BookingIt

I'll admit, this is my favorite kind to write. It's in-your-face, don't-mess-with-me dialogue. It's what most of us are afraid to say in real life. In a scene, this kind of dialogue can be refreshing and exciting. I also think this kind of dialogue often forces truths and hidden conflicts to the surface of the scene. Stein gives an awesome example of this type of dialogue. On page 111 he shares an excerpt from a NYPD Blue scene. A cop just saw a killer let loose on a technicality. The cop makes a stink and the judge says, "We govern by law, not your whim." Then the cop gets confrontational. He replies, "Don't tell me how you govern. I work your streets. I clean up after how you govern. The way you govern stinks." I just found an interesting post about adversarial dialogue over at Novel Dog . How are you with confrontations? Do you like to write them?

Writing dialogue can be a lot of fun but it can also be tricky. Dialogue is not the same as conversation. It is not question/answer format. Dialogue should lead to questions. It should entice the reader to turn the page. It should move the plot forward. I've never heard dialogue called oblique before chapter eleven in Stein on Writing . According to Stein, this type of dialogue is indirect. His example of oblique dialogue: SHE: Hi, how are you? HE: Oh, I didn't see you. The man doesn't answer the question. He circles around it and says something else. That's oblique. Have you ever heard of oblique dialogue? Or maybe you've heard it called indirect? For an exercise, here's some dialogue. Can you turn it into something oblique? HE: Heard you had a party last night. SHE: Yep.