Scenes, part 2 of 4: think, talk, do

Dialogue and narration

Introduction

Last week, we covered the parts of a scene, using scenes to build your story, and connecting your scenes.

This week, let’s dive a little deeper into the use of dialogue and narration to build your scenes, as well as when to build an active scene versus using narrative summary.

Dialogue and narration

There are two primary writing elements in every scene: dialogue and narration.

Have you ever read a book that has a long section of dialogue between two (or more) characters with nothing else happening? It can get boring. It can lose the plot. It can also become confusing for readers (who said that line?).

Likewise, a scene that is 100 percent narrative isn’t much of a scene. It’s not showing the readers what is happening, it’s telling them. It’s the difference between watching a movie and having a friend tell you all about the movie.

It’s just not that interesting to be told about a scene. You want your readers to experience the scene as if they’re sitting in the restaurant watching the husband and wife, or sitting at the table with them, or even better, being inside the wife’s head during dinner.

Photo by Albert Dera on Unsplash

If a story tells you about being lost in the woods and stalked by a bear, that might be somewhat interesting. But if, while you read, you feel like you are lost in the woods and being stalked by a bear, you won’t be able to put it down, and you’ll tell all your friends about it.

And that leads to a ‘no dialogue’ exception. If this guy is lost in the woods, all alone, then there’s no one for him to talk to. There’s no dialogue between characters. The only spoken words may be when he yells at the bear to go away.

Internal monologue

Whether there’s only one person in the scene or several, there will likely be internal monologue, which is similar to dialogue and fills the same purpose.

Internal monologue is the character thinking to himself. It’s not out loud, although he could talk to himself out loud. It’s not directed to anyone else, although he might be talking to his girlfriend in his head, promising he’s going to make it home and telling her how much he loves her. But it may mostly just be his thoughts, the running monologue in his head.

Back to the wife who’s suspicious of her husband.