That kind of cultural trigger can in turn create sympathy for the character who gets that thrown at them, because the reader can totally relate to the open-mouthed "say what?" sudden throwback to being eight. Very useful if the primary sympathetic character in the argument is the one who just asked the question, and you want to tilt things more fairly and give the second voice a chance to be sympathetic.)
5. We do not have arguments. Arguments have us.
I really, really wish I could find the original quote for that... let's see. Ah, a script site! Okay, from My So-Called Life (another amazing resource for paying attention to how people really talk, but still without the verbatim uhms and y'knows) -- conversation between a husband and wife, about their daughters.
Soon the fight has the characters, not the other way around. That's where you (or at least me, as a reader) get a sense of verité. When a fight is deliberate -- that is, each line follows from the one before, with no triggers or cues, with no misunderstanding or filtering, then it's not really a fight. It may be an intense conversation, but there's no derailment, and there's little room for escalation.
6. In conversation, lacking cues or pre-planned lines, we answer the last thing first.
Barring those instances where we've got in our heads what we want to say, we'll respond without too much thought to the final part of someone else's line, and then work our way backwards (or in an order that reflects our own priorities) through the entire chunk of dialogue. Characters will also drop replies to questions/information that they consider either 'concluded' or 'less important' or even when assuming the lack of response makes the response obvious (usually a negation).
7. For whatever reason, people do require the obvious, and it's a good way to up conflict, even the slightest tensions between people (because NO ONE GETS ALONG ALL THE TIME.)
Yes, there are the sarcastic deadpan types. Like, uhm, my college roommate, because I'd never be this deadpan, oh noes, not me.
I might be conflating the scene with some other play, could be, but I seem to recall it was something where Son is getting out a drink. Mom is haranging him about something, and then breaks off to say:
The problem for me is that constructing a conversation like this (even those which are not arguments per se so much as layered conversations) is that it makes it Really Damn Hard To Edit... because every line is a series of layers on top of, and triggered by, the previous lines. If you remove one early on, the entire conversation can potentially collapse. Either you rewrite it all from the beginning and try damn hard not to let the fight chomp on the author along with the characters, OR you cut off the opening lines and truncate at the end, or cut the last half, so long as the organic, cue-reliant lines remain in a consecutive chunk.
Every single time I've tried to cut out midsections in conversations when they're layered like this, I end up with a complete mess. It does help to be able to designate single lines (within a character's entire line) as being a (1), (2), (3), or (4), and then looking for lines where one type dominates and editing that down. (Or alternately, looking for the trigger words in the second line and chopping off so the character's words end right after they've delivered the trigger-cue.)
The real problem is business-in-dialogue. Taking that out means either the interpersonal friction that's exacerbated by someone, say, drinking from a glass, must either be converted to narration, or just excised altogether. I tend to cut it out all the way, then, because I dislike business in narration that isn't reflected in the dialogue -- because regardless of extroversion or introversion, we do talk about what we're doing, if not very clearly, most of the time.
Even if that's as simple as a mid-argument intrusion of "have you seen my shoes?" or the more combative "where did you put my shoes?" and then you're derailed and life is good. For the author, at least.
excellent resource for layered arguments and conversations in dialogue: all the scripts of my so-called life.
One book in particular, Ask Me No Questions, I'll Tell You No Lies, I can barely recall now except for a particular scene. The conversation is plot-laden; I think the young narrator was asking her baby-sitting charge about the child's step-mother, or something. But the entire two or three page scene was filled with business.
I can't even hope to repeat any of it, but I can generally reconstruct it -- because I'm not kidding when I say I went back and reread that one scene, a number of times, over the next year or two. I'd be in the library, pass the book, flip it open, and read just that part. (I had similar touchstone-scenes in every book; I never really reread a book so much as just sometimes reread the parts that had really worked for me.) An example rebuilt-line from the scene (just imagine a page or two of similar):
"After your daddy remarried," she said, and rolled the dice. "Manhattan! Is that when you moved here?" She sorted through the money, and counted out six crumpled bills. "Third hotel. Your turn."For whatever reason (was business that rare?) the scene pleased me to no end. It wasn't until years and years later when I took a playwriting class, and again chanced the use of business in this sense. I want to say it was 'Night, Mother, but don't quote me on it. (On second thought, maybe it was a dinner-making scene, and I want to say Raisin in the Sun. Oi, it's been too long!)
