What are your thoughts about having chunks of dialogue at one time?
Replies
You can have scenes between two or three people that are conducted entirely in dialogue, with a few stage directions. The important thing is that these scenes need to be there - they must serve a purpose at that point in your story. They have to illustrate something - character, action, intention, or opportunity, for instance.
Dialogue is an excellent way of showing rather than telling, but it has to be relevant and it has to sit well within its context. It must never be of the 'Look, there is your Uncle David, the one we don't talk about, who inherited all that money and lives in New York,' variety, where the person addressed already knows all this. That's a poor way of giving information to the reader.
You can have scenes between two or three people that are conducted entirely in dialogue, with a few stage directions. The important thing is that these scenes need to be there - they must serve a purpose at that point in your story. They have to illustrate something - character, action, intention, or opportunity, for instance.
Dialogue is an excellent way of showing rather than telling, but it has to be relevant and it has to sit well within its context. It must never be of the 'Look, there is your Uncle David, the one we don't talk about, who inherited all that money and lives in New York,' variety, where the person addressed already knows all this. That's a poor way of giving information to the reader.
Hope this helps.
Lorraine