Exercises:
- “Are we still talking about the dishes?”
- “I think I’ve heard this one before”
- Don’t Mind Me
- Let Me Rephrase That
- From Screen to Page
- Why Don’t You Tell Me How You Really Feel?
"Are we still talking about the dishes?”
Purpose of Exercise: Students will practice writing dialogue that builds tension through subtext and disagreement while avoiding dialogue as exposition.
Description: Beginning writers often have difficulty writing dialogue that is tense but not overt about that tension or the factors contributing to it.
Suggested Time: 30 minutes
Procedure: Have students write a scene in which two characters almost have an argument but don’t quite. The ostensible argument should be about something unimportant—cleaning, television, dishes—while the larger, unstated tension is much more significant.
Additional Information: This activity may be used in class or as a homework assignment but should be introduced with a discussion of strategies for indicating subtext. It is easy to find examples of dialogue in television shows in which people speak what should be revealed indirectly—either because they are announcing their feelings and intentions or because they are explaining context. Practicing for this exercise might start with watching one of these scenes and rewriting it so that the tension/emotions are unstated. Any episode of Grey’s Anatomy provides countless examples of characters elaborately explaining their feelings and motivations.
Back to Top
“I think I’ve heard this one before”
Purpose of Exercise: Students will practice managing large sections of dialogue in a single setting.
Description: Raymond Carver wrote several stories in which the action of the story is contained within a single setting and conversation. Though this model tends to prove difficult for beginning writers, practicing ways to create a story arc simply through what is said is often useful.
Suggested Time: 30 minutes
Procedure: Have students write a story in which one person tells another person a story. The listener should be reluctant to hear the story.
Additional Information: This activity may be used in class or as a homework assignment but should be introduced with a discussion of how conversation stories work. A good—and relatively short—example is Peter Orner’s “The Raft,” which was originally published in The Atlantic Monthly. Longer examples include Carver’s “Where I’m Calling From” and Charles Baxter’s “Poor Devil,” which is available online.
Back to Top
Don’t Mind Me
Purpose of Exercise: The purpose of this exercise is for students to develop their skills in writing dialogue that both reveals character and moves plot forward. Emphasis will be placed on diction and syntax.
Description: Have students eavesdrop on a conversation they are not part of. By listening in, encourage them to pay particularly attention not just to the conversation overall, but how the participants interact.
Suggested Time: 30 minutes
Procedure: For homework, have students listen in on a conversation on a bus, in a restaurant, before class. They don’t need to listen for long, just enough time to gain an idea of the speech patterns. Have them transcribe what they heard to the best of their abilities. What was the reason for the conversation, from what you can tell? Was their a conflict? How would you characterize each of the speakers? Consider word choice, word order, tone, and rate of speaking. How does dialogue contribute to our impressions of people? Students may wish to read aloud, and then open the floor to discussion.
Back to Top
Let Me Rephrase That
Purpose of Exercise: The purpose of this exercise is for students to develop their skills in writing dialogue that both reveals character and moves plot forward. Emphasis will be placed on audience and diction.
Description: Students will write a conversation with a friend, and then revise it, retelling the same story to their grandmother. Attention will be placed on how we change our language based on our audience.
Suggested Time: class period
Procedure: Tell students to create a dialogue between themselves and their best friend at another university detailing a crazy night out. Encourage the students to appeal to all five senses in the dialogue with the friend. When students have completed the exercise, ask them to rewrite the “crazy night” as if they were talking to their grandmother. How was the evening revised? How did the tone, diction and syntax change? What does this suggest about dialogue? How does character change in the two dialogues?
Back to Top
From Screen to Page
Purpose of Exercise: The purpose of this exercise is for students to develop their skills of mixing dialogue with action.
Description: Communication is verbal and non-verbal. In this exercise, students will learn not only the value of dialogue, but of actions to characterize.
Suggested Time: class period
Procedure: In this exercise, have students watch a 30 second to 1 minute viral video, perhaps something funny and amusing. You may want to provide them with the dialogue. Have them watch the clip several times to get a sense of the nuances, particularly actions, props, and facial expressions. Have them add to the dialogue in way that indicates to the reader the tone and the subtler meaning the said words.
Back to Top
Why Don’t You Tell Me How You Really Feel?
Purpose of Exercise: The purpose of this exercise is for students to develop their skills of mixing dialogue with action.
Description: Communication is verbal and non-verbal. In this exercise, students will learn not only the value of dialogue, but of actions to characterize. They will take the passage below, and revise it, adding dialogue and sensory details.
Suggested Time: class period
Procedure: Give students the following passage.
I was happy. My girlfriend was sad. I was curious. She became annoyed. I was confused. She became angry. I became angry. She became terrifying. I was scared. I am content now.
Tell them to replace each of the emotions with actions and dialogue to show what is told. None of the adjectives—happy, sad, curious, annoyed, confused, angry, terrifying, scared, content—can be used in the final version. However, each of those emotions should be detectable through actions, body language, facial expressions, and dialogue. Have the students share, explaining how they adapted the paragraph to a more visually appeally, resonant narrative.