A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.
–Truman Capote–
Last week I suggested that you should take yourself to a café, listen to how people really talk and then write a dialogue like that. If you have done this exercise though, you will have noted that while the real conversation flows quite naturally despite all its faults, writing one like that does not qualify as good dialogue. A few months ago I was transcribing an interview with a best-selling author. You wouldn't believe how fragmented and, yes, even rambling, this read once on the page. Yet, it sounded entirely normal on tape. After my transcription (all twenty-five pages), I wrote another version of it, mostly clearing it of pauses, interruptions and broken sentences. It then read as a really great dialogue, but with none of the dross that just does not work on paper.
Take the page you wrote last week trying to imitate the way in which people really talk and turn it into a dialogue fit for a novel.
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