Thing is, there's two types of business. There's theatrical business -- where a character lights a cigarette, fiddles with his glasses, pours herself a drink, is 'busy' trying on shoes. It's used in film and theater, as a way to get around the fact that otherwise the audience would be staring at two people staring at each other through the conversation.
What I'm talking about is an extension of business, where it's buried in the dialogue. Having come from a quasi-(back)stage background, I was aware of how to read a script, and how directors would tackle what-to-do when really all you get (in the script itself) is what people are saying, maybe with some minimal blocking. I'd also seen plenty of productions where the stage-notes said, do this, do that, but the director decided, no, we'll do this instead.
One of the assignments in the class was to find several friends who'd read your play out loud while you listened. (Usually just read, no blocking or props.) It was to give us a sense of how other folks might interpret what you'd put on the page. One plot-point in my story was -- for no reason I can recall now -- focused on mixing orange juice versus diet soda, with alcohol.
The first time I heard the play read, there were stage blockings in there as notes, but nothing in the dialogue. The words were carrying the plot forward, but not this peculiar but important detail about what went into the drinks. I realized, not only did it sound strange when people read it out loud -- divorced entirely from the humor that was supposed to exist in the scene -- but it also gave a director way, way, too much leeway in deciding the drinks wouldn't be in there at all. (I'd seen that plenty of times, in productions where unstable tables or just-not-right cups or eww-I-hate-kool-aid issues would nix liquids onstage.)
So I decided to put the business into the dialogue, instead. Then I started listening to conversations I'd have with friends, and the people around me, and in studying the amazing examples of two specific plays, one being 'Night, Mother and the other being Bent (both of which are moving and engrossing and heart-breaking plays which if you ever have the chance to see live, DO NOT walk, but RUN to the theater to get yourself tickets!).
That intense listening (and the deconstruction we did in playwriting classes) made me realize several things about how people converse. Okay, fine, EAVESDROPPING along with reading plays made me realize there are specific patterns to our thinking-and-speaking skills.
1. We tend to have two conversations at once, usually in the same chunk of uninterrupted dialogue: what we want to say, and our reaction to what someone else is saying.
One -- the statement that comes out first -- is based on what we planned to say. (The infamous, "you're busy thinking of your next words, rather than actually listening to the other person" bit.) The second question or statement, then, is a belated response to the other person's comment.
That's also when we tend to mangle what-we-hear, a skill most valuable when writing arguments. (One of the recent authors I've read, Jay Lygon, nails this skill flawlessly.) The trick to it goes like this:
1. Figure out what the character's been thinking in his head.
2. Figure out the character's response to the previous character's words.
3. Use #1 as a filter to rewrite/rephrase #2.
I guess one construct might go something like this. This is hardly a complex example but it's the best I could do off the top of my head -- it's really hard to do an example, because it's such an organic thing. (At least for me.)
A: You're home. I was getting worried.So A's mindset is, "you didn't call and let me know," while B's predominant focus is on the car-- that means B's statements lead with his "about the car" pre-planned lines, while A treats those as secondary to the issue of getting home at 9pm.
B: (1) The car needs to go into the shop. (2) It's not that late.
A: (1) What's your excuse this time? (2) Now it's the car's fault?
B: (1) It's making a strange sound. I think it's the transmission. (2a) Excuse? (2b) What's that supposed to mean?
A: (3) Do I look like a mechanic?
The line marked as (3) is where an argument gets away from the characters, as it will in real life -- suddenly A is not reacting to the series of (1), (2a), (2b), but dropping the one-word middle part and 'hearing' the combination of (1)+(2b), which comes across as a completely different kind of thing. So either A can be combative ("how should I know...") or helpful ("well, I told you the clicking sound is the alternator, or was it a buzz-buzz sound?")
When there's the option for (3) in an argument, that's when it can all go off the rails. This may end up in a door-slamming finale, or in either A or B relenting before it escalates, and the conversation resolves but only in a superficial manner -- that is, one of the two issues (usually the less personal) gets handled, but the other is set aside, or not brought back up.
OR, the argument loops, and that's always a fun one, because it's exactly how we do talk, although without the uhms and ahs and y'knows. A loop is when the argument gets derailed by (3), and goes along for several lines until one of the two abruptly yanks it back to their original issue. Done well, it can come across as a total non sequitor that still makes sense:
B: I'll just have to call the mechanic in the morning.
A: (4) Do you even REALIZE the time!?
B: *stares blankly*
2. People's abilities to listen/respond vary widely, and that's another kind of subtle characterization, but one's that crucial to dialogue because it's the only place you can ever show it.
Some folks take a long time to answer, on a regular basis, because they really are pondering what was just said, and formulating a reply. Other folks will nearly eat the previous line, quick to jump in with their own canned response.
That's one way I like to characterize, and to notice characterization, though this I learned from reading Whedon's scripts for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the pacing is much faster than you usually see in plays. Some characters will allow a slight beat before responding, which indicates they're processing. Other characters shoot back a response almost immediately, while some consistently cut off the last words of the previous speaker's line.
That shows impatience, lack of listening, and focus (whether or not it's on the other person, or the character's own issues, or something else). It's also a way to make sure that each character has a slightly varied speaking pattern, because not every character is going to tromple each other's cues. Some will hold back, process, and then deliver the scathing retort.
3. Some responses are more of a triggered statement than a deliberate one.
That's another place that playwriting was of immense aid in learning dialogue, because in the theater, you have these things called cues. "That's your cue," we say, and the idea is that when you memorize your lines, you're also (usually due to practice, and not intentionally) learning the last word or two of the preceding line.
The actor's brain, then, ends up with something like this, from Act II, Sc 1, in Macbeth:
A: ... there?Which means that, on top of the (1),(2) pattern between planned thoughts (actions) and the results of actually listening (reactions), the (2) may jump to first thing uttered if the author knows what cues might do this.
B: A friend.
A: What, sir ... measureless content.
B: Being unprepared, our will became the servant to defect; which else should free have wrought.
A: All's ... some truth.
B: I think not of them: yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve, we would spend it in some words upon that business, if you would grant the time.
A: At ... leisure.
So redoing that scene from above, knowing the cue is "measureless content":
A: What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed: he hath been in unusual pleasure, in measureless content sent forth--So a fun way to muck up an argument is to look at the previous line and see what words would be triggers. Then, the argument gets derailed via the canned response that may not have been planned for this conversation but is endemic to the character regardless.
B: Being unprepared--
A: Great largess to your offices--
B: --Our will became the servant to defect, what the HELL are you going on about?
4. People are not consistently witty without some kind of planning ahead.
One of the things that really really bugs me are movies and television and books where everything anyone says is the sort of thing you'd love to say if, y'know, you had warning and plenty of time to come up with it. Thing is, we do, but we only throw them into conversation (normally) where either a) we've had a chance to plan out the conversation ahead of time -- such as when A has been fuming over the time, or B has been fussing over the car dying. The other is b) where the phrase's use is triggered by a cue.
That means that when a cue-word triggers the response (witty or argumentative or defensive or placating), that response is going to now come first. Sometimes, the response will even cut off everything else the prompting character might say, which is a way to either indicate a character's impatience (and his/her lack of actual listening skills and/or kneejerk reaction) or to make it perfectly clear to the reader exactly what triggered the response.
ETA: This relates to #3, as well. The easiest way to describe this is that we all have automatic responses to hot buttons, which are not actually words so much as phrases or concepts -- but in dialogue, a single word may preface a hot button. Like the "do you think we live in a barn" may, after enough repetition, get the "damn it, shut up!" response even if the triggering line didn't get any farther than the "do you think" and the reacting character says NOT AGAIN, SHEESH and reacts.
Obviously, to make it subtler, let the speaker get another word or two out before jumping in with reply, which can further confuse speaker & possibly readers, by thinking the later word is the cue, instead.
A: And then you bought a vacuum cleaner--To muddy the cues, make it less obvious overall but more the way we really do jump on loaded words (loaded-to-us, at least), that's when I go back and rearrange:
B: This place was filthy!
A: And you didn't even ask me--
B: Well, I'm asking now, do you really ENJOY living in a pigsty?
A: And the vacuum cleaner, you go and buy it--There are also certain cues that readers will have, in general, if they come from a similar culture. It seems to be that "living in a barn" or "this place looks like a pigsty" are two of those. Raise your hand if your parent(s) ever said that to you.
B: This place was filthy!
A: And you didn't even ask me--
B: Well, I'm asking now, do you really ENJOY living in a pigsty?
(That kind of cultural trigger can in turn create sympathy for the character who gets that thrown at them, because the reader can totally relate to the open-mouthed "say what?" sudden throwback to being eight. Very useful if the primary sympathetic character in the argument is the one who just asked the question, and you want to tilt things more fairly and give the second voice a chance to be sympathetic.)
5. We do not have arguments. Arguments have us.
I really, really wish I could find the original quote for that... let's see. Ah, a script site! Okay, from My So-Called Life (another amazing resource for paying attention to how people really talk, but still without the verbatim uhms and y'knows) -- conversation between a husband and wife, about their daughters.
Graham : Hey, shorty.That single line, "the kind of fight where it seems like the fight is having you" pretty much sums up every verbal conflict I can imagine, because in real life that's pretty much what happens. It's why we can toss out witty or sarcastic phrases, because those are triggered by cues in the previous line, and rarely a conscious thing; our subconscious on some level is 'having' us by spouting these things that get away from us.
Patty : What is this with "shorty"? [fumbling a christmas bow] Shoot!
Graham : Need help?
Patty : No. No. I can do it myself. God -- I just had -- the most upsetting fight with Angela. You know, it was one of those fights where -- it doesn't even seem real, it seems like the fight is having you. You'd better go speak to her.
Graham : Danielle said she went out for a walk. What was the fight about?
Soon the fight has the characters, not the other way around. That's where you (or at least me, as a reader) get a sense of verité. When a fight is deliberate -- that is, each line follows from the one before, with no triggers or cues, with no misunderstanding or filtering, then it's not really a fight. It may be an intense conversation, but there's no derailment, and there's little room for escalation.
6. In conversation, lacking cues or pre-planned lines, we answer the last thing first.
Barring those instances where we've got in our heads what we want to say, we'll respond without too much thought to the final part of someone else's line, and then work our way backwards (or in an order that reflects our own priorities) through the entire chunk of dialogue. Characters will also drop replies to questions/information that they consider either 'concluded' or 'less important' or even when assuming the lack of response makes the response obvious (usually a negation).
A: Where did you find this? Did you get tuna? Wait, didn't you use the coupons?If you look at the dialogue from My So-Called Life, above, you can see the same thing happening. Each character responds to the last part before parsing the rest and replying to it -- and they don't answer directly, either.
B: I used the ones I could, and that was in the bread aisle.
A: What about the tuna?
B: The what?
Patty: (a) No. No. I can do it myself. (b) I just had the most upsetting fight with Angela. (c) You'd better go speak to her.In other words, Graham's (c) answers Patty's (c) but indirectly, by answering the implied dialogue:
Graham : (c) Danielle said she went out for a walk. (b) What was the fight about?
Patty: You'd better go speak to her.That's another thing of what I mean by organic: the way a line relates to, even when one-step-removed-from, the previous lines.
Graham: What, right now?
Patty: Isn't she downstairs?
Graham: Danielle said she went out for a walk.
7. For whatever reason, people do require the obvious, and it's a good way to up conflict, even the slightest tensions between people (because NO ONE GETS ALONG ALL THE TIME.)
Yes, there are the sarcastic deadpan types. Like, uhm, my college roommate, because I'd never be this deadpan, oh noes, not me.
A: *sees person is in pajamas* Are you going to bed?A useful version of this, I recall seeing in an awesome production of Last of the Formicans. I don't recall the precise setup of the argument, but it's an awesome turnabout. The premise is that a divorced woman has moved she & her son back in with her parents while she gets on her feet (and meanwhile they're being observed by aliens trying to figure out Human Culture). Time and again, the playwright uses a kind of bookend argument, where Mom and Son will argue, complete with cues and misdirection and canned, triggered retorts -- and then Mom, so mad about Son's recalcitrance, turns around and repeats Son's half of the conversation in an argument with her own parents.
B: No, the grocery store. *beat* Need anything?
I might be conflating the scene with some other play, could be, but I seem to recall it was something where Son is getting out a drink. Mom is haranging him about something, and then breaks off to say:
A: What are you doing?Adding in descriptions of what a person is doing just layers the potential triggers and cues into what's already a loaded conversation. Yes, it's possible to add in plot-points and exchange information in a conflict like this. (Who knows if I can do it; I can only assure you I've seen it done.)
B: What does it look like? Getting a drink.
A: No, you're air-conditioning the entire kitchen. Close that door! *closes door for him* We'll get you a tutor to help with math.
B: I only had the door open for a minute. And I'm doing fine--
A: You are not! You can't even drink from a glass, like civilized people.
B: I don't need a glass, Mom, put that back.
A: USE. THE. GLASS.
B: I'm done drinking! See!
The problem for me is that constructing a conversation like this (even those which are not arguments per se so much as layered conversations) is that it makes it Really Damn Hard To Edit... because every line is a series of layers on top of, and triggered by, the previous lines. If you remove one early on, the entire conversation can potentially collapse. Either you rewrite it all from the beginning and try damn hard not to let the fight chomp on the author along with the characters, OR you cut off the opening lines and truncate at the end, or cut the last half, so long as the organic, cue-reliant lines remain in a consecutive chunk.
Every single time I've tried to cut out midsections in conversations when they're layered like this, I end up with a complete mess. It does help to be able to designate single lines (within a character's entire line) as being a (1), (2), (3), or (4), and then looking for lines where one type dominates and editing that down. (Or alternately, looking for the trigger words in the second line and chopping off so the character's words end right after they've delivered the trigger-cue.)
The real problem is business-in-dialogue. Taking that out means either the interpersonal friction that's exacerbated by someone, say, drinking from a glass, must either be converted to narration, or just excised altogether. I tend to cut it out all the way, then, because I dislike business in narration that isn't reflected in the dialogue -- because regardless of extroversion or introversion, we do talk about what we're doing, if not very clearly, most of the time.
Even if that's as simple as a mid-argument intrusion of "have you seen my shoes?" or the more combative "where did you put my shoes?" and then you're derailed and life is good. For the author, at least.
excellent resource for layered arguments and conversations in dialogue: all the scripts of my so-called life.
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Date: 9 Jan 2009 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Jan 2009 12:26 am (UTC)Someday I'm gonna find out if there's any way to make money off deconstruction, I swear. Until then, I guess random other folks might benefit, eh.
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Date: 9 Jan 2009 05:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Jan 2009 05:01 pm (UTC)I've rarely found any books that actually deconstruct dialogue, outside of playwriting texts. Personally, I think it's a big black hole for a lot of writers. Not saying I'm an authority, but I can't help but deconstruct...
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Date: 9 Jan 2009 05:19 am (UTC)Great post, lots of brain candy too.
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Date: 9 Jan 2009 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Jan 2009 05:31 pm (UTC)I recall experimenting with transitions into that sort of thing in the past, in one short story I wrote, where it took a lot of work and finessing and passing the thing around to different pairs of eyes before I had something which didn't make the reader feel like they've been unwillingly launched into a wormhole.
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Date: 9 Jan 2009 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Jan 2009 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Jan 2009 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 11 Jan 2009 05:17 am (UTC)No kidding. Makes me realize constantly just how far I have to go!
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Date: 10 Jan 2009 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 11 Jan 2009 05:17 am (UTC)