The boys watch.Īlderman here uses a show, don’t tell approach to expositional dialogue.
She makes the silver flicker at the ends of her fingers again. Hunter says, “Your dad could use you in his factory. Hunter says, “Half the kids in school know you can do it.” Kyle gestures with his chin and says, “Heard a bunch of guys killed a girl in Nebraska last week for doing that.” In this passage, between two boys and a girl who just used those powers to light her cigarette. In The Power, young women around the world suddenly find themselves capable of generating and controlling electricity. This heavily expository dialogue could be a drag to get through, but Austen’s colorful characterization means she slips it under the radar with ease, forwarding both our understanding of these people and the world they live in simultaneously. The fact that Austen manages to imbue her dialogue with so much character-building realism means we hardly notice the amount of crucial plot exposition she has packed in here. There is even a clear difference between the two characters visually on the page: Mr Bennet responds in short sentences, in simple indirect speech, or not at all, but this is “invitation enough” for Mrs Bennet to launch into a rambling and extended response, dominating the conversation in text just as she does audibly. Odd couple: Austen's colorful dialogue gives immediate insight into the dynamic between Mr and Mrs Bennet. We instantly learn everything we need to know about the dynamic between Mr and Mrs Bennet’s from their first interaction: she’s chatty, and he’s the beleaguered listener who has learned to entertain her idle gossip, if only for his own sake (hence “you want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it”). This extract from Pride and Prejudice is a great example of dialogue being used to develop character relationships. Morris immediately that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.”Īusten’s dialogue is always witty, subtle, and packed with character. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. “You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.” “Do you not want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.” Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?” In the first piece of dialogue in Pride and Prejudice, we meet Mr and Mrs Bennet, as Mrs Bennet attempts to draw her husband into a conversation about neighborhood gossip. This disorientation almost mirrors Willa’s own reaction to the bad news, as her expectations for a new life in her new home are swiftly undermined. The novel opens with the narrator learning that the home she cherishes can’t be salvaged.īy starting off in the middle of (relatively obscure) dialogue, it takes a moment for the reader to orient themselves in the story and figure out who is speaking, and what they’re speaking about. Instead of a blow-by-blow account of their negotiations (what she needs done, when he’s free, how she’ll be paying), we’re dropped right into the emotional heart of the discussion.
Your foundation is nonexistent.”Īlfred Hitchcock once described drama as "life with the boring bits cut out." In this passage, Kingsolver cuts out the boring parts of Willa's conversation with her contractor and brings us right to the tensest, most interesting part of the conversation.īy entering their conversation late, the reader is spared every tedious detail of their interaction. What I am saying is that the structure needing to be replaced is all of it. Anything that goes wrong with a structure can be replaced with another structure. She waited out her panic while he stood looking at her shambles, appearing to nurse some satisfaction from his diagnosis. Willa had called him here and she could send him away. She took this news as a blood-rush to the ears: a roar of peasant ancestors with rocks in their fists, facing the evictor. “The simplest thing would be to tear it down,” the man said.
In the opening of Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered, we meet Willa Knox, a middle-aged and newly unemployed writer who has just inherited a ramshackle house.
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