James Preller's Blog

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The other night, in a Level 1 writing class for adults that I guide for Gotham Writers, we were talking about dialogue. I asked the students to try an exercise where they wrote only the spoken words, nothing else. No attribution, no exterior description, no stage directions, no interior thoughts.

Focus entirely on what’s said out loud.

Later I asked them to go back and include those missing features, a strategy that builds awareness of the available tools, turning that spoken conversation into a fully rendered scene that readers can picture in their imaginations. And also, hopefully, help my students notice the power of all the unspoken messages that are delivered outside of, and beyond, what’s (merely) said out loud. 

Coincidentally, after that class I came across a sweet little stage direction while reading Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake. I underlined it, as is my habit. I put a star in the margin. It’s the bit about Emily and the fork (below), which struck me as brilliant. And I thought: that’s it, that’s some of what I was trying to convey. 

What follows represents one way of looking at a scene from Chapter 10, omitting all the spoken words.

I want your focus to be on all the small ways that Patchett brings this conversation to life. The attribution, of course. The way the narrator offers a deft but significant touch on the entire scene: she is clearly telling us this story, coloring it in for us. There’s the stage directions: Maisie’s arms tightening across her chest, Benny’s hands on Emily’s shoulders, Joe holding up his hand, etc.  Additionally, there’s that one key passage where our narrator, Lara, muses on the dresses and quilts (interior), and the closing paragraph (exterior) that’s pretty much straight description. 

You can also locate a conversation on a miniature golf course — or move it to a coffee shop — or shift that same conversation to a walk along the shore. One thing is clear: we don’t want to have an entire book of two people talking at the kitchen table.  A different setting can make all the difference.

NOTE: This particular conversation is set in Joe and Lara’s farmhouse kitchen, involving their three adult daughters, Nell, Maisie, and Emily, along with Benny, a neighbor who is Emily’s fiance. Hazel is the dog. 

The three dots represent any spoken passage, of any length, contained within quotation marks. 

TOM LAKE, pages 142-144: Dialogue without Words

“* * *,” Emily says.

“* * *,” Joe asks, teasing her. “* * *.”

Everyone is waiting now. Hazel is waiting. Emily opens her mouth but nothing comes out.

“* * *,” Benny says

Joe shakes his head. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Emily says.

We should have one night that is not about the future or the past, one night to celebrate these two people and nothing else but we’ve blown it. “* * *,” I ask her.

Emily tips back her wineglass. She drains it. “* * *.”

I am making our three daughters quilts from my grandmother’s dresses, from their grandmother’s dresses and my dresses and the dresses they wore when they were children. I started collecting the fabric when I was a child because even then I knew I would have daughters one day and I would make them quilts. My daughters will give these quilts to their daughters and those daughters will sleep beneath them. One day they will wrap their own children in these quilts, and all of this will happen on the farm.

“* * *,” Emily says. “* * *.”

“* * *,” I say, but that’s a lie. These children we’ve never spoken of? We want them very much. We long for them.

“* * *,” Benny says, his voice quiet because all of us are silent. “* * *.”

Joe holds up his hand. “* * *.”

But Benny doesn’t stop. His voice comes without drama or demand and still, he keeps talking. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Joe says.

“* * *,” Maisie says.

“* * *.”

“* * *,” Joe says. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Nell says. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Joe asks. “* * *.”

“* * *,” Nell says. “* * **.”

Maisie tightens her arms across her chest. “* * *.”

Emily sits down on a kitchen chair and Benny stands behind her, his hands on her shoulders. We are all so tired.

Emily picks up a fork and balances it on one finger. She looks at nothing but the fork. “* * *.”

Nell reaches across the table and takes her sister’s hand, and Joe, Joe who never walks away from us, goes out the kitchen door. He is standing at the edge of the garden, his back is to the house. He is looking at the trees.

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ADDENDUM: Readers can click here to see the full dialogue that’s missing in this post, plus a few more observations from me, as I struggle to understand how this writing-thing works.

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