Dialogue Enhanced — Reversals and Dress Ups
Yesterday we practiced writing dialogue by creating a tense scene between a character very much like yourself and an angry parent. After the conversation developed and became more heated, you returned to add visual elements: details of gesture, facial expression, and appearance. Today we will take your dialogue to the next level. Once your scene reaches a point of tension at which something must explode or resolve, you are ready for the next step.
Step 3: Add a reversal. A reversal is a point in dramatic action when the power shifts from one character to another. Most likely, the parent has the power in the scene you have created so far. To allow a reversal to occur, you must find a way to shift the power to the young person. How can you do this?
Power can take many different forms: physical superiority, financial means, manipulative skills, and sexual allure are just a few examples. The power that will be easiest to draw on in your scene is the power of knowledge.
Imagine that your young person knows a highly compromising secret about the parent. Perhaps the parent recently lost a job and has not yet told the family. Or maybe the parent was recently ticketed for drunk driving. Perhaps the parent has committed a crime or started an affair or incurred a large gambling debt. In any case, the young person has found out about this secret, and at a point of extreme tension in the dialogue, he/she decides to bring out this knowledge as a way of gaining some control. Write for the next ten minutes, allowing a reversal to occur in your dialogue.
Step 4: (Optional)
If you’d like to do so, you can bring your scene to a satisfying end by applying a double-reversal. That is, allow the power to shift back to the original, empowered character. A few years ago, I had a student who did this beautifully. In his reversal, his young character accused his mother of having an affair. While out for lunch in the middle of a school day, he’d seen her getting out of her car in the parking lot of a local motel, dressed in a tight black dress and heals. The mother is horrified to hear this accusation which initially causes her to blush with embarrassment and grow strangely quiet. Then, she confesses the truth: she and the young man’s father had met at the motel as part of an assignment given to them by their marriage counselor. More blushing apologies follow as the mother recovers her composure, her initial anger quelled by her son’s revelation. They laugh, they hug, they go to bed. The end.
Double reversals have a satisfying way of putting the fractured pieces of a story back where they belong, allowing the reader to breathe a heavy, satisfied sigh. But this may not be what you want at all. Maybe you prefer to leave the power with the young person and take the story in a whole new direction. Whether you decide to use a double-reversal or not, you are now ready for the final step.
Step 5: Dress up the dialogue. Years ago, my colleague, Matt Love, wrote the scenes below to demonstrate for his students the difference between a naked and a dressed up scene of dialogue:
Naked
Scott sat down on the bench next to the basketball court. Diane hesitated, then sat down next to him.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“No problem,” she answered.
“I wanted to talk about something.”
“What?”
“About last August. You know, how we left things.” Scott’s face looked pained.
“Oh, that. Well, that was a long time ago,” she said softly.
“Was it? Only ten months, really.”
“No, Scott, I think it was longer than that. Much longer.”
Dressed Up
Scott sat down on the bench next to the basketball court. A couple of kids, maybe ten years old, scrambled around beneath the basket in a chaotic one-on-one.
After a moment Diane sat down next to him. They were in the sun enough for her to put on the sunglasses perched atop her head. They made her look older.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“No problem,” she answered. Her smile seemed forced.
“I wanted to talk about something.” Scott tried to look her in the eye, but the sunglasses blocked him. He considered asking her to take them off but figured he shouldn’t push his luck.
She watched, or pretended to watch, the boys playing basketball. They were laughing and falling all over each other. They didn’t seem to care if the ball went in.
“What?” she finally asked.
She was punishing him, he thought. She knew damn well what and was making him do all the work of spelling it out. Articulating his mistake.
“About last August. You know, how we left things.”
“Oh, that.” She said this quickly, and without turning to him. “Well, that was a long time ago.”
Scott leaned forward. “Was it? Only ten months, really.”
An awkward ‘thunk’ rang out and the basketball shot off the backboard and in their direction Scott watched as Diane scooped it up and passed it back to the skinny boy with the goofy smile. The pass was hard and nearly sent the boy sprawling.
She turned to him and took off the sunglasses. Her eyes were hard, like the pass.
“No, Scott. I think it was longer than that. Much longer.”
The dressed up scene develops and intensifies the conflict that is obvious in the characters’ conversation. Notice, especially, the way the setting on the basketball court reflects the chaotic one-on-one occurring between Scott and Diane. And lines like, “She knew damn well what…” allow the reader access to Scott’s thoughts through the use of FID.
You’ve already added visuals to your dialogue, but to really dress it up, go back now and add details of setting. To do this most effectively, choose details that reflect or add to the tension in your scene. For example, you might show a family picture hanging at an odd an angle on the wall. In one story a student wrote recently, he showed the family cat sitting next to a fish bowl, watching the gold fish swim in frantic circles. Finally, don’t forget to show the thoughts of the young person in your story. To do this seamlessly, use FID. (See previous post.)
Add your dialogue to your raw pages for Monday’s first coffeehouse!
