Choose 3 quotes and write a well-developed paragraph explaining and interpreting each of these 3 quotes.
5. “You
want to ask yourself how do your characters stand, what do they carry in their
pockets, what happens in their faces and to their faces and to their posture
when they are thinking, or happy, or afraid.”
This means
that we want to think about how our characters act, what they would do in different
situations, what their opinions are. This helps us and the reader to get to
know the character better, to put them in their shoes, which helps to write or
read the story with better understanding. If they got mugged, what would they
be doing? Would they be threatening to call the police (brave but foolish), or
hurriedly giving the thief their belongings (weak but wise)? If an unattractive
person came and asked them out on a date, would they harshly push them away
(mean) or gently tell them that they are unavailable (nice)? It helps to put
characters in situations.
9. “Good
dialogue gives us the sense that we are eavesdropping.”
This means
that a good dialogue should sound like we are listening in on the speakers, and
not like we are being told about their conversation. It should sound like we
are hiding close by and hearing them, with our own thoughts and feelings, not
like a story where the narrator tells us what to think. We should feel
involved. We should be seeing the facial expressions of the speakers, whether
they are whispering or shouting, if they are talking about something secret or
just some random topic.
10.
“Some hints for good dialogue:
1) Sound out your words – read them out
loud.
2) Every character must not sound like
you; each one must have a self.
3) You might want to try putting
together two people who more than anything in the world wish to avoid each
other… put the two of them together in the same elevator. Then let the elevator
get stuck… now see what happens.”
You should
read your dialogue aloud to see how it sounds and to decide if your character
would actually say something like that, depending on their personality. You
should also be sounding out that character’s personal opinions, not just yours.
Also, you should try putting two enemies together in a difficult situation to
see how they would act together, so that you can use that in your actual
situation.